Earthenware hues subdue the garden
The sun bends low to peer across
Fields lie fallow
Colour-drenched skies
Clouds given to brooding
Bring blissfully bleak ambiance to darkening days
Like a lamp chain pulled at dusk
The gentle light of November
Is a warmth of luminescence
That steeps the days to umber
Nudging an allure to wait and watch
The lilac bush, leafless and leaden
A gathering place for
Woodpeckers and sparrows
Its twisted, rutted boughs
Salver to seed-cracking beaks
Hydrangea mops once white and blushed
Now buffed and stained.
Like a music conductor's baton
Stalks keep time to the notes of the wind
A prelude of cold to come
What is this comely barrenness?
Tops lopped off, discarded
Leafy cover blown askew
Unveiling an intricate lacework
Silhouetted against a watercolour sky
Hidden not amongst growth
A spent soul refuges in quiet
November light shines in slant
Clement luster to limbs exposed
Fecundity fostered in stillness
(Thanks to one of my sisters for the imagery of bare branches looking like lacework)