This time of year evokes in me
A wanderlust of sorts.....
A kind of longing fills my soul;
My senses it distorts.


And once again I venture out
To seek I-don't-know-what;
It seems as if I cannot put
My finger on the spot.


The splendor of the golden leaves,
The melancholy rain.....
Both haunt me with their loveliness,
Yet fill me with their pain.


For neither lasts - how well I know!
And both succumb to frost;
And with their passing, once again,
The bittersweet is lost.


Each time November rolls around,
I'm sure that I will find
The secret of the yearnings that
Can so engulf my mind.


Yet each December finds me
Still mystified, I know,
Though November's thirsts are slaked in part
By winter's wondrous snow.


Saralyn McAfee Smith
November, 1981