Seasons
Hydrangeas boast bountiful blooms
of blue.
Gardenias’ pungent pleasure is
caught upon the heavy air,
suffused into the viscous heat.
Summer comes, and air
conditioners hum.
I sweat tilling the earth
and pull up weeds determined to
smother my tomatoes growing tall.
Fall’s first scarlet leaf
spirals down onto the murky pond,
although creamy roses still
crown their thorny stems.
A crisp breeze sweeps about and
tickles the pink pinched upon my cheeks.
I draw my sweater 'round me as
the sun sinks sucking away its warmth
and the gods paint the trees
gold and red along the lilac skyline.
Gray dawn spills upon a silent
shimmering world—
stilled and chilled by crystal
glaze—prisms and diamond dust.
Quartz encrusted cedar boughs
bend to graze the glassy grass.
Inside the fire is a fury
licking at oak hewn only yesterday.
I reach to feel the embers that
ease the complaints of well-worked bones.
Winter slipped away—
somewhere between that last log
on the fire
and a short-sleeved T-shirt.
Suddenly one morning the azaleas
were a fiery coral
and the dogwood was bedecked in
holy white.
I never got my tulips planted,
maybe then I would have noticed
the imminence of spring.
Life is but a second
and the seasons come so fast.
When did I become an old woman?
