Linda Sue Grimes

Out Walking in Late November
Farmington Addition Muncie, Indiana

Did you ever notice when you´re out walking
In late November how some leaves,
Caught by the wind, will kind of skip along beside you?
It´s like walking with dogs, they scamper here and there
And between your feet,

While most of them don´t budge,
They seem to be enjoying a vacation from making green
All summer; or maybe after fall has tumbled them
From the trees and turned them many shades of brown,
They´re just plumb tuckered out.


Driving Southwest in November

Sunday evening we are driving from Muncie to Indianapolis
To fetch our granddaughter Samantha back home—
After a few miles but even before we get to the Interstate
You turn to me and remark about the fantastic colors
Of the sky: gold-pink-orange-rose-lavender light that

Stretches and marbles across the many hued blue.
I say it seems that there has to be an ocean over there
To make that sky so rowdy with those tones, and then
I say, there is. You say how paintings like that look fake—
But this is a gift.