November Has Other Plans

November Has Other Plans

November comes softly here,
without snow,
without bare branches
scratching at a gray sky.

Florida does not surrender summer
so easily.

Instead,
there is a cooler morning,
a window cracked open,
a sweater needed before breakfast
and carried by noon.

The rains come less often.
The puddles, naturally,
do whatever they want.

And somewhere between
one season and another
I began a modest little story.

Two boys.
One summer.
A movie about a shark.
The beginning of a friendship.

That was all.

Or so I thought.

But stories, apparently,
do whatever they want, too.

September became October.
October became November.

A classroom appeared,
then a stern teacher,
books and homework,
chorus rehearsals,
old friendships changing shape.

A girl with very blue eyes
looked across a classroom.

A boy looked back
when he thought she wouldn’t notice.

Childhood began leaning,
almost imperceptibly,
toward whatever comes next.

And two boys becoming best friends
became a story about growing up,
about being seen,
about the things we carry forward
without knowing we have picked them up.

Outside,
November makes its small concessions to fall.

Inside,
the pages keep accumulating.

The modest little story
is a novel now.

I suppose I could complain.

But the morning is cool,
the coffee is warm,

and the horse,
having long ago ignored the reins,

seems to know
where it’s going.