Poetry - November 2025
1st November, 2025
Autumn
the trees
let go -
6th November, 2025
Tea, and its halo:
the steam's soft, lithe gathering -
quiet, thoughtful tongues.
11th November
His earthy hands, loam
from the allotment. Produce
never held for long.
Always given as gifts, seeds
of dreams grown into harvest.
14th November, 2025
Being present, you
breathing in the herb garden,
becoming - mint, balm.
***
Out somewhere beyond
wild wind, ice rain – winter moon
sits beside her fire.
***
This is just to say
I found
the lid
off of the sakẽ
bottle
It was in the Gyū Teriyaki
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
it was delicious
so unexpected
and so redundant now
17th November, 2025
gold is
the colour of tea catching light
I remember
suddenly your hair straw-blonde
lightest
where the sun first touched it
at your temples
at your crown
every day everyday
the tea cooling
before we finished it
***
Winter arrived today
like an absence
noticed only in the deep quiet
between blackbird song
and the empty chair
at the table,
fields of unfathomed frost
separating us -
until the first tears
of meltwater
return the kiss of sunlight
and pass into memory.
19th November
I must not have looked up all morning
until surprised by a passing car.
Snow covered its bonnet and roof.
He must have driven in from the hills.
I see them now white and bare and bold
and beautiful as if rising from a dream,
and the fells beyond rising into the sky.
I lift up my eyes to the hills.
26th November
Darkness unfolding
meets candlelight - auld lang syne -
Cumbrian winter.
28th November
Black and gold; shade and spring light:
chiaroscuro through leaves
held in this cold hand.
Then - suddenly - November
is spring in Yunnan.
***
Sharp wind, sliced moon - man
sleepless holding forgiveness
tight as a torn flag.
29th November
Bare branches take the dusk,
wi' glisk o' frost on t’lonnin.
A robin tips the silence —
the world tilts into stillness.
