November Rain Quotes

Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.

The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day's last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night.

Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face on a November day in the rain.

Lie on the bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, or wade through the swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.

They read the long afternoon through, while the cold November rain fell from the sky upon the quiet house.

But nothing lasts forever," Drew said, and then he and Roger sang together "Even cold November rain." I looked from one to the other, baffled. "Seriously?" asked Drew, catching my expression in the rear-view mirror. "Magellan, get this girl some GNR.

Spanish rain, A maiden’s dress, Apothecary pills And ancient thrills; Melancholy kills A girl’s caress.

Spanish rain, A maiden’s dress, Apothecary pills And ancient thrills; Melancholy kills A girl’s caress. (—Roman Payne; Valencia, Spain, November 2nd 2012)

Nobody ever complained? Girls were kind. No one ever told him, I could barely stay awake. If only you'd come faster, I could have ignored it altogether. Girls were born knowing how destructive the truth could be. They learned to hold it in, tamp it down, like gunpowder in an old fashioned gun. Then it exploded in your face, on a November day in the rain.

They read the long afternoon through, while the cold November rain fell from the sky upon the quiet house. They sat in the hall because the parlor was so empty and gray-looking

That was the way it was that beautiful evening of cold November rain and muddy country roads and crazy windshield wipers. That was the moment of my greatest security and confidence; it was the time when I realized that love makes one a better person, a kinder gentler one.

November Rain by Guns N Roses. Best. Song. Ever.

An hour's complete leisure for such reflections as these, on a dark November day, a small thick rain almost blotting out the very few objects ever to be discerned from the windows...

November came roaring in with gusty winds and more wet weather. Mandy's depression would not go away. Her garden seemed sad, too. It was virtually empty now, and the few brave flowers that remained there were flattened by rain, their yellows stalks sprawling in all directions. Most of the trees were bare, and the woods had a wet carpet of leaves.

Under the glass porte-cochère of a theatre Amory stood, watching the first great drops of rain splatter down and flatten to dark stains on the sidewalk. The air became grey and opalescent; a solitary light suddenly outlined a window over the way; then another light; then a hundred more danced and glimmered into vision. Under his feet a thick, iron-studded skylight turned yellow; in the street the lamps of the taxicabs sent out glistening sheens along the already black pavement. The unwelcome November rain had perversely stolen the day’s last hour and pawned it with that ancient fence, the night.

I looked for any footmarks of course, but naturally, with all this rain, there wasn't a sign. Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime and a beautiful set of marks which could only have come there between two and three in the morning, but this being real life in a London November, you might as well expect footprints in Niagara. I searched the roofs right along—and came to the jolly conclusion that any person in any blessed flat in the blessed row might have done it.

When it rains in Paris, it bleeds into swift little gutters. You can see your reflection over its mercury embryo.

You won’t manage, you’ll forget me; but if after a year, alas, more perhaps, a sad text, a death, or a rainy evening reminds you of me, you can offer me some altruism! I will never, never be able see you again . . . except in my soul, and this would require that we think about each other simultaneously. I’ll think about you forever so that my soul remains open to you endlessly in case you feel like entering it. But the visitor will keep me waiting for a long time! The November rains will have rotted the flowers on my grave, June will have burned them, and my soul will always be weeping impatiently. Ah! I hope that someday the sight of a keepsake, the recurrence of a birthday, the bent of your thoughts will guide your memory within the circle of my tenderness. It will then be as if I’ve heard you, perceived you, a magic spell will cover everything with flowers for your arrival. Think about the dead man. But, alas! Can I hope that death and your gravity will accomplish what life with its ardors, and our tears, and our merry times, and our lips were unable to achieve?

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

My November Guest" My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walked the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist. The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why. Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise. Robert Frost, The Complete Poems ( Henry Holt & Co, 1949)

...across the snowy field the barn light gleams - it's the loneliness of November twilight...

Hidup ni biarlah bagai Slash bawak solo gitar dalam November Rain, rambut jangan terbakar, rokok jangan berselerak.

WAS 37 then, strapped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched

It was inestimably important for me to look at the lights of Amherst town in the rain, with the wet black tree-skeletons against the limpid streetlights and gray November mist, and then look at the boy beside me and feel all the hurting beauty go flat because he wasn't the right one-not at all.

Looking out the rain-fogged window at the gray November day, Mary felt almost grateful for the snug warmth of her well-heated chamber. Escape, the captive queen decided with a yawn, would have to wait until spring.

Gift Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel the stress on your back shapes your insight this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find you by your marks, he says an imprint But when I summon you, I talk to—I say— my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy to others. They’re not very interesting he says. When I first came to this country, and now I know the language I say, but I had in a dream spoken it many years previously. That is, not the language of the dead the language of France. I took one year of French in 1964 and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French in a dream all night: I was in the future I moved here in 1992. Country of the more logical than I? though the people of my quartier know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange You do everything alone a woman said to me. There are ways to care without interfering but the French speak of anguish frequently they are conscious of emotional extremity a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . . some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday today though it’s the day of the dead hello we love you they say.

January? The month is dumb. It is fraudulent. It does not cleanse itself. The hens lay blood-stained eggs. Do not lend your bread to anyone lest it nevermore rise. Do not eat lentils or your hair will fall out. Do not rely on February except when your cat has kittens, throbbing into the snow. Do not use knives and forks unless there is a thaw, like the yawn of a baby. The sun in this month begets a headache like an angel slapping you in the face. Earthquakes mean March. The dragon will move, and the earth will open like a wound. There will be great rain or snow so save some coal for your uncle. The sun of this month cures all. Therefore, old women say: Let the sun of March shine on my daughter, but let the sun of February shine on my daughter-in-law. However, if you go to a party dressed as the anti-Christ you will be frozen to death by morning. During the rainstorms of April the oyster rises from the sea and opens its shell — rain enters it — when it sinks the raindrops become the pearl. So take a picnic, open your body, and give birth to pearls. June and July? These are the months we call Boiling Water. There is sweat on the cat but the grape marries herself to the sun. Hesitate in August. Be shy. Let your toes tremble in their sandals. However, pick the grape and eat with confidence. The grape is the blood of God. Watch out when holding a knife or you will behead St. John the Baptist. Touch the Cross in September, knock on it three times and say aloud the name of the Lord. Put seven bowls of salt on the roof overnight and the next morning the damp one will foretell the month of rain. Do not faint in September or you will wake up in a dead city. If someone dies in October do not sweep the house for three days or the rest of you will go. Also do not step on a boy's head for the devil will enter your ears like music. November? Shave, whether you have hair or not. Hair is not good, nothing is allowed to grow, all is allowed to die. Because nothing grows you may be tempted to count the stars but beware, in November counting the stars gives you boils. Beware of tall people, they will go mad. Don't harm the turtle dove because he is a great shoe that has swallowed Christ's blood. December? On December fourth water spurts out of the mouse. Put herbs in its eyes and boil corn and put the corn away for the night so that the Lord may trample on it and bring you luck. For many days the Lord has been shut up in the oven. After that He is boiled, but He never dies, never dies.

Long cold nights mark November's return, grey rains fall, wind walks in the bronze oak leaves.

The rain fell on his green hat and on his raincoat, which was also green, it pittered and pattered everywhere and the forest wrapped him in a gentle and exquisite loneliness.

Someday I’d like to go to Atlantic City with you not to gamble (just being there with you is enough of a gamble) but to ride the high white breakers have a Manhattan and listen to a baritone saxophone play a tune called “Salsa Eyes” with you beside me on a banquette but why stop there let’s go to Paris in November when it’s raining and we read the Tribune at La Rotonde our hotel room has a big bathtub I knew you’d like that and we can be a couple of unknown Americans what are we waiting for let’s go

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there.  It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.  Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. I

BOWLS OF FOOD Moon and evening star do their slow tambourine dance to praise this universe. The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and love what’s beautiful. “Once it was like that, now it’s like this,” the saying goes around town, and serious consequences too. Men and women turn their faces to the wall in grief. They lose appetite. Then they start eating the fire of pleasure, as camels chew pungent grass for the sake of their souls. Winter blocks the road. Flowers are taken prisoner underground. Then green justice tenders a spear. Go outside to the orchard. These visitors came a long way, past all the houses of the zodiac, learning Something new at each stop. And they’re here for such a short time, sitting at these tables set on the prow of the wind. Bowls of food are brought out as answers, but still no one knows the answer. Food for the soul stays secret. Body food gets put out in the open like us. Those who work at a bakery don’t know the taste of bread like the hungry beggars do. Because the beloved wants to know, unseen things become manifest. Hiding is the hidden purpose of creation: bury your seed and wait. After you die, All the thoughts you had will throng around like children. The heart is the secret inside the secret. Call the secret language, and never be sure what you conceal. It’s unsure people who get the blessing. Climbing cypress, opening rose, Nightingale song, fruit, these are inside the chill November wind. They are its secret. We climb and fall so often. Plants have an inner Being, and separate ways of talking and feeling. An ear of corn bends in thought. Tulip, so embarrassed. Pink rose deciding to open a competing store. A bunch of grapes sits with its feet stuck out. Narcissus gossiping about iris. Willow, what do you learn from running water? Humility. Red apple, what has the Friend taught you? To be sour. Peach tree, why so low? To let you reach. Look at the poplar, tall but without fruit or flower. Yes, if I had those, I’d be self-absorbed like you. I gave up self to watch the enlightened ones. Pomegranate questions quince, Why so pale? For the pearl you hid inside me. How did you discover my secret? Your laugh. The core of the seen and unseen universes smiles, but remember, smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter. Dark earth receives that clear and grows a trunk. Melon and cucumber come dragging along on pilgrimage. You have to be to be blessed! Pumpkin begins climbing a rope! Where did he learn that? Grass, thorns, a hundred thousand ants and snakes, everything is looking for food. Don’t you hear the noise? Every herb cures some illness. Camels delight to eat thorns. We prefer the inside of a walnut, not the shell. The inside of an egg, the outside of a date. What about your inside and outside? The same way a branch draws water up many feet, God is pulling your soul along. Wind carries pollen from blossom to ground. Wings and Arabian stallions gallop toward the warmth of spring. They visit; they sing and tell what they think they know: so-and-so will travel to such-and-such. The hoopoe carries a letter to Solomon. The wise stork says lek-lek. Please translate. It’s time to go to the high plain, to leave the winter house. Be your own watchman as birds are. Let the remembering beads encircle you. I make promises to myself and break them. Words are coins: the vein of ore and the mine shaft, what they speak of. Now consider the sun. It’s neither oriental nor occidental. Only the soul knows what love is. This moment in time and space is an eggshell with an embryo crumpled inside, soaked in belief-yolk, under the wing of grace, until it breaks free of mind to become the song of an actual bird, and God.

It was a wild, tempestuous night, towards the close of November. Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery. Outside the wind howled down Baker Street, while the rain beat fiercely against the windows. It was strange there, in the very depths of the town, with ten miles of man’s handiwork on every side of us, to feel the iron grip of Nature, and to be conscious that to the huge elemental forces all London was no more than the molehills that dot the fields. I walked to the window, and looked out on the deserted street. The occasional lamps gleamed on the expanse of muddy road and shining pavement. A single cab was splashing its way from the Oxford Street end.

October Fire In the churchyard, flames, the Burning Bush, a maple touched to fire, by autumn fanned. Were I possessed as Moses was, the hush might speak, Jehovah's voice resound.I stand uncertain, questions wrinkling my face: Should I kneel, is this some holy ground? Or is it just the usual for this place that maples turn, a season come around? And as I ponder, November rain gathers wind from lowering eastern skies to strip the maple of its leaves.The stain of scarlet filters down before my eyes. I wait too long; I watch the moment pass till only ashes stir upon the grass.

Postcolonial Love Poem (excerpt) I’ve been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite, Can stop the bleeding-most people forgot this When the war ended. The war ended Depending on which war you mean: those we started, Before those, millennia ago and onward, Those which started me, which I lost and won- Those ever-blooming wounds. --- There are wildflowers in my desert which take up to twenty years to bloom. The seeds sleep like geodes beneath hot feldspar sand until a flash flood bolts the arroyo, lifting them in its copper current, opens them with memory— they remember what their god whispered into their ribs: Wake up and ache for your life. Where your hands have been are diamonds on my shoulders, down my back, thighs- I am your culebra. I am in the dirt for you. Your hips are quartz-light and dangerous, two rose-horned rams ascending a soft desert wash before the November sky untethers a hundred-year flood- the desert returned suddenly to its ancient sea. --- The rain will eventually come, or not. Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds- The war never ended and somehow begins again.

Lord, what will I be? Where will the careless conglomeration of environment, heredity and stimulus lead me? Someday I may say: It was of great significance that I sat and laughed at myself in a convertible with the rain coming down in rattling sheets on the canvas roof. It influenced my life that I did not find content immediately and easily - - and now I am I because of that. It was inestimably important for me to look at the lights of Amherstn town in the rain, with the wet black tree-skeletons against the limpid streetlights and gray November mist, and then look at the boy beside me and feel all the hurting beauty go flat because he wasn't the right one - not at all. And I may say that my philosophy has been deeply affected by the fact that windshield wipers ticked off seconds too loudly and hopelessly, that my clock drips loud sharp clicks too monotonously on my hearing. I can hear it even through the pillow I muffle it with - the tyrannical drip drip drip drip of seconds along the night. And in the day, even when I'm not there, the seconds come out in little measured strips of time. And I wind the clock. And I look at the windshield wipers cutting an arch out of the sprinkled raindrops on the glass. Click-click. Clip-clip. Tick-tick. snip-snip. And it goes on and on. I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp, ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.

after Neruda a bronze song, something undone, salvia, a crushed butterfly. It is the blood on a light bulb, the seventh sadness, a fluctuation that closes oceans and eyes. The vermilion and solitary luminary shimmies and singes the feathers of the aviary. Moon, the clock’s word, dear mother, ruin, rain. — Simone Muench, “Elegy for the Unsaid,” Lampblack & Ash: Poems. (Sarabande Books; First Edition edition November 1, 2005)

SOMETIMES, BUT NOT OFTEN, a rain comes to the Salinas Valley in November. It is so rare that the Journal or the Index or both carry editorials about it. The hills turn to a soft green overnight and the air smells good. Rain at this time is not particularly good in an agricultural sense unless it is going to continue, and this is extremely unusual. More commonly, the dryness comes back and the fuzz of grass withers or a little frost

But Adam, looking out over his dry dust-obscured land, felt the panic the Eastern man always does at first in California. In a Connecticut summer two weeks without rain is a dry spell and four a drought. If the countryside is not green it is dying. But in California it does not ordinarily rain at all between the end of May and the first of November. The Eastern man, though he has been told, feels the earth is sick in the rainless months.

I draw myself up next to her and look at her profile, making no effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to see me. The evening sun loves her throat and her cheekbones. Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze. Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded. I say, “Are you afraid?” Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the west where the sun has gone but the glow remains. Somewhere out there are my capaill uisce, George Holly’s America, every gallon of water that every ship rides on. Puck doesn’t look away from the orange glow at the end of the world. “Tell me what it’s like. The race.” What it’s like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It’s the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It’s speed, if you’re lucky. It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it. Once upon a time, this moment — this last light of evening the day before the race — was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life. “There’s no one braver than you on that beach.” Her voice is dismissive. “That doesn’t matter.” “It does. I meant what I said at the festival. This island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave.” Now she looks at me. She’s fierce and red, indestructible and changeable, everything that makes Thisby what it is. She asks, “Do you feel brave?” The mare goddess had told me to make another wish. It feels thin as a thread to me now, that gift of a wish. I remember the years when it felt like a promise. “I don’t know what I feel, Puck.” Puck unfolds her arms just enough to keep her balance as she leans to me, and when we kiss, she closes her eyes. She draws back and looks into my face. I have not moved, and she barely has, but the world feels strange beneath me. “Tell me what to wish for,” I say. “Tell me what to ask the sea for.” “To be happy. Happiness.” I close my eyes. My mind is full of Corr, of the ocean, of Puck Connolly’s lips on mine. “I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it.” The breeze blows across my closed eyelids, scented with brine and rain and winter. I can hear the ocean rocking against the island, a constant lullaby. Puck’s voice is in my ear; her breath warms my neck inside my jacket collar. “You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?” I tilt my head so that her mouth is on my skin. The kiss is cold where the wind blows across my cheek. Her forehead rests against my hair. I open my eyes, and the sun has gone. I feel as if the ocean is inside me, wild and uncertain. “That’s what I said. What do I need to hear?” Puck whispers, “That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.” I say, “That is what I needed to hear.” “Do you know what to wish for now?” I swallow. I have no wishing-shell to throw into the sea when I say it, but I know that the ocean hears me nonetheless. “To get what I need.

It could snow We don’t take care. The end of November came without coldness, with haunting and limp rains, pretty much leaves still laying anywhere on the sidewalks. It comes a morning with another grey, compact, closed, air changes its texture. Under the pharmacy green cross the thermometer sticks, in red, two degrees. The number, a bit blurred thins down in the space. We didn’t expect it, but it grows, far inside us, the little sentence. It comes to the lips like a forgotten song: “It could snow …” We should not dare to mention it in loud voice, it is still so much autumn, all could finish in a stupid freezing sudden shower, in a fog of boredom. But the idea of a possible snow came back, it’s what matters. No downhill in a sledge-trash-bag, no snowman, no children shouting,no pictures of landscape metamorphosis. Largely best then all that, because the essential snow is inside the unformulated. Before. Something we didn’t know we knew. Before snow, before love, the same lack, the same dimmed grey which days’ triteness creates pretending to suffocate. We shall cross somebody: - This time it’s almost winter! - Yes we start to be crestfallen! Workers hang pieces of tinsel. We didn’t say too much. Especially do not frighten away the slight shade of the idea. The red thermometer went down, one degree. It could snow.

Grounded" I At the edge of sleep. my head on your breast. I hear your heart lock with the cloth pulse of a skein of geese. which arrows over roofs towards the source of water, dreams, oblivion. II Asleep on your front, your shoulder-blades reveal themselves as wing-stumps. Now I know what you have given up for me, for this November night, this moonlit bed. this sluicing rain these distant fireworks. And I think of migrants on the wing for weeks, filleting the air with sleep. Ill Today huge tethered kites — torsos, mermaids, lizards, bears— were animated by sea air, as though the next world hung above us like a mezzanine. Tonight I lie awake and run your absence through my fingers: here's the touch of you, your warmth and give. our conspiracy of flightlessress. Michael Symmons Roberts, Corpus. (Jonathan Cape / Random House; New edition July 20, 2004)

Love has made him surprise himself. He would never have believed it possible, but it's turned out that he is a man who can walk up to a closed door on a murky November day, wearing his one good suit, and knock without hesitation, waiting while the rain comes down around him, even though he's not wanted. He can do this and not think twice, just the way he can spend hours watching a wounded cedar beetle and weep over its rare beauty, as well as its agony. Richard is certain that other species fall in love - primates, of course, and canines - but he has wondered about his beetles. There are people who would surely get a chuckle out of the mere suggestion, but in Richard's opinion it's pure vanity to presume that love exists only on our terms. A red leaf may be the universe for the tortoise beetle or the ladybird. A single touch the ecstasy of a lifetime. And so, here he is, in love despite everything. It is he, stupider than any beetle, and far more obstinate, who has traveled three thousand miles, even though he fully expects to be turned away.

Can't sleep so you put on his grey boots -- nothing else -- & step inside the rain. Even though he's gone, you think, I still want to be clean. If only the rain were gasoline, your tongue a lit match, & you can change without disappearing. If only he dies the second his name becomes a tooth in your mouth. But he doesn't. He dies when they wheel him away & the priest ushers you out the room, your palms two puddles of rain. He dies as your heart beats faster, as another war coppers the sky. He dies each night you close your eyes & hear his slow exhale. Your fist choking the dark. Your fist through the bathroom mirror. He dies at the party where everyone laughs & all you want is to go into the kitchen & make seven omelets before burning down the house. All you want is to run into the woods & beg the wolf to fuck you up. He dies when you wake & it's November forever. A Hendrix record melted on a rusted needle. He dies the morning he kisses you for two minutes too long, when he says Wait followed by I have something to say & you quickly grab your favorite pink pillow & smother him as he cries into the soft & darkening fabric. You hold still until he's very quiet, until the walls dissolve & you're both standing in the crowded train again. Look how it rocks you back & forth like a slow dance seen from the distance of years. You're still a freshman. You're still but he smiles anyway. His teeth reflected in the window reflecting your lips as you mouth Hello -- your tongue a lit match.

The entire pre-Columbian literature of Mexico, a vast library of tens of thousands of codices, was carefully and systematically destroyed by the priests and friars who followed in the wake of the conquistadors. In November 1530, for example, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, who had shortly before been apointed 'Protector of the Indians' by the Spanish crown, proceeded to 'protect' his flock by burning at the stake a Mexican aristocrat, the lord of the city of Texcoco, whom he accused of having worshipped the rain god. In the city's marketplace Zumárraga 'had a pyramid formed of the documents of Aztec history, knowledge and literature, their paintings, manuscripts, and hieroglyphic writings, all of which he committed to the flames while the natives cried and prayed.' More than 30 years later, the holocaust of documents was still under way. In July 1562, in the main square of Mani (just south of modern Merida in the Yucatan), Bishop Diego de Landa burned thousands of Maya codices, story paintings, and hieroglyphs inscribed on rolled-up deer skins. He boasted of destroying countless 'idols' and 'altars,' all of which he described as 'works of the devil, designed by the evil one to delude the Indians and to prevent them from accepting Christianity.' Noting that the Maya 'used certain characters or letters, which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences' he informs us: 'We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously and which gave them great pain.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this to you before, but a few years ago, I started keeping a diary, which I called ‘the life book’. I began with the idea of writing one short entry each day, just a line or two, describing something good. I suppose by ‘good’ I must have meant something that made me happy or brought me pleasure. I went back to look at it the other day, and the early entries are all from that autumn, almost six years ago now. Dry upturned sycamore leaves scuttling like claws along the South Circular Road. The artificial buttered taste of popcorn in the cinema. Pale-yellow sky in the evening, Thomas Street draped in mist. Things like that. I didn’t miss a day through all of September, October, November that year. I could always think of something nice, and sometimes I would even do things for the purpose of putting them in the book, like taking a bath or going for a walk. At the time I felt like I was just absorbing life, and at the end of the day I never had to strain to think of anything good I had seen or heard. It just came to me, and even the words came, because my only aim was to get the image down clearly and simply so that I would later remember how it felt. And reading those entries now, I do remember what I felt, or at least what I saw and heard and noticed. Walking around, even on a bad day, I would see things—I mean just the things that were in front of me. People’s faces, the weather, traffic. The smell of petrol from the garage, the feeling of being rained on, completely ordinary things. And in that way even the bad days were good, because I felt them and remembered feeling them. There was something delicate about living like that—like I was an instrument and the world touched me and reverberated inside me.

Do you remember…(doesn’t that appear in each of my letters?), do you remember that you spoke of how eagerly you experienced that period when for the first time autumn and winter were to meet you not in the city, but among the trees whose happiness you knew, whose spring and summer rang in your earliest memories and were mingled with everything warm and dear and tender and with the infinitely blissful melancholies of summer evenings and of long, yearning nights of spring. You knew just as much of them as of the dear people in your surroundings, among whom also summer and spring, kindness and happiness were dedicated to you and whose influence held sway above your growing up and maturing, and whose other experiences would touch you only by report and rarely like a shot in the wood of which superstitious folk tell for a long time. But now you were to remain out in the country house that was growing lonely and were to see the beloved trees suffer in the rising wind, and were to see how the dense park is torn apart before the windows and becomes spacious and everywhere, even in very deep places, discloses the sky which, with infinite weariness, lets itself rain and strikes with heavy drops on the aging leaves that are dying in touching humility. And you were to see suffering where until now was only rapture and anticipation, and were to learn to endure dying in the very place where the heart of life had beaten most loudly upon yours. And you were to behave like the grownups who all at once may know everything, yes, who become grown up just because of the fact that even the darkest and saddest things do not have to be hidden from them, that one does not cover up the dead when they enter, nor hide those whose faces are sawed and torn by a sharp pain.” ―from letter to Clara Westhoff Schmargendorf (Sunday, November 18, 1900)

DANCING ANGELS During October 2001, the Lord began to speak to me about traveling to Newfoundland, Canada. I had no desire to go there, especially in the middle of the winter! At this time I was still concerned about my inability to “feel the Lord” and began to press into God all the more. At times I locked myself into the little house and fasted and prayed for up to seven days, or until the presence of God fell. After many confirmations in the spirit, I pooled all of my earthly wealth and made the trip to the great white North. The night before I was to depart, the Lord instructed me to “pray in tongues all the way to Newfoundland.” Somehow through the grace of God I succeeded in praying in the Spirit for about 18 hours until I touched down in Canada. In Springdale, Newfoundland, Canada, the Lord began instructing me to complete a series of prophetic actions. I attended an intercessory prayer meeting on Wednesday, November 21. We were interceding for an upcoming series of healing meetings. During this meeting, I began to “see” into the spirit. As the Lord opened my spiritual eyes, I incrementally saw the heavens open over Living Waters Ministries Church. In addition to this, I also began to hear angelic voices singing along with the worship team. At one point during the meeting, I saw a stream of golden oil pour out from Heaven and land on a certain spot in the sanctuary. At the leading of the Lord, I knelt upon that spot. The glory and anointing began to flow into and over my body. The sensation and anointing was very similar to what I experienced when the angel put his hands upon me the night of August 22, 2001. As I knelt under the spot where the golden oil was beginning to pour onto the altar, I was praying earnestly. I could feel the liquid oil raining down on my body. I could sense and smell this heavenly oil as it rolled off my head. The Holy Spirit began to talk to me in a very clear and direct way that I had never experienced before. I collapsed onto the carpet in a pool of golden oil and laid there in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Then I sensed angels dancing all around the pool and me. I felt an angel as it brushed its wings across my face. I had a “knowing” that the angel was asking me to raise my hands into the air. When I raised my hands up to about two feet, the angel would push my hands back down with its strong, warm hands. I tried again, and when my hands were almost totally up, the angel tickled my nose with the feathers of its wings. I laughed, and my hands fell. The angel and I continued to interact in this fashion for nearly an hour. I did not actually see this angel, but the force and reality of its touch was very tangible. There was no doubt that I was interacting with a heavenly being. This experience was both refreshing and real. SEEING IS BELIEVING On Thursday, November 22, the healing meetings started; they would last through Sunday, the 25th. In these meetings God began to open my spiritual eyes beyond anything I could have ever imagined. On the first night of these meetings, I began to see an “open heaven” forming in the sanctuary. I could also hear and sense the activity of angels as the heavens continued to open up to a greater degree. On Friday, I began to see “bolts of light” shoot through the church, and again the stream of golden oil was flowing from the open heaven in a greater volume. On Saturday night during the worship service, I began to see feathers falling around the church and

October Rain still a possibility but that means everything is very green – making this a great time to visit Bagan, for example. zTazaungdaing The full-moon night of Tazaungmon (which can also fall in November), known as Tazaungdaing, is a second ‘festival of lights’, particularly famous for the fi re-balloon competitions in Taunggyi

I’m serious!” said Roger. “You think it’s going to last forever.” 　“But nothing lasts forever,” Drew said, and then he and Roger sang together, “Even cold November rain.” I looked from one to the other, baffled.

Before I can over-think it, I lean in and kiss her. She's stunned at first, and then her lips come to life under mine. She's so soft and warm. Her arms wrap around my neck, bringing her closer. I pull away slowly, holding her bright blue gaze. I feel as if I can't breathe, my hands are shaking. I don't know what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn't it. The kiss was short and quick, but it was different. I swallow and take a step back, turning my face away from her. "I..." She presses her finger to my lips, silencing me. "Don't Kristian. You'll ruin it." She watches me for a moment longer and then takes a slow step back, before spinning around and dashing away into the dark rain.

See, they don't have winter here. I mean, they have a winter – where I live, it's liable to rain any time between November and June, or all the time – but they don't have winter. The idea of it isn't carved into them right down to the chromosomes, the way it is with us. It makes a difference. I'm going to write a book about that difference one day, when I understand it better. It'll be called The Social, Political, and Cultural Importance of Being Warm.

To set the scene: Madzy Brender à Brandis was a young mother with two small children, trying to survive through years of hardship and danger – and some unexpected pleasures. In May 1942, after her husband was suddenly taken prisoner and sent to a German camp, she began writing a diary to record the details of her life – for her husband to read when he returned, if he returned. She called it “this faithful book.” Here are some passages: 28 October 1944 [when the electricity was cut off because of lack of fuel for the generating plants]: “We have to use the daylight to its utmost, and we figure this out already in the morning. [At the end of the afternoon] We flew faster and faster to use the last bits of daylight, lay the table, lay everything ready so that at 5:30 we could eat in the dusk until we couldn’t find our mouths any more. Blackout and one candle, finished eating and washed the dishes. Read to children in pyjamas and then they to bed. Then unraveled a knitted baby blanket [so that the yarn could be used to knit other things] and at 9:00 blew out the candle and continued by moonlight. But now I’m going to bed, tired but satisfied with my efforts, though very sad about all the misery.” 1 November 1944 [after a threat of having the house demolished]: “Well, our house is still standing. I filled a laundry bag with many things, and everything is standing ready [in case there was a need to evacuate]. Because there is much flying again. At one moment an Allied fighter plane flew over very low; just then three German soldiers were walking past our house and one, “as a joke,” shot his gun at the plane. Tje! What a scare we had!” 24 December 1944 [addressing her husband, still in the camp]: “The whole house is in wonderful peace and I’m sitting by the fire, which gives me just enough light to write this. [The upper door of the small heater, when opened, gave a bit of light.] My Dicks, I don’t have to tell you how very much I miss you on this evening. It is a gnawing sense of longing. But beyond that there is a sorrow in me, a despair about everything, that pervades my whole being. Besides that, however, I’ve already for days seen the light of Christ coming closer and in these days that gives me hope. So does the waxing moon, the hard frost, the bright sun – in a word, all the light in nature after that endless series of misty, rainy, dark days. And so I sit close to my unsteady little light, that constantly abandons me, and think of you. It’s as though you are very close to me. I’m so grateful for everything that I have: your love, the two children, and everything around me.” 12 February 1945 [during the “Hunger Winter” of 1944-45, after one of her trips to forage for food]: “Today I went to Rika in Renswoude: 1¼ hours cycling there, 2½ hours walking back pushing a broken-down bicycle and with 25 pounds of rye [the whole grain, not flour] through streaming rain, while there was constant booming of artillery and bombing in the distance.

The woman walked into the bar for the first time in the winter rain. She didn’t have an umbrella on her; her little sleeveless dress ended at her ankles, fully drenched. Her wet dress clung to her body, showing the outlines of her curves. In one hand, she was carrying the skirt of her dress. Suddenly, she let it go, and one long, bare arm moved upward as she tried to fix her damp hair which had darkened in intensity due to the rain. It fell past her shoulders, the strands sticking to her face. She attempted to comb through the tangles with her fingertips. The men watched her movements hungrily, their eager faces drawn to her and at the sight of someone new. Their eyes trailed from her face, to her wet body, then back to the movements of her hands entwined in her hair. Under her other arm, she carried a book and a trench coat. It appeared strange she wasn't wearing the coat when it was pouring outside and freezing in the middle of November. Men were left mesmerized by her, and she turned heads as she walked by. Something radiated from within her, drawing the men around her in. The women who were with some of these men noticed their gaze on the unfamiliar woman. Now they stared at her with jealousy and anger. Who is she? they wondered.

JAMIE'S SONG 'August and November': They say it was a beautiful summer. I say I felt so cold the whole short while. I heard that it rained for days, Between August and November. Well I didn’t see it rain on the enslaved river. I am the river no more (x2) And the rain is just acid water from their cloudy black smoke. And now I’m at a standstill on the streets, That are lit up like a funfair from some forgotten dream. Yet faces, headlights, and the whole world passes by me. Without taking a step, I’m down in the hole too. And if it rains this coming Dark and lonely December, I will never watch it fall on the entrapped river. I am the river no more (x2) And the rain is acid water from their cloudy black smoke.

Flotsam Some people figuratively, although sometimes literately, washed up on the barren beaches of West Africa because they were unwelcome in most other countries. Adventurers, seamen, construction contractors, military mercenaries, as well as missionaries and professional government employees, found themselves here. Money was frequently the motivating factor for people who came to this third world country and most of the typical tropical tramps I knew were involved in the many unsavory activities going on. The dank weather which is usually heavy with moisture from May until October, with a short reprieve of a week or two in July or August, contributed to the bleak attitude people had. What passes for a dry season lasts from November through April with the least likely chance of rain in December and January. The frequent heavy showers and rainstorms make Liberia and Sierra Leone the wettest climatic region in Africa. One way or another, everyone was always wet…. This in turn attributed to the heavy drinking and it was said that if the moisture didn't come from the sky it certainly came from the pores... Generally speaking in West Africa near the Equator the climate is tropical, hot and humid all year round! There were numerous meeting places or drinking holes for the expats. Guaranteed, there was no way any of us would be able to survive the conditions of West Africa without occasionally imbibing, which in reality we did constantly. The most popular bars for Europeans, which in Liberia included Americans, were run by foreigners to the country and these included the more upscale American Hotel and the old Ducor Hotel, near the Cape Mesurado Lighthouse on Mamba Point.

Typically the most popular time to visit mainland Southeast Asia (north of Malaysia) is November to February when there is lots of sunshine but temperatures are more bearable and there is little rain. March to May is really hot and the rain starts July time but again there are significant variations in different parts of the region.

November Haiku: No good November lays a red carpet of leaves rains on its parade.

One November day, the clouds weighed low with the threat of rain and desperate for a bar of chocolate, she ventured out of the house, her designer hoodie pulled up over her head with her long matted hair tucked inside it.

Fall. Rain. Wind. Depressing! And it was only going to get worse. Chilly, overcast weather was forecast for the rest of November. Then again, October had been beautiful. The autumn leaves glowing red, yellow, and orange; glorious sunshine; blue skies; and a wonderful crispness in the air. But unfortunately those days were gone. It was the first week in November; dead leaves swirled around in the wind, rain clouds hung low over Gothenburg, and the contours of the city dissolved in the damp mist.

I went out for my run. I liked to go early, then hit the coffee shop. It was a crappy day, gloomy, rainy, but I loved running in the rain. This was early November, the year before Greg died. I had a second, just a second when I saw him. So ordinary-looking, so pleasant, but I had that click. I had a panic button on my key chain. I even reached for it, but it was too late. I felt that shock of pain, then nothing works.” She had to stop a moment, had to breathe. “Nothing works,” she repeated. “Pain, shock, then numb, useless. I felt sick

In an enchanting encounter with the myriad books that I met in a cosy book shop today, I couldn't help but get bedazzled with the cornucopia of stories and poetry that lay snuggled in the plethora of shelves at display. You wouldn't believe it dear readers that I heard a real symphony in my ears at that very moment of this august encounter that happened in November. There was no rain today but the bright and sunny spirit of the day was as magical as any rainy day might have made me feel. I do not know about the other people in the book shop, but to me that very moment felt as if I was on cloud nine. Proverbially it felt as if I was listening with a mellifluous ecstasy to the magic of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. At that exact moment when I lay my hands or rather I would say I grabbed my hands on the two books that I have been yearning to read since a long time, I guess the entire Universe paused. Now without having an iota of energy within me to any other further delay in experiencing the magic and in experiencing the mad euphoria that has serenaded my entire being, I take your leave my dearest readers to indulge myself with and in the most pleasurable way possible with Franz Kafka & Fyodor Dostoevsky.

In an enchanting encounter with the myriad books that I met in a cosy book shop today, I couldn't help but get bedazzled with the cornucopia of stories and poetry that lay snuggled in the plethora of shelves at display. You wouldn't believe it dear readers that I heard a real symphony in my ears at that very moment of this august encounter that happened in November. There was no rain today but the bright and sunny spirit of the day was as magical as any rainy day might have made me feel. I do not know about the other people in the book shop, but to me that very moment felt as if I was on cloud nine. Proverbially it felt as if I was listening with a mellifluous ecstasy to the magic of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. At that exact moment when I lay my hands or rather I would say I grabbed my hands on the two books that I have been yearning to read since a long time, I guess the entire Universe paused. Now without having an iota of energy within me to any other further delay in experiencing the magic and in experiencing the mad euphoria that has serenaded my entire being, I take your leave my dearest readers to indulge myself and in the most pleasurable way possible with the words of Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

When I hear that rain makes a sound, I will ask: does the sunshine make a noise?

Certain Stains What you delight in you become and it becomes your true property What the desolate blood says you say to me trustee of the free night the one that hides its burning face Don’t be stingy Think about the rain a blue foot path and winding music the November wind that waits for you with your terror and your amnesty in the nameless cities you’ve lived in all your life I don’t believe in your brain diseases I interrogate my eclipses with my bare hands Out of the labyrinths of language and faith That’s your name your faces made cadaverous by institutional florescence and the music of your voices drowned in the grey noise of invisible crimes Each of you was more beautiful than I can ever be but I carry some of your beauty with me in my hatred and my shame Everyone of you was out of my league truer more ruthless and more sublime but I survived No one to be known as Antinomian completely naked with their danger and their breeding innocence The high desert with its fragrance meditates for me I follow the silence home Lightning entangled with lightning and the night That immaculate traveler and stranger a lachrymose intangible hive remembering everything we disavow keeping it alive for us And death is my ancestor Child or diamond or whispering mirror It’s out there in the night alone There’s nothing we can do to help Keep it in your thoughts Hope it finds a coat

Comments: Surprisingly Marlin Hurt’s first appearance as a woman speaking in dialect does not get as much of a reaction from the audience as it will in weeks to come. Alice’s weekly rent has apparently increased from $12 in November to $15 in January. Molly delivers one of the most vivid descriptions of boogie woogie: “The kind of piano playing that sounds like rain on the roof with the left hand and somebody playing the flute in the attic with the right hand.

Certain Stains What you delight in you become and it becomes your true property What the desolate blood says you say to me trustee of the free night the one that hides its burning face Don’t be stingy Think about the rain a blue foot path and winding music the November wind that waits for you with your terror and your amnesty in the nameless cities you’ve lived in all your life I don’t believe in your remediation I interrogate my eclipses with my bare hands Out of the labyrinths of language and faith That’s your name your faces made cadaverous by hospital fluorescents and the music of your voices drowned in the grey noise of invisible crimes I carry some of your beauty with me in my hatred and my shame Everyone of you truer more ruthless and more sublime but I survived antinomian completely naked with their danger and their breeding innocence The high desert with its fragrance meditates for me I follow the silence home Lightning entangled with lightning and the night That immaculate traveler and stranger a lachrymose intangible hive remembering everything we disavow keeping it alive for us

- Słyszysz? - upewniła się Chyłka. - Za głośno i za wyraźnie - odparł cicho. - Co znalazłaś? Pornosy? - Nie. Listę piosenek na Spotify, którą w pocie czoła musiałeś tworzyć od zarania dziejów. Zaśmiał się cicho. Rzeczywiście pracował nad tym od jakiegoś czasu, a właściwie od kiedy tylko Chyłka po raz pierwszy puściła mu Poison Alice'a Coopera i oznajmiła, że to najbardziej romantyczny kawałek, jaki zna. Potraktował to jak wyzwanie i postawnowił znaleźć inne metalowe i jednocześnie balladowe numery, które byłyby rzeczywiście, a nie tylko pozornie romantyczne. Zgromadził ich trochę, a potem rozszerzył katalog także na kawałki rockowe i grunge'owe. - Disarm Smashing Pumpkins - powiedziała z uznaniem. - Nieźle. Naprawdę nieźle. - Wyciskacz łez. - Nawet ja to przyznam - odparła nieobecnym głosem. - Nie ma rzewniejszego kawałka na świecie. - Ano nie - przyznała. - Ale zobaczymy, co tu jeszcze masz... HammerFall, Always Will Be. Też całkiem nieźle, choć ja i power metal za sobą nie przepadamy. - Pomyślałem, że zrobisz wyjątek. - Zrobię nawet dwa, bo widzę tutaj Ghost of Reedom Iced Earth. - Zgadza się. - Guns'n'Roses November Rain, dobry wybór. Wind of Change Scorpionsów, też nieźle. Słysząc sam tytuł ostatniego kawałka, Kordian usłyszał w głowie charakterystyczne gwizdanie na początku. - It's Been Awhile Staind, brawo, brawo. Idealny podkład muzyczny dla wieczoru przy świeczkach i papierosach. - Tak? SPrawdzimy w praktyce. - O, wyłowiłeś nawet Black Hole Sun Soundgarden. I Fade to Black Metalliki! - Jest też Killing Me Killing You Sentenced. - Och, Zordon... - Zrobiłem robotę? - Przyjeżdżaj. Będę twoja.

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy draughts that bit at exposed hands and faces.

Emotions Dreams I feel like my skin is crawling with viruses when it is on my figure. It’s mid-November and I am standing in the rain, as I run out the door it is, so cold, so lonely, and so freaking loveless! As I found my way back to him, I left behind oh so long ago. Up till now this is not habitual for me, I am always naked around my house, yet this is not a home at all, I don’t know what you call this place, it’s like a school however not so. I have my reason you’ll see, not to say too much, I have someone looking down at me with the eyes and the face and crap. The rain is falling on me, eyes and ears, and boys and girls all like knives inside me, never since the moment I got off the damn bus so it could just run my ass over and get it over with. The rain is matting my long brown hair on me as it lies on down my rump, just like a movie just like the books. Just like me living it, like her. Some of this shower is cascading off my little face, and it slowly collects on my breasts, where it beads up and separates into two different watercourses down to my belly button. I eyeball it, as it goes all the way down the front of me. Yet I am okay with it… at last, I am free. To a fact! I still feel so shut in by all of them. Ten or twenty-five or three minutes have passed, I am still in a similar varied advertisement. ‘Girly portion.’ Almost like a waterfall gushing in-between my legs. It trickles down to me to where it turns and goes in my butt cheeks, falling too and thrashing my mud exposed toes. After standing so long, holding me upright, weekly my legs so not right give out. Just letting water follow me down. I'm soaked! Soft thump, sooner or later the pounding gets rains resilient. Making me fall to the ground with where I will remain until I feel that I can get up and over what has happened to me. I can feel the wetness as it lingers in my hair for a while, so unforgivably waterlogged my body even more. That’s if I can… like if I can accept it all. It’s all because of them! Counting my sanctification, I feel dissatisfied in a way when I do feel it releasing offends my hair. Like it is wiping away everything that happened to me today, away from the day of the past. I feel the dropping rain weeping for me, like hell’s tears of pain and flam it runs out of me as I yell out for his safety in a call of his name.

November The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake, Treed with iron and bridles. In the sunk lane The ditch - a seep silent all summer - Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots On the lane's scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves, Against the hill's hanging silence; Mist silvering the droplets on bare thorns Slower than the change of daylight. In a let of the ditch a tramp was bundled asleep; Face tucked down into beard, drawn in Under his hair like a hedgehog's. I took him for dead, But his stillness separated from the death Of the rotting grass on the ground. A wind chilled, And a fresh comfort tightened through him, Each hand stuffed deeper into the other sleeve. His ankles, bound with sacking and hairy band, Rubbed each other, resettling. The wind hardened; A puff shook a glittering from the thorns, And against the rains' dragging grey columns Smudged the farms. In a moment The fields were jumping and smoking; the thorns Quivered, riddled with the glassy verticals. I stayed on under the welding cold Watching the tramp's face glisten and the drops on his coat Flash and darken. I thought what strong trust Slept in him - as the trickling furrows slept, And the thorn-roots in their grip on darkness; And the buried stones, taking the weight of winter; The hill where the hare crouched with clenched teeth. Rain plastered the land till it was shining Like hammered lead, and I ran, and in the rushing wood Shuttered by a black oak leaned. The keeper's gibbet had owls and hawks By the neck, weasels, a gang of cats, crows: Some stiff, weightless, twirled like dry bark bits In the drilling rain. Some still had their shape, Had their pride with it; hung, chins on chests Patient to outwait these worst days that beat Their crowns bare and dripped from their feat.

November The month of the drowned dog. After long rain the land Was sodden as the bed of an ancient lake, Treed with iron and bridles. In the sunk lane The ditch - a seep silent all summer - Made brown foam with a big voice: that, and my boots On the lane's scrubbed stones, in the gulleyed leaves, Against the hill's hanging silence; Mist silvering the droplets on bare thorns Slower than the change of daylight. In a let of the ditch a tramp was bundled asleep; Face tucked down into beard, drawn in Under his hair like a hedgehog's. I took him for dead, But his stillness separated from the death Of the rotting grass on the ground. A wind chilled, And a fresh comfort tightened through him, Each hand stuffed deeper into the other sleeve. His ankles, bound with sacking and hairy band, Rubbed each other, resettling. The wind hardened; A puff shook a glittering from the thorns, And against the rains' dragging grey columns Smudged the farms. In a moment The fields were jumping and smoking; the thorns Quivered, riddled with the glassy verticals. I stayed on under the welding cold Watching the tramp's face glisten and the drops on his coat Flash and darken. I thought what strong trust Slept in him - as the trickling furrows slept, And the thorn-roots in their grip on darkness; And the buried stones, taking the weight of winter; The hill where the hare crouched with clenched teeth. Rain plastered the land till it was shining Like hammered lead, and I ran, and in the rushing wood Shuttered by a black oak leaned. The keeper's gibbet had owls and hawks By the neck, weasels, a gang of cats, crows: Some stiff, weightless, twirled like dry bark bits In the drilling rain. Some still had their shape, Had their pride with it; hung, chins on chests Patient to outwait these worst days that beat Their crowns bare and dripped from their feet.

Give me that dark moment; I will carry it everywhere like a mouthful of rain. — Mary Oliver, from “Pen and Paper and a Breath of Air: Excerpts,” Blue Pastures. (Mariner Books; 1 edition November 10, 1995)

January brings the snow, Makes our feet and fingers glow. February brings the rain, Thaws the frozen lake again. March brings breezes, loud and shrill, To stir the dancing daffodil. April brings out the primrose sweet, Scatters daisies at our feet. May brings flock of pretty lambs, Skipping by their fleecy dams, June brings tulips, lilies, roses, Fills the children's hands with posies. Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and gillyflowers. August brings the sheaves of corn, Then the harvest home is borne. Warm September brings the fruit; Sportsmen then begin to shoot. Fresh October brings the pheasant; Then to gather nuts is pleasant. Dull November brings the blast; Then the leaves are whirling fast. Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

And there is something troubling about the Burrow, something hard to name, maybe something about the low shadow it casts on the vacant lot around sunset, or maybe the smell of its walls after a November rain, so maybe the children-bless them-are right to keep their distance

ON THURSDAY EVENING, November 13, the day after the My Lai story ran in newspapers across the country, more than forty thousand people began gathering at Arlington National Cemetery for what was called a “March of Death.” For thirty-eight straight hours and in the face of biting cold and gusts of driving rain, they streamed in single file across the Arlington Bridge and on into the heart of the nation’s capital. A placard hung from each marcher’s neck bearing the name of someone who had been killed in the war, and when they passed the White House they shouted it out. Most marchers were young, but here and there were older people—parents or family members, presumably—who had asked for particular names. (Thirty-odd names had tactfully been withdrawn when families objected to their being displayed.) The long procession ended at the Capitol, where each placard was slipped into a wooden coffin.

Sawle-with-Grambler; but Sawle Church would hardly have been big enough, Truro was more central for most of the guests, and November with its heavy rains was not a time for country travel. It was a big wedding after all.

She couldn’t allow him to chip away at her secrets, taking a piece of her with each new revelation until there was nothing left of the fortress she’d built.

DI Simon Fenchurch pulled up at the side of the road, the November rain battering his windscreen. He killed the engine, the dead wipers leaving a blood-spatter pattern on the glass. Then a wall of water cleared it away. He glanced over at the passenger

You have a bright light on the inside. Let it shine all the time. Whether there is rain or sunshine, your light can bring delight, even in the darkest times.

You have a bright light on the inside. Let it shine all the time. Whether there is rain or sunshine, your light can bring delight even in the darkest times.