A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

This is a series of four poems on the seasons, each two-hundred and fifty words, to make up a picture worth a thousand words.

I wish you could see it in it's full size format but it's way too big for here.

So here is the text for each season:

Winter

Winter’s frosty reign opens cold but serene,
Austere and clear, echoing across frozen lakes
The death of the green and the living
It seems, masked in ice crystals, sleet and snow,
Shivering in the chill air, waiting and still
A dark night creeping upon us in midday,
Something gray and ominous and unwanted
That steals our breath away and freezes it
Unyielding and too strong for us to fight
So we surrender to it and give in as it
Dims our eyes with a storm of stinging white
A cold embrace from an opened door
That sends feet scurrying back within
To seek a warm fire or loving arms
But once more frozen in time, until
One day seeing the beauty of a single snowflake,
As it dances its way down to the snowbank
Or witnessing black bare branches silhouetted
Against a bluer backdrop that heads toward March,
Its beauty and perfection jogs loose memories and we
Realize the earth didn’t die and pass away into darkness,
It just lay asleep, silently dreaming
Nodding and turning over onto her other side, to wait
For the resting time to rejuvenate soil and sky,
Regenerating creatures too, bodies and souls alike
The peaceful, silent days required to
Make all things clean and pristine, culling
The weak and those whose time was at an end
Old feelings and old thinkings both alike
Waiting for the proper time to start
Thawing and repeat the process all over again,
Winter, when all of life begins

Spring

Spring time earth soil warming slowly, root hairs
Tingling, stretching out underground, prodding
Earthworms to reclaim dark soil, as grasses’ roots
Push their way to the surface in a burst of green
So shocking it almost hurts the eyes after
All the somber colors of the cold time, stark trees
Put on new garments of fresh color, budding into flowers
While far below tubers prepare to release the blossoms held within
Tulips, hyacinths, daffodils with their pungent scents announcing
Light and color has returned to the world, reflected in pools of rainshowers
Let spirits rejoice with the woodland and the field, drinking in
The rich jewel tones of red and yellow and purple, regal enough for any king
To wear as proud plumage, like the birds that call, announcing their joy
To mate and bear young, replenish the skies with new life as
Flowers and trees and grasses and weeds replenish the face of the earth mother
She is pleased and sends out her blessings and benediction, richness
Overflowing as the flowers set fruit and the eggs are laid,
Cubs and kits are born, the acorn forms in microcosm, and winter
Becomes a distant memory, life is moving fast, a blur, quickly spurred
By a rhythm that tolerates no delay, no pausing by the way, only
The quickening of the earth and all its creatures, including us,
We who would set ourselves apart from this cycle, but really
Are as much a part as any other, observer, participant, and lover

Summer
Summer rolls in lazy and soft, her countenance hot and hazy
From a distance, we doze, lying under laden peach trees sucking
Rosy flesh from fuzzy skins, juices running freely down our chins
While bees hum over our heads and butterflies alight to sip nectar
Here in this wilderness garden a thousand plants bloom with abandon,
Lantana with its prickly stems and golden heads of tiny flowers,
Trails of white clover, perfect for threading into blossom
Necklaces, crowns for our heads, bracelets, and rings,
Our little fingers find, digging right down among the grass
Hiding way down low, bright delicate strawberries
Nestling there, from tiny nub to sweet luscious orb, sprinkled
With tiny seeds that shine on the ripe surface sublime
We plunder them too, more juices streaking our skins,
Our leavings attracting the white doves who peck at the bitten fruit
Then we spy not far away, over a low stone wall another delight
With a thousand shades of red and pink and yellow
The rose garden so tangled and wild, a faint path
That winds through sun baked field heady and nodding
With their spicy scent, the two, the fruit and the flower,
Scarlet rose-hips nodding in rhythm while rose petals ruffle
In rare breezes, here we can only look with wonder and breathe deep
The perfume guarded by spiky thorns, stems too strong for surrender
To young hands, they go free of our plundering ways and know
They will survive the end of our pirate summer days

Autumn

Autumn unfurls carpets of bright wheat, ripening in fields
Rippling proudly by strong northern winds snapping cold
Sharp air that makes the chest expand with joy at being alive
Relief from the heat of the season past, now glowing with energy
Gourds and pumpkins snake their way over land
Yellows and golds, striped, and rusty orange with dark green leaves
Earthy potatoes huddling underground to breed white flesh
Tall gnarled trees dangling shiny crimson apples come to ripeness
People in sweat-stained, worn clothes swarm gardens and fields
Hay falls before machines and rolls into great shocks
Corn stands at attention and then leans into tents of stalks
Harvest is readied to be scythed and bundled, then trundled away
To granaries and silos, to be salted, dried and preserved,
By wise, knowing young or ancient hands, in jars and crocks
Filled to the brim for the empty season that lies ahead
A rich time, a turning time, a winnowing time
When the world waits for the bounty to be stowed away
Red squirrels gather stores of acorns from stately trees
Oak leaves evolve from sage to yellow to burnished amber,
Dark veins tracing patterns in leathery matrix, falling
And spiraling down down down to the damp ground
Wind piling them in drifts of colors all mixed, a blaze
Of fall’s chaotic design, a kaleidoscope that shifts
With every breeze, frost coming on with setting sun
Bonfire burns brother oak’s beauty to soot and ash
Announcing to all, this season is done