​The Loom of the Seasons

​The winter arrives with a clinical cold, To strip the illusions away from the trees, A story of iron and ivory told In the language of frost on a North-bound breeze. Then spring is a riot, a sudden rebellion, A green-fisted punch through the hardening clay, A chorus of colors, a vibrant medallion Worn on the breast of a lengthening day. ​Summer is heavy, a golden-eyed beast, Languid and stretching in meadows of hay, A shimmering, endless, and sun-drenched feast Before the soft amber of autumn’s decay. The leaves are like letters we never did mail, Brittle and crimson and scattered by wind, A paper-thin record, fragile and frail, Of every beginning that’s destined to end.