After the too long winter
I want to drop to my knees in gratitude on April’s crocus carpet
And when the sun stays up late in summer
You’ll find me in some park or garden, unwilling to depart before the final embers are extinguished by the evening cool
As squirrel-like, I feel compelled to hoard every last nugget of light.
Yet despite my annual joy when daffodils raise their trumpets to herald new life
This hope always turns to disappointment
For summer never quite fulfils spring’s promise
And that exotic flower
Whose scent I catch in early May
And whose burgeoning splendour I strongly sense in balmy June
Must bloom in gardens where I never go
For these many summers I’ve not found it yet.
But autumn’s glorious dying I have seen
And the serene relinquishing of all those deeds not done
Reconciled with misdeeds that irrevocably were, in naïve spring or hot-headed summer.
Once reaped, this lawful harvest is gently laid on November’s cleansing fire
For purification in that impartial furnace, a truer friend in the end, than the seductive sun
And as the scent of surrender is carried on the smoky air
I know that spring and summer have never produced
A fragrance quite as sweet.