Beginning November: Time Changes, Halloween and Talking with Poetry Students

Bob’s Pumpkin Farm with Moon

Beginning November: Time Changes, Halloween, and Talking with Poetry Students

The time change is always rough here, but at least after two days of storm and rain, we had sunshine today and enough autumn leaves left after the storm to actually admire.

I love Halloween, the kids are always adorable and we had neighbors over pre-trick-or-treating for wine and appetizers, which reminded me of pre-pandemic days, when we’d have tons of neighbors in the driveway for drinks and food and the kids would run around like crazy.  We made one last visit to Bob’s Pumpkin Farm the night before Halloween, when it was clear and cold and the moon shone down. Farms at night are really beautiful.

Goldfinch on spent sunflower

Also this week I had a chance to talk to students at the University of New Orleans. The students were uniformly intelligent and asked great questions, questions that took on the difficulties of publishing, the state of the world of poetry, questions that were larger than perhaps I could answer. It reminded me to be hopeful, because the world is going to be in their hands soon, and perhaps they will do better than my own generation, or the one before that. Do I sound old when I say that? Perhaps.

Anna’s hummingbird with (still blooming) fuchsia

How are you doing, my friends? November can be a tough month of shadows. Remember to donate to your local food banks as they are stretched thin with the end of SNAP benefits, and maybe invite someone you think is struggling over. It feels like a month to be kind, when the government is failing to do its job and the false king is building a guilded ballroom while people in his country go hungry and while the GOP doubles people’s health insurance premiums. I am angry, yes, but also I remember that we each have a responsibility to vote, yes, and also to our neighbors, and the community. How can poetry make this better? I don’t have the resources the tech billionaires do, and making a living as an artist or writer in this country is harder than ever. But I can still do something. It’s good to remember. I will leave you with a few images of nature at her most beautiful, even at the end of the harvest season, as we turn to winter.