"The Beginning of November," a poem by George Freek

The face in the mirror
is like an uninvited guest,
but it belongs to me.
The sun barely warms the trees,
as they let go of their
now dying leaves.
November is not a month
for renewal. On the road,
traffic is sparse. Men worry
about winter snow.
In all the flux and flow,
I search for some fixed pole.
At twenty, poetry was my life.
By thirty I had a wife,
but she’s now dead,
and poems leave me cold.
I’ve outgrown
the things I loved
to discover I’ve now become old.