A Quest for Gold:  A Poem in Five Parts

October as a Volcano

Erupt and spew your molten lava brashly on the earth.
Let trees with red and golden spumes halt the endless birth
of summer’s mellow symphony of silver, blue, and green
and chirping, buzzing promise kept
to wide-eyed spring.

Autumn’s Promise

October’s leaves now make – a crackling, shuffling note,
dropped like ragged buttons clipped from nature’s tattered coat:
“Spy within this dark terrain –
leaves to flowers –
snow to rain –
whenever the springtime comes again!”

Winter’s Reality

Yet burnt-out leaves must rust and rot and sink in deadened ground,
hushed by spinning snow and lulled by vacant sound.
They cannot expect to live,
and they have nothing left to give.

Spring’s Reply

Larks with ruffled wings – call green-leaved trees their home.
Newborn lambs now leap in arcs – beneath the yellow sun.
Bend low to touch a velvet moss –
its royal robe has not been lost.
The trees have found a second life,
resurrected from their plight.
Green plays counterpoint to gold
in meadows young, horizons old.

Discovery

Follow lightly singing showers
to fields of glistening golden flowers –
autumn’s promise, kept at last,
in springtime’s splendor, unsurpassed.

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