The Sandia Mountains are pinkest in November.  The scrub oaks have rusted to copper, and the angle of the sinking Sun—so far South now—flashes the feldspar the color of ripe fruit.  Everything else has faded to bronze—the leaves piling in gutters and still clinging to tall cottonwoods, the grass on the mesa, and roadrunners catching the last warmth on the low wall across the street. Great flights of geese and cranes arrive from the North, crowding the fallow fields and shallow estuaries along the Rio Grande in violet heaps.  They lift en masse—a rustle of wing and breath, in search of safety for the night.  By month’s end, the trees are mostly bare, leaving space between branches for a brilliant sky and a sliver of moon.  The birds will stay for the Winter.