After a night and morning of wind gusts blowing across the hills and skipping above our little hollow, only the Apple Tree is still clinging to any leaves. It, being tucked in the lea of the hill, retaining wall and greenhouse, has only half of its foliage tumbled down to carpet the lawn, revealing the dozen red apples that cling to await a ripening frost.
The weather, strange and wild with a welcome warmth rare for November, is exhilarating and inspires gratitude and verse. As below, an image inspired poem.
The Potato Bed
The straw was supposed to be dead,
dead and dirty from the birds,
fit only for compost from the coop
to the garden bed, left to lie
fallow through fall and winter.
But in November, green spikes poke up
from the tucked-in, spread-flat soil
settled for a winter sleep. Some force
still lingers there, waiting it’s chance,
defying expectations.
