November Begins

Before dawn. Birdsong.

Crows rouse earlier than finches this November morning. All night quiet among the branches, then flapping into wakefulness and soon comes an outbreak of life. So much to say as the sun brings the day. Utterances to full calls echo through thick magnolia and crape myrtle branching nude. The trees change shape with limbs waking to the dawn, reaching for each other, like holding hands for help with the work of lifting to the sun. Like us all, quiet and still so alive in the nighttime. Maybe the trees dream. Surely the birds must.

And now respirations quicken with a greening and stretching of life turning with the earth and her slow tilt towards winter. Sounds pulse. The air full of noises and riddled with movement. A rippling energy from edges dripping humid wet from wood flesh scratching with finch steps and warbler murmurs.

Light seeping. The sky still lying on its back. Turning the color of attic boxes. And stretching arms over covers with a blue more purple, painting everything too slowly to see. The dark spaces still heavy. There seems no distance between cloud and shadowed land. Moths turn back to the moon. The redtail stalks somewhere unseen. There will be death today. And all the creatures know this. It does not change their way.

I listen to the sounds of blood and breath in my own body.

I am unquiet inside.

1. Cover photo by Author.

© Copyright William Hazel, 2026