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November Walks
Nadine Fiedler

before I say anything
I have to say there’s a rainbow
on my page here, bouncing off
a mirror, birthed by the sun
of late November
that dips behind the west hills now
around 4:30, well,
that’s just uncivilized
so
we walk early now
today, for the first time, in my winter coat
puffy and fringed with fake fur
against the wind blowing down from Canada
whistling through the Columbia Gorge
smacking us head on as we walk east
shoving us as we walk west
it’s best
when people don’t clear off their leaves
so we can kick through them like terriers
the leaves on the trees are okay, too, right now
the red ones, the yellow ones
we’re not
stopping
for anything
snow, rain, we don’t care,
bundled up to peer into
windows, search for cats
receive updates from perennials
admire waving grasses, rough bare trunks
and the gingerbread on the old, old houses
nostrils cold, chests warm

—
Nadine Fiedler has had a long career in communications and as a freelance writer and editor. Her poems have been printed in Sky Island Journal; Cirque; the Oregon Poetry Association’s yearly journal; and in Windfall: A Poetry of Place, and she was an invited reader at the Portland Winter Poetry Festival.

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