November the Last

How the year has flown

and the seasons changed,

not as much from what they are

as from what they were

and how I remember them.

Winter should be cold,

filled with laughing children

throwing snowballs

and giggling as they ride

plastic garbage can lids

at breakneck pace

down an icy white hill.

Spring should be fresh and new,

the rebirth of nature,

the awakening of the frost weary spirit

to the sounds of birds,

the smell of flowers,

and the promise of things to come.

Summer should be hot, humid and stormy,

filled to overflowing with picnics,

fireworks, and echoes of ‘Play Ball’!

Autumn, the most regal of the seasons,

draped in an emperor’s array of endless color,

celebration, harvest moons and hard cider,

should be the crowning glory of the marching year.

It’s what I remember, and how it should be,

yet this year; this season; seems all so much

more and more of the same old, same old.

Depressing, tedious shadows of things

that once were, way back in the past

recalled today, November, the last.