Without warning
November came to me
In June.
The morning primrose newly budding in their sun warmed beds,
Always a welcome harbinger,
Now meaningless to me from
The dark and deep quiet of my bedroom above.
The stars when they appeared seemed meant for others
Capable of joy, even simple recognition,
My November revealing them as distortions,
Pinpoints of lights in the torn fabric of a distant
Foreboding world.
November came for the best of me
To extinguish my light,
My peace,
Leaving behind flats of nothingness
Hours, days, never to be accounted for,
Regained,
As I groped blindly through them.
Or slept. Or stared.
Laughter seemed inconceivable.
Sadness lay deep in my marrow
When November came to me
In June.
(Photo courtesy of Jeff Philips.)
A sequence of my poems has been published in a hardcover book entitled The Music of Leaving Poems by Tricia McCallum