No Flowers, No Leaves, November

Monday

November is often a tough time for people who grapple with depression, but many of the poems about the season at least let them know they’re not alone. I’ve shared dark autumn poems by Mallarme and Mary Oliver in the past (here) and have a couple more poems to add to the list.

First, there’s the 19^th century poet Thomas Hood brightening up November’s dark aspects with a playful final punchline:

November
By Thomas Hood

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon –
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! –
November!

Amy Lowell has her own dark November moods, during which time she reports being abandoned by her own cat (!):

November
By Amy Lowell

The vine leaves against the brick walls of my house,
Are rusty and broken.
Dead leaves gather under the pine-trees,
The brittle boughs of lilac-bushes
Sweep against the stars.
And I sit under a lamp
Trying to write down the emptiness of my heart.
Even the cat will not stay with me,
But prefers the rain
Under the meagre shelter of a cellar window.

Finally, Rita Dove figures out how to handle the month in “November for Beginners.” The secret: step into the gloom, whether by memorizing “a gloomy line or two of German” or essentially telling the season to bring it on, with its rain and wind. There’s an echo in the poem of King Lear commanding the elements not to spare him:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You can dream of spring all you want, Dove tells us. In the meantime, however, embrace the darkness:

November for Beginners
By Rita Dove

Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won’t give.

So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline. We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
memorizing

a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool. Pour,
rain! Sail, wind
with your cargo of zithers!