Spring

Waking whiffs of rosy odors
Whip into my nostrils.
The smell springs life into the budding trees.
New life is applauded
By screaming sparrows
Singing in unison their songs of glee.
Overhead the V of geese
Cruises northward toward the pole.
These longer days take their toll on me.
My back yawns from exhaustion,
Getting roasted
By the sometimes chilly Sun.
He’s brighter than he used to be
And walks more slowly through the sky.
The melting snow soaks my shoulder blades.
Its sitting slush weighs me down.
But soon again it freezes
Upon arrival of gray blinds
That March steadily,
Drawing across the Heavens,
Blotting out the Sun.
As soon as all the snow’s removed
Thunder soaks me even still.
His clouds break to show a bow
From hard red to indigo.
I see hope that I once sowed
Bouncing from the bend toward my brow.
The heat radiates from me
Back to the sky
Where it will magnify
And return.
 

Summer

The bead of sweat that’s hugging tight
My jawline hits my cleft
And falls to the cracking sidewalk
Flooding an army of ants
Marching toward the melting cone
Dropped by a crying child,
Mom dragging him along
To escape my gaze that never shifted.
Others come and go—
And even lay around me—
But eventually all rise to leave.
But not me,
I fall deeper still.
The clouds repeat themselves,
And the birds play their greatest hits.
The cycling Sun weighs heavy on my frame,
My skin depressed by its immense mass
Pulling my skin tighter toward my core.
This is it,
My throat is void of thirst
For it only contains death and begging.
I try to cry for a drink
But only dust escapes my lips.
I feel the final flight of air
Brush against my tongue
Followed by the thinnest glimpse of life
Splash against my single tooth,
Its debris making its way to my throat.
Down the hatch,
The sprinkle rejuvenates my spirit.
This bone dryness will soon be flooded with a new fear:
A flood to take me away.
But it never comes
Only sprinkles to tease me with hope.
This cycle of damp and dry
Repeats with the moon in the sky.
Tormenting temptation is halted
With the introduction of a single leaf
Touching down on my forehead
Telling me the cool air
Is soon to follow its lead.
 

Fall

And soon I’m covered in leaves.
A mosaic of yellow, auburn, red, and green
…Hints of rotting brown…
That will only be blown away by the gusts
That whip my stationary face.
The synchronized laughter that once filled the air
Slowly fades to nothing.
Only occasional eruptions of cheers
And stomping feet from the field near me–
A muffled speaker droning on about tackles and passes,
Helmets, and masks–
Interrupt the ballooning silence.
The sun’s path across the sky veers far enough from my gaze
That darkness blankets me all day
—So it seems—
Providing no warmth.
The early mornings startle me awake
With blinding sun
Spilling from the horizon
And beating honks against my eardrums.
The V’s face the other way now:
Escaping the inevitable freeze
But not me,
I’m frozen to the ground.
 

Winter

The crisp wind creeps in diligently
With the icy fingers of winter
Crawling along the fringes of a window frame.
The air carries only spare tunes
From the toughest songbirds
Whose whistles crack the morning silence.
The clouds are slowed
And weighed down with gray
And gloom
And never seem to go away.
Some days are sunny
But the funny thing…
The Sun, he
Jumps from the sky
To the snow
To my eyes
Blinding me with no regard
For my appreciation of his power and warmth.
On these days the songbirds return
And rejoice for the warmth from the heavens
While their dangling feet freeze from the hell below.
These days subside
And all life hides
And succumbs to the cold.
But between chattering teeth
And sniffling nose
I can make out a V
Pointing north and I know
Life will return from its brief hiatus.
Above
The trees begin to sprout.