Seasons

By the end of summer,
my breath hangs in mid-air,
pale, slow, and full of watermelon seeds.
Days grow impatient, hurrying into deep valleys
of dead fireflies, damp and iridescent.
I grow cold and silent.

Autumn gains momentum. Everyday
somber bells toll for the march of wheat stalks
in the golden field of over-ripened hunger.
The pregnant pumpkin, greatly confused,
gives birth to a shivering life
vague in meaning.
Things return to order –
plums dead, birds nameless, fingers callous and lovers over.
Yet the scent of wet lavenders
from faraway corners
stirs up curious whispers. But oh,
don’t be silly, summer is over. Listen-
here come the violent gallops of
winter, invincible as god’s plan.
Its weighty hooves punch through the ashes of man,
through the leaves of a dead autumn, through
the cries of a grey lone wolf, through grooves of sorrows,
until nothing falls to the hands we raise up.

I, of withered spirit and hardened veins, retreat into
my vanished self, gathering silence
upon more silence, to my unanswered questions:
why do sprouts turn to flowers,
then back to weeds;
why do children grow tall and brave,
then bald and afraid.
Why do we cling to what life can not give back?
This infinite circle, and this disillusion
of death and nothingness,
like two star-crossed songbirds,
shall forever lament upon our sordid graves.

When the seeds of the past take root, spring
from earth a quick sensation – vicissitudes of seasons
kick open the fat belly of discontent, palpitating
with springtime urges.
It pleases me so much to see
the colors of hydrangeas descend from the sky,
as I sit here by my open window,
unwinding the yarns of a melancholy mind.
There is a young child in my garden
petting an old dog of a nameless collar,
rosebud cheeks against a wind-beaten tail.
How my heart begins to flutter,
breaking loose in that original spasm,
as I see fireflies
spring up from the child’s fingers.

Originally published on October 4th, 2015 on my old blog.