December Has Arrived

December has arrived at last, slowpoke
Of months, eleven times it’s been delayed,
Our tempers and our cloth coats badly frayed,
Our aching backs unready for the yoke
Of winter. Now the fall, gone up in smoke,
Has finished all the games it ever played:
Stuffed gutters, hard rain like a cannonade,
The shock denuding of the mighty oak.

We have seen snow, but only at the edge
Of the horizon, blowing crazily
Along the mountainside. A severed tree,
Distended branches, and the battered sedge
Stretch over portions of a rocky ledge.
December has arrived. Prepare to flee.