Dear November

Dear November,

I would like to jump into the middle of my thoughts, and so I think I will.

You have bare branches, dark and lonely and brown. They hold the last snatches of muted color, before the witch-wind rips them away. You have wild grey skies, brilliant blue ones, and wary white ones. You specialize in flaming sunrises and indigo sunsets. You hold the land carelessly, flinging rain and the first snow flurries through the air. You heave; you settle. You are restless before the land is blanketed in December snows.

You also have sunshine, fine as yellow silks, draping over your branches. You have pines that stand, almost basking like a cat in your light. You have your rare happy days, where you lay, languorous and lazy.

Then, I step out on the stoop, my bare toes curling in to stay warm. I can smell the piney smoke curling from the chimney into your frigid breezes. I can stand there, with my eyes shut to your beauty, and hear you. You, with your silences. You, with your pearly grey song. I dash inside because (and you laugh) you are freezing my feet.

You are wild, November. You remind us of what is not tamed. You let us see the eerie, lonely lays of land. The geese flying south, the pond frozen in the morning, the frost lying thick in the grass, the low warm sun in the afternoons before you laugh and blow in the evening. You wear the vestige of bereavement. You let us see that mourning is not always sad, but sometimes beauty hides in the sepulchral shroud of winter snows.

Am I through yet? I think the middle is coming to the end or maybe the beginning.

For though you signify the ending of the year, you also signify the beginning. December can’t help but love you, even though you try to hide yourself in dull colors. Dull things are so very lovable. This is the ending, I believe.

Here is the beginning. You are my favorite flavour of the year. I wish to be one of your children, but here I am, a December child writing a love letter to November. Perhaps adoption?

I think L. M. Montgomery did very well in describing you. You should read her works someday. November? You are loved.

- A December birthed child.

Linda Peachey, 2021

My darling mother informed me that if I were, in fact, a November child, I would probably not be in love with November as much as I am.

Unfortunately, I think she’s right. Good thing I was born in the beginning of December.

Toodles, fair folk.