The Play's The Thing

This is the sere, stern face of
November.  Trees stand on the 
landscape darkly denuded, 
colour drained, leaving the 
chiaroscuro of sketches swiftly drawn,
sans the rainbow of details.  All is
a theatre of changing acts, the
sky a curtain of striated clouds
shimmering silver behind the
blinded sun.  Red-tailed hawks
sit astride country roads, watchful.
On the wide screen above, 
geese rise in a uniform pleating,
from ploughed fields beyond to
the steel-grey river.  No wind to
challenge their noisy formation,
but that bone-piercing cold has
set preparatory to the season's
penultimate staging heralding
the frozen close of the play.