
I can still remember, like it was yesterday
Fall in the woods where I grew up
Cold weather closed in early
Leaves in the woods
Turned shades of yellow, orange, red, and brown
What was once a lush woods
Filled with green hollow stemmed weeds
Now becomes blanketed
With a soft silent coating of leaves
The Silver Maple and Butternut next to the house
Dropped their yellow-tan leaves
The quince turned yellow-brown
As the apple trees added color to the scene
With rich deep red leaves…
On the driveway black walnuts still in the hulls
Driven over with car tires
Squishing and shelling
Picking them up, peeling off the excess
While blends of saffron, amber, and walnut stains
Are left on my hands and under my nails
From driveway to furnace room
Down in the basement
The nuts are carried to be dried
Cracked with hammer and brick
I walk through the woods,
With a borrowed single-shot 12 gauge,
Looking in the pit holes for rabbits,
Flushing out a ring-necked pheasant
From the edge of the corn field
Life was simple then,
Rabbits shot were few and pheasants even fewer
But walking through the woods and fields
Was an experience I enjoyed
Just for the sake of being there
The November woods remained stark and bare
For the rest of the winter,
But it’s passing and recurring beauty
Left indelible impressions…
Sometimes I wish I could be there once again.
Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Today at d’Verse, Sanaa asked us to were a poem about November. I decided to rework a poem I wrote several years ago about Fall in the Woods where I grew up.
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