Hmmm, is November just a surplus month in the calendar or I have I failed to give it its due?
There are times when I think that, if I had my way, I might just make the year eleven months long and do away with November altogether. It’s a drab, gray in between month whose only purpose seems to be to make a dividing line between fall and winter.
But occasionally I realize that it does have its moments of elegance. I have to pay closer attention because those moments are deceptively easy to miss. I glanced out of the window just now and caught one of those moments by happenstance.
Winter stretched its arms, took a deep breath and exhaled its first snow squall of the season. Swirling, twisting and curling whitecap waves of snow transformed the sky. Updrafts and side-spins and repeating spirals of snowflakes played out a madcap dance.
The last withered and lifeless leaves clinging to the trees trembled as orphans who had held out too long. Some were snatched from their feeble grip and conscripted into the riotous squall. Others stubbornly defied the wrenching wind vying to be the last to succumb.
The gray, linear shapes of buildings lost their sharpness and faded to shadows through the tremulous white filter. Clusters of pine trees receded to patches of muted green like wise old men hunkering down to weather the storm. The winter sun diffused into a white glow peeking through a passing rift in the clouds.
The squall lasts no more than ten minutes. The bucking waves of snow have now slackened to gentler swirls of individual flakes pirouetting in a graceful dance like tiny living creatures in an unseen sea.
Gray cloud banks are parting making room for the sun to emerge again with a sharp, cold revealing light. Billowing smoke leaps from rooftop chimney pipes like water spouts. The skeleton forms of trees become visible again with limbs shivering in the chill air.
I’m inclined to view November now more in the transformational light of metaphor. It is the last foot soldier of autumn defending the dying season with the final flourish of its vanishing strength. Its identity may be less colourful but it is no less distinct. I simply must pay closer attention to witness it – and when I do I find reason to honour the days of its passing.
“We are all treading the vanishing road of a song in the air, the vanishing road of the spring flowers and the winter snows, the vanishing roads of the winds and the streams, the vanishing road of beloved faces.” ~ Richard Le Gallienne, 1886 – 1947, English Author and Poet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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Tags: metaphor · November · Richard Le Gallienne · snow squall · winterNo Comments