On November 10th, Kim  hosted the prosery challenge on dVerse.  We were to use part of Robert Frost’s poem November Guest.  With prosery, we must use the lines of poetry provided exactly, in prose of not more than 144 words, not poetry.  No inserting any words within.  We can, however, change punctuation, which can make things much more interesting.  I, of course, am to late to join officially but I still wanted to write this one.  These are the lines:

“Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow”

Mémère and me

When November Bares Herself

November can be the most depressing of months; it was especially so for my grandmother.  I think her difficulty  bled onto me.  It’s the dreary, rain-filled, grey-skied, leafless time of year inserted between our Thanksgiving and Christmas ~ two holidays when family piled into cars and gathered around her.  November?  Dead.  No visitors, no colour, no joy.  I felt myself falling into that trap of woe-is-me-ness for the longest time.

But at some point, not yesterday, I learned to know the love of bare November days before the coming of the snow, when it blankets the world in brilliant white, brightening up the darkest of days.  Some years, like this one, the leaves hang on a bit longer and the snow comes a bit earlier.  Some would say a mess of leaves and snow is awful.  I say it’s a beautiful joining of two seasons.