Volume 18, Number 106, December 2015/January 2016
November Musings
by Eileen M. Harris

A grey November morning -
Rain streams down my window
Like a spate of tears,
Shed, perhaps, for the autumn glory
That is past.

The golden leaves lie
In wet, ragged heaps
Upon the ground,
While a gaunt yellow cat,
A stranger, possibly a stray,
Sits, motionless,
Listening intently
For the sound of a mouse
Scurrying through the tall grass
At the bottom of the garden.

The trees leafless skeletons
Remind me of death;
Bleak November days,
With bare-boned branches and
leaden skies,
Are symbols of the dying year -
And other things ...

I watch the stalking cat,
Thinking him innocently superior
To the trespassing hunters
Who fire their lethal weapons
In the nearby woods.
It is their egos - not their bellies -
That hunger for the kill.