Is the number 700 propitious in any way? I think it must be, as today is Day 700 of the Daily Poems, and it falls to our poet Alwyn Marriage to observe that although the month of November is one of diminishing light, our eyes may still delight in the yellow fireworks of an erupting mahonia. (Bernard M’Mahon [1775-1816] originally grew seedlings of the evergreen shrub that came from the West Coast of America)
Diminishing light
November:
daylight tumbles overboard
mid-afternoon,
the freshening wind begins
to chill but doesn’t bite.
We warm ourselves with memories
as in the garden, an old mahonia
erupts in yellow fireworks,
and leaves that have survived
the long hot days of summer
blaze with colour, quiver briefly,
before they droop and fall.
Alwyn Marriage