Connie Jordan Green lives on a farm in East Tennessee with her husband and two cats and two dogs. Her weekly column for the Loudon County News Herald is in its thirty-sixth year. She writes stories for young people, poetry, and novels. The American Library Association included The War at Home on its List of Best Books for Young Adults, and Emmy was selected as a Notable 1992 Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. In 2008 Green won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame. She teaches at the Oak Ridge Institute for Continued Learning.
November Moves In
She blows open the door,
slips the cloak from her shoulders—
shades of brown disguising
threads that once shone red, gold.
Hair like frost riming the pond,
body narrow as the garden scarecrow,
she roams hall and parlor,
tosses out autumn’s last vase of mums,
pulls moth-scented afghan from the closet,
peers up the fireplace chimney,
declares it too dangerous to use.
In the study, she flicks on the desk lamp,
takes out her favorite novel, Wuthering
Heights, settles in. She expects a pot
of tea, crisp ginger cookies,
and later a bowl of soup, wants to know
if that over-dressed hussy October
has packed her bags and fled.
Satisfied, she tries to charm us,
promises turkey, dressing and, if we
treat her right, maybe a day of sunshine
before she calls in her dark-clad kin.
Copyright (c) 2015 by Connie Jordan Green. All rights reserved. Green will read from her new collection, Household Inventory, at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on May 3, 2015, at 2 p.m.
Tagged: Poetry
