The Cruelest Month

The penultimate lid on the year has 
arrived, stage left.  Slamming tight
the heavenly gates excluding the sun
to the count of thirty sunrises, equal
sunsets, delaying brightness and light,
welcoming dull, dark, too-short days of
unending gloom.  November's bony
fingers of chill ill will have plucked
the most stubborn of leaves still
clinging to comforting branches.
Wind howls through the hollows of
the bare, unprotected forest.  The
stillness of winter awaiting, eager to
dominate the captured  landscape 
in its hauntingly beautiful, frozen grip.