This morning, as I rolled out of bed to start the first of two weekend shifts in a row at the library, my radiator was humming and clanging, and outside, I kept repeating these lines of the Mary Oliver poem "Wolf Moon" (even though I sorta hate Mary Oliver in general.)

now is the season
of iron rivers,
bloody crossings,
flaring winds,
birds frozen
in their tents of weeds,

and though the poem is really about January it always reminds me of November, when all of the leaves are gone and the woods are naked and still and dark so early. And that feeling of  dread that always creeps in at the edges of late autumn.  November is my least favorite month--less so than even January, which has it's own sort of lull and endlessness, less so even than march when I am crawling out my skin usually. Halloween I like.  Thanksgiving I like.  But there is a weird stretch in there between as we downslide toward winter that always makes me super uneasy. 

So I try to concentrate on interior things and poems and plans.  I have manuscripts to read.  And layouts to attack.  Covers to design and maybe finishing up transcribing the unusual creatures notebook, a project which seems to suit this time of year perhaps more even than the horror movie poems I was trudging away on earlier in the month. Tonight, I get a few extra hours in the studio picking away at orders and author copies and probably streaming STRANGER THINGS, which I intend on binge watching before the weekend is out.