A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

November
By D. W. McMillen
November 20, 2007

A while back, I was sitting in the coffee shop of our brand-spanking new glass-and-steel-box of a library (a very nice facility, but more than just a bit cold and post-industrial for my taste), and that old autumn feeling hit me right in between sips of English Breakfast Tea (you can't drink plain tea anymore, it seems - it's all marketed as a designer commodity, like jeans and political candidates).

Being someone who, at times, passes for a poet, I wiped the mayonaise from my fingers (from a smoked turkey wrap,also in vogue these days), hauled my trusty yellow legal pad out from the portable office that is my old green college backpack, and this is what came to me. I call it -

November

Fat, ring-necked honkers wing noisily
through a bleak, sodden sky the
color of wet cement -
heard well before they're seen, and
half-obscured by the heavy,
near-frozen mist diffusing
dawn's early light,

they gradually assemble in their
curious, distinctive,
preternatural acute angle,
slowly wheeling south-by-
southwest as tardy stragglers
join up, well-sated off
of the gleanings of the last,
late harvest.

Below, the stingy oaks at length
release the final installment of
their myriad, precious progeny -
turned russet, bronze, and sepia
by seasonal nip and chill,
(that inevitable harbinger of
summer's demise) and falling
steadily to earth in the
clutches of a brisk
nor'easter,

they dance and whirl and tumble
across dormant fields, coming
to rest against some pear-
shaped ochre gourds which are
still marking time until their
own date with destiny
that, for them,
likewise spells
November.

Anyway, that beautifully grey day put me in the perfect mood to wax poetic regarding my favorite time of the year, and I hope you enjoyed this offering as much as I have bringing it to you.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

About the author:
I am a native of Freeport, Illinois (just up the road a piece), but I presently make my living as a substitute teacher in the smaller schools around the Quad Cities area (not the sanest of occupations, but it has its rewards). My wife, Debbie, is a Chicago girl (a south-sider, no less), and she teaches pre-K (better her than me). I am loosely associated with the Quint City Poets here, and also with the Midwest Writing Center, whose second anthology of out-loud (open-mike night) poetry is due to come out in a couple of weeks or so. I write some prose, but mostly poetry, of late, and I am glad to be able to share some of it whenever and wherever I can.