I thought I would mark the eleventh month of 2026 by posting a poem from Emily Dickinson called, simply, “November”:

November

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.

A few incisive mornings,
A few ascetic eyes, —
Gone Mr. Bryant’s golden-rod,
And Mr. Thomson’s sheaves.

Still is the bustle in the brook,
Sealed are the spicy valves;
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many elves.

Perhaps a squirrel may remain,
My sentiments to share.
Grant me, O Lord, a sunny mind,
Thy windy will to bear!

Needless to say, this is a portrait of a fall day in the poet’s native Amherst, Massachusetts. Things are a little more mixed up in Southern California, where I remember seeing snow at ground level only once in sixty years. And, of course, it melted before it was able to accumulate.

I remember the autumns of my four years at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, a place which Emily would have recognized.