We have had a really nice November. Halloween was frigid but, in the week since then, the temperatures have risen, the sun has shone, and I've even left the house in shorts. It's weird.
The weather for the coming week or so is forecasted to continue this unusual trend, and you will certainly not find me complaining. Nevertheless, I do reflect upon past Novembers where Old Man Winter has made an earlier appearance. I don't miss him, but I do anticipate his coming with some measure of excitement.
In a splendid burst of melancholia -the type that usually accompanies this time of year- our homeboy Robert Frost reminds us of what we are missing (or perhaps what we aren't missing) this month.
MY NOVEMBER GUEST
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted tree,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
