November By Mushera

In the bleakness of November in weather windy, wet, cold and gray
Perhaps young men fell pine trees by Mushera today
Gray fog cloaking the foothills gives warning of rain
And brown stormwater fast flowing in every mountain drain

November in Mushera is a bleak time of year
Where the songs of the birds one cannot expect for to hear
Where the mornings are cold close to zero degrees
And the cold breath of winter is in the northerly breeze

Without their leaves the deciduous trees do look bare
And in a high field the shy tawny hare
With little to  eat for it on the mountain at all
Has moved to the lower ground in the latter Fall

From the first breath of Spring many a cold night and day
In the farmyard sheds by Mushera cattle bellowing for silage or hay
Sparrows by every backdoor eating crumbs of swept out bread
Many a cold and wet wintery day of them ahead

Until leaves bud on the deciduous trees and nesting songbirds chirp and sing
And the swallows return to Mushera in mid Spring
And out of wintering sheds from months of eating silage and hay
Cattle on nutritious young grass are gaining weight by the day.