the four seasons

 

Happy New Year, my friends!

I'm starting this new year off with something completely different...

While going through my saved files recently, I stumbled across a piece of my own writing that I had forgotten all about. Written over two decades ago, it speaks to me as much now as when I wrote it - and I can vividly remember where I was sitting when I first put my thoughts into words. Reading it again now brings back the joy and wonder of that day, the beauty of my surroundings, and the clear understanding of where I was in life to have penned these words on a day that dawned cool and crisp, letting me know that Summer had fled overnight... something I wasn't really happy about.

Because my poem* is about how I see the four seasons, I thought I'd share it here.

"It’s not that I don’t like Autumn. I do…

Autumn is a gorgeous redhead, her long glorious russet tresses blowing in the wind. Her amber eyes reflect the late afternoon sun, and glow with the depth of flames in a fire at days’ end. She tantalizes me with the scent of fresh rain on fallen leaves. She wakes me up to see the golden glow of a misty morning, when the sun sneaks along behind the fog. She tempts me on chilly mornings with a whispered promise of warm afternoons that melt into cool dusks and starry skies.

I just wasn’t ready for Summer to go yet.

Summer is a caramel blonde, drifting on a soft breeze… warm and sunny, filled with energy, playful and distracting. She coaxed me into hours of lying or sitting on the beach, telling me it was OK to write articles with my toes in the sand or research projects while sitting on my porch swing. She crafted a careful romance with her 5 AM sunrises, bringing me sunbeams that stole into my window and landed on my cheek to awaken me along with the birds singing in the trees. She filled my days with brilliance and warmth, and ended them with orange sherbet-colored sunsets at 11 PM, wrapping me in her embrace.

One day she was here, and the next….. just a whisper.

Spring is Summer's elder sister, arriving to the party first - with a sunny smile and armloads of blooming golden daffodils. Her hair is marigold strawberry blonde and bounces around her face like tall grass in the breeze. Her chartreuse green eyes sparkle with elfin glee, her cheeks are like pink roses, and her laugh is a windchime. If a sudden shower begins, she tilts her head back, looks up into the sky, and twirls in circles as the rain falls onto her as she breathes in the glorious scent of petrichor. She tugs at my hand and gleefully urges 'Let's go play outside in the garden!', and as we step into the yard, butterflies and birds begin to flutter and sing in welcome. She only leaves after she has heralded her sisters' arrival with a glorious profusion of fragrant blooms in the garden, the perfect perfume.

They are my friends, the Seasons, and since I only get to see them once a year, I like to spend as much time with each one as I can. Time seems to fly so quickly, though, and we never really finish our visits before each needs to take her leave.

Except Winter.

She always shows up earlier than invited and overstays her welcome. She's an old woman with scraggly long gray hair and bland, disheveled clothes who has no where else to go. She's cold and distant and inhospitable. I really dread her visits because it's just hard to connect with her - maybe that's why Autumn's arrival gives me pause. I just know that Winter will come knocking next...."

As I have aged, moving through the Autumn of my middle-age life toward the Winter of my elderly years, my perspective has changed. My understanding of Winter has grown, and now I can embrace the lessons that she comes to teach us.

So I re-wrote the last part:

"and then there's Winter...

She is clad in subtle tones - soft grays, whites, deep charcoals.

Her burgeoning silver hair roils in the wind like storm swells in the sea, all motion and fury. The song she sings is mournful, soft, a long-lost lullaby to nature that sends it off to sleep. Her eyes glow a deep amber gold, the lone touch of warmth in her presence that holds the promise of a sunrise to come.

Hiding in the background as Autumn frolics, peering around corners and through leafy bowers, watching all the action, she waits for her moment to enter the scene. When Autumn finally spins away in a wind that erases all of the color from the world, Winter steps out of her hiding place, stands in the bleakness, and opens her arms wide. She spreads her cloak, covering the Earth and my moods in a thick gray blanket that sheds fluttering white snowflakes. Her power transforms landscapes into dreamy otherworlds and conceals what life still remains beneath the surface.

Winter knows she is necessary... unloved, tolerated, unwelcome... but necessary. Earth cannot survive without her, Nature cannot continue her journey without her. The other Seasons cannot arrive until her work is complete. And so she stays, often longer than planned, until it is done.

And then, she hides herself away as the party begins again." 

As this year dawns under winter's embrace, i hope you find wonder and joy in her presence, and that the coming seasons will be welcome on your doorstep...

~ deb

*this poem is my personal creation and property, and is protected by copyright.

please do not copy, share, or republish in any way.