Premature delivery?

Today's high temperature was in the upper teens. The house windows are covered with frost. The small ponds and marshes are once again frozen.

Larger bodies of water are still open. That's where the remaining geese will concentrate until they too decide to head south. Astronomically, it's late Autumn for the next four weeks or so. Meteorologically, Winter starts in about a week, at the beginning of December. Between the breeze and the temperature today, I'm ready to believe Winter's here already.

Lines for Winter

By Dave Lucas 

Poor muse, north wind, or any god   

who blusters bleak across the lake   

and sows the earth earth-deep with ice.   

A hoar of fur stung across the vines:   

here the leaves in full flush, here   

abandoned to four and farther winds.   

Bless us, any god who crabs the apples   

and seeds the leaf and needle evergreen.   

What whispered catastrophe, winter.   

What a long night, beyond the lamplight,   

the windows and the frost-ferned glass.   

Bless the traveler and the hearth he travels to.   

Bless our rough hands, wind-scabbed lips,   

bless this our miscreant psalm.

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