Tapestry of Seasons

Poetry

Tapestry of Seasons

Margaret Worthy, Victoria

Volume 39  Issue 4, 5 & 6 | Posted: July 18, 2024

So stern, O January! You crochet icy lace
upon the windows,
Then burn us with your cauterising chill,
Upholster all the fields and trees with snowy “down”,
The lakes immobilized, obey your frosty will.

And frowning February, whose gaze will soften, yet
At tender youthfulness of chaste flowers,
The shivering snowdrops, publishing their too brief
message from the sleeping Spring.
Sad month! you mourn their little day,
Filling the creeks with constant tears and, weeping,
Steal away before your time.

So blustering March emboldened enters early
Accompanied by golden trumpeters,
File upon file of waving, nodding daffodils
Their welcome well assured.

Comes April, with her lily-perfumed breath
And hands brim-filled with Easter flowers;
Her feet tread violets;
Smiles she through rainbowed tears at every surly cloud.

Ah, lovely, laughing May appears once more,
Blushing ‘mid bridal-blossomed boughs,
Shaking confetti petals from her gown –
And as she passes, even the aged, calloused trees
Bud forth new sapling shoots, and sigh
And murmur memories.

Now the full foliaged lanes provide your canopy,
The regal rose will line your queenly route.
Hail! bride of the kingly sun, beloved June,
Your Court holds sway o’er many a nuptial festival.

So soon it seems July rides jubilant on Summer’s zenith,
Urging the frantic pollen-burdened bee
To yet more toil mid noon-drosed flowers,
The sun with scorching gaze flings golden symbols
On the harbour tide, changing, and too swift to read.
Upon the air the ever-wheeling gulls echo the delirious
joy of children blossoming on the sands,
The wile majestic August with benign and brassy gaze
Surveys the waning carnival of Sol
A flock of sails nod limply on the sea.

When some bright morn, surprised by sudden chill
We see new russet-blush upon the trees,
Remembered vague misgivings fill the heart
As when a loved one turns to leave.
‘Tis then we find, ah, find dismayed,
The farewell notes of Summer
Held in September’s mist-gloved hands.

In mellow mood, with dowry of harvest-gold
October smiles across the shearling fields,
Their yellow fleece already yielding to the hungry barns;
While here and there, see many of lingering rose
Glow wistful in the luminous evening air.

Bedecked with foggy plumes, and clad in gray,
So Dame November wends her faltering way
Into sad colonies of stricken trees,
Robbed of their last red-gold by pirate winds
Now busy harrassing the sullen seas.

And here the ruddy mein of holly-crowned December …
Ah, jocund harbinger of child delight,
You stride the avenues of spruce and fir
While aromatic pines swing censers in the frosty nights.
Is this a breath of frankinsense upon the air?
And echoing camel-bells perchance —
or just dind-stir?

   

Margaret Worthy, Victoria