I continue to work towards producing at least one post each month featuring a poem(s) addressing life in Michigan during that month. Read my earlier poems in this series by clicking on the appropriate link: September poems; October poems#1; or, October poems #2.
November may be the easiest month to write about, but it is not the most joyous. I remember the dark November day when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down on Lake Superior in 1975. I learned of John F Kennedy’s assassination in November when I came home from a Cub Scout outing to find my grandmother crying in 1963. My father died in November of 1988.
So, November is clearly not my favorite month. But November must be endured, and there will be nice days, too. Hang in there.
EARLY NOVEMBER WALK
geese rise in formation
from the river across the road
ochre and rust oak leaves
replace the maples’ red and yellow
and we are largely content
though acutely aware
we must both feed the birds
and care for ourselves
through the grey days and cold nights
of another long winter
and we pray that some combination
of god love family memory
will keep us until
the trees turn green again
And so that this post is not entirely dreary, the next poem is optimistic at its end. I wrote this poem while selling wine on a grey November day in Northern Michigan. This is one of the mere handful of poems I wrote between the ages of 45 and 65; it has always been a personal favorite.
A SALESMAN’S SHOES
Wet shoes are better
than pellets of ice on my windshield,
shopkeepers certain I carry plague,
and the puddles – small lakes, really –
I drive through in November’s gloom,
fearful my brakes will fail
with each white-knuckle crossing.
But I’m cheered to remember
my father sent me to college
with his wet shoes,
and taught me to laugh
while peeling off his socks.
I will post at least one more poem of November as Thanksgiving draws near.
My book, SLOW RIVERS (ISBN 979-8-218-43822-7), can be ordered through your local bookstore or online via bookshop.org, where one can specify a particular bookstore to benefit from the purchase. You will also find Slow Rivers on Amazon, and I am grateful to those who buy it there, but does Jeff Bezos really need the money?
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Joseph Neely, all rights to original material reserved.
