Shifting of the Seasons

Vernal life spurts forth with foliage verdant-white
Fragile leaflets fresh from earthen womb leap toward sunlight
The grasses get some color back in their cheeks
Avians return, spilling liquid song from their beaks.

Compact ferns extend and begin to unfurl
Crocuses crowning the ground bloom and twirl
Following their phototropic inclination
While the season is doused in precipitation.

In time, spring succumbs to the summer’s heat
Plumpening fruits grow in wake of blossoms’ retreat
Beside fields grow matriarchal lace and chicory
And nuts ripen and fall from the oak and hickory.

Flowers like black-eyed Susans and vibrant echinacea
Make fine ingredients in my personal panacea
My being drinks in the sun and the breeze and the shade
Before I know it, long glorious days start to fade…

Harvest approaches and, in the mornings, the chill of frost takes hold
Imperceptibly, tree boughs shift their greenery to scarlet-gold
‘Tis time for apple picking and cider pressing
And feasting on fowls chock-full-o’ dressing.

By daylight, farmers gather in crops that make up our meat
And evenings are filled with beverages hot and sweet
Bonfires, too, surge along with the surrounding company
Who share a kindred moment and perchance a melody.

Leaves grow dry, brown, and brittle—and submit themselves to the air
Fluttering down to the turf, blending into a quilt beyond compare
One that is crunchy and multi-faceted and catches the dew
A sign that it’s not long before the landscape endures something new.

For a blanket of white covers the quilt that was strewn before
The blizzard that ensues makes one dream if there’s anything more
Than the cold drifts of snow that make mute every blessed thing
Covering all equally, recalling the lost music birds would sing…

In the recesses of the beehive sit jars of pollen fermenting
While outside the bite of cold suspends the whole of Nature’s growing
We witness increase in the home; stagnation in wood and garden
‘Tis the season warm-blooded bodies stay put and cold snowbanks harden.

It tends to be a barren time of hunkering down and hibernation
Till the sun scatters the snow and brings with it rejuvenation
Fragile leaflets fresh from the earthen womb arise and stretch toward sunlight
Migratory birds return, spilling liquid song after a frozen winter’s night.

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