Category: Months

Buttoned Down

November – Big Foot Prairie

Flat land in all directions
to the treelines miles away
Red barns, green roofs, neat fences
Tidy aged farmhouses
Baled hay like giant tumbleweeds
Plowed fields as brown corduroy
Here and there winter wheat sprouts green
Golden stubbles of harvested grain
reflect the autumn sun
Wild geese graze for forgotten scraps
Neat rows of corn wait for harvest
Like soldiers awaiting orders
Speeding down highway 14
Sense of everything in its place
All as it should be
Timeless, calm, prepared.
Soon all will be covered for winter
In their snowy blankets
But for now
Everything is buttoned down
Ready for the whatever comes.

Walworth County

Snow comes later every year
November’s dusting melted
Leaving a study in black, grey, pale gold
Fields are stubble now
Canada geese glean the leavings
Before honking their way south
October’s color is gone
leaving skeletal limbs
Pines once planted as wind breaks
Now form their own forest
Tall evergreens,
black against the pale horizon
It is an advent season
The world is preparing for
Winter, Christ, peace.