Winter Always Seems to be Looming

Mid-July, a leaf falls:
the card house crumbles;

Lothlorien mourns.

August sighs in green.
September breathes in gold.
October laughs a rusty red.
Obediently, the year grows old.

November throws one last charade
and haze before its grizzled gray
requires of me that I must resolve
to face the fading days.

December dies in drab and black,
friends leave for their cold evening's sleep.

In a firelit flicker, the dawn arrives,

but morning offers no reprieve.

On occasions during the three
months of December,
a sun setting on white snows
helps me to remember

light, with life and inward feeling,
will explicate itself in rays and boughs--

for it does not freeze, 

though the sap runs slow.

---

These were my title ideas:

Summer Never Comes Cheap

Color Wheel of the Living Year

Wait For the Hope in the Last Lines

If Winter Is Going to Be There, I Can't Come to the Party

Writing About Winter, In Hopes It Will Be Satisfied

The Latter Half of the Year in a Temperate Zone 

Resolving to Accept Winter as One Might Accept a Difficult But Rich Houseguest

When A Poet Hates Being Cold, It's Just As You Might Expect

If You Dream of a White Christmas, Please Keep it to Yourself