In November

November blows in quickly this year—Halloween is barely over, and we Have just passed the day of the dead—when snow surprises us awake amidst

The first blustery rush of winter—for many of my students, this is the first Real snow they’ve seen—for me it marks the beginning of another season in

A new place—and I wonder if I should go and buy a shovel, the wind drives The flakes hard all around me—white swirling by, surrounding me, if I close

My eyes I only see a blur of whiteness—a flash of January when we were just Celebrating Indian summer—I remember my mother’s lament at the

Beginning of daylight savings—she hated the early darkness and began Counting for the lightness again just as the evenings closed in around her—

Two years ago now, the darkness was coming closer as she sat in her room Waiting for death to come—I brought her a fountain, a plant, a bar of

Chocolate she did not eat, a calendar for the new year that she did not want To keep—she did not think she would live to usher in that year, as she would

Lament, her time on earth was spent—and yet, she strained to see out her Window, to see every sunset she could, “look,” she would say to me, “just

Look at how beautiful the sky is tonight,” and so I have developed my own Ritual to keep her with me—I look up at the clouds and wonder if a part of

Her lives there now—watching the sky makes me feel closer to her, maybe Its largeness and its beauty remind me of how she loved the sky, how she

Told me ours was not to reason why, how I wish I could tell her about the Sky tonight, about the early snow, about how I live close to her now, of how

I sometimes visit her and my father in the cemetery and pretend that they Can hear me—I am glad that they both have a view, unobstructed, I tell

Them—of the beautiful sky that lies above them now that their work here On earth is done—and I tell them I will come and see them soon again.