Abroad Thoughts from Home

The drooping four o’clock sun paints its sad orange light
on red brick and stucco walls
as I walk home along the river
on this clear, chill, November afternoon.
Underfoot, a russet tumble of leaves
turns to brown slick on the corners,
and the clear sky shades to smoky indigo
around the city’s towered and chimneyed horizon.

The closing of the year is looming once again.

And yet, amid my self-indulgent gloom,
a child’s clear laugh reminds me
that beyond the fast-approaching Yuletide‘s maw,
beyond the iron-clad days and ice-gripped nights,
lie bougainvillaea walls and Mediterranean sun,
warm sand and Homer’s swelling, wine-dark sea.