This poem that appeared in a slightly different form in my 2004 collection We Build Temples in the Heart published by Beacon Press, Boston came to me early one morning on my daily walk from the Metra train station in Cary, Illinois to Briargate Elementary School where I was the Head Custodian. After I opened the building and classrooms and hoisted the Flag outside, I grabbed a cup of bad coffee in the teachers’ lounge and set down to scribble a first draft.
Here in McHenry County it is as grey, damp, and raw as that long-ago morning. The leaves have scattered from all but the most recalcitrant broadleaf. Geese rise and fall in good order, swirls of starlings just begin their aerial acrobatics, and, yes, crow watch from high bare branches. Deer in the area are still horny.
Mid-November Dawn
The time has come,
I know, I know.
The soft frosts that fade
at the first blush of light
are over.
The grass snaps now
with each step,
the cold seeps around
the buttons of my coat,
up my sleeves,
down my neck.
Of a sudden the leaves,
just yesterday the glory
of the season,
are shed in heaps and drifts.
The bare arms that held them
Shiver in the dawn.
Long clouds of starlings
swirl and trail across
the lowering sky,
crows clamor over
carrion earth.
The time has come,
I know, I know.
But just when the wail of grief
wells in my throat,
the keening for utter loss
that crowds my senses
and my soul—
a simple doe ambles unconcerned
across the scurrying road
into a remnant patch of wood,
somewhere just out of sight
the half-maddened buck
thrashes in the brambles.
The time has come,
I know, I know.
My blood quickens in the cold,
death falls away.
—Patrick Murfin
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