Writing About Summer, in Winter

Soon, the yard will fill with a pride of yellow lions

And the flurries outside my window:

Tiny parasails, drifting into neighbor’s yards.

(they will curse the abundance)

Soon, my feet will be buffed by sand

My body dusted with salt;

Seasoned by the sea, slow baked on the beach.

Soon,   so   much   light   - that dusk will be

Heralded by sparks of fire -  there  -  there -

Emerging from the threshold of wild and deliberate space

Random, but not really.

(we do not speak the language)

And we, as children, will exclaim

In our tongues of joy

When the flashes are suddenly  -  here - among us.

Yes, I could write of summer breezes

Whispering stanzas slowed by heat,

But

Why would I want to?  When there are still

Leopards of snow lounging in elbows

Of stately trees, waiting

To pounce on passersby;

When there are complex flavors

Slow rolling in a boil on my stove;

When the rhododendron furls its leaves to

Message me the temperature.

Why, when there are still stacks of books to read

And blazing fires 

To occupy my gaze

And warm the cat’s belly stretched full length

In worship.

Why would I want to hurry this fallow time

- that I have somehow forgotten to honor –

Squandering the gift, and now,

Remembered

Grasping at clear, cold, constellated skies

Even as the dark recedes.

(inexorable tide)

I forgot to listen to the cadence, then

Judged when my body danced 

To the rhythm anyway.

There is still time,

Spring is unreliable.

By Pam Rimington