Bare November

Our coven is gathering in the forest, where trees are already bare, although holly bushes are covered with berries, and an abundance of mushrooms sprouts among trees. Samhain was well-attended, but at this gathering we’re welcoming a greater number of neophytes than previously. My teenage daughter, Stella, accompanies me, although a neophyte she is not.

Yesterday, I learned to know the love of bare November days. Before the coming of the snow, I am teaching my girl a range of potions to get her through until spring; she is studying at Oxford and doesn’t have the time or space for the necessary ingredients and equipment. She has been copying from ancient books only available at the Bodleian Library and sending me spells to which I wouldn’t otherwise have access, and recruiting witchlings from her circle of friends. I am so proud of her.

Kim M. Russell, 10th November 2025

Image by Ksenia Yakovleva on Unsplash

I’m hosting Prosery at the dVerse Poets Pub this Monday, with a couple of lines from a poem by Robert Frost, entitled ‘My November Guest’. November is a special month for me as it is my daughter’s birth month, and I love the amazing sunsets, the grey skies and empty fields, which Frost describes so beautifully in his poem.

So, we are writing Prosery, the very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, middle and end, with a limit of 144 words, which must include these lines:

“Not yesterday I learned to know
     The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,”

37 thoughts on “Bare November”

  12. Delightful….full of magic and wonder….a whole story growing there, awhile journey,epoch, history. Thoroughly enjoyed.I never read any books by writers in similar themes, but can see the attraction, especially written in that realist style.

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    2. I couldn’t comment on your post, Ain, so I’m doing it here. There’s much to admire in your Prosery, beginning with the immediacy of the opening paragraph, which throws the reader straight into the dialogue, the seamless inclusion of the prompt lines, and the eerie atmosphere created in ‘the descending temperature crept slowly under collars, and fingers chilled. The fire was burning out, along with the last glimmer of hope.’

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