Tag: Seasons

The Stag

image is my own


As I sit at my desk, I watch the does scale the stucco wall.
Their leaps never fail to dazzle.
Next, they stretch their necks to grab and eat the seed pods from the trees. 
Here, in the foothills of the Sandias, this sight wrings a sigh.
Then I see him, outside the wall and to the left, 
watching the does. 
He is large but nearly hidden behind the tall Chamisa waving in the breeze. 
His head would be a prize to any hunter.  
His antlers tall and wide, many pointed. 
He steps away from the cover of the Chamisa.  
What I thought a waving branch— an arrow lodged in his left shoulder.
He is the stag the neighbors have posted about—
The one they say will eventually succumb to the wound.
Reflexively, I rub my own left shoulder 
once frozen still from scar tissue 
until broken loose years ago by a medical procedure
but now occasionally aches. 
How I wish I could help this buck. 
Remove the arrow, apply some healing balm,
Let him recover here, feasting on seed pods, before sending him on his way 
only a scar to ache every once in a while.


Winter’s Will

image courtesy of ALEX VASILYEV on wired.com

There is no understanding

how winter comes

for it comes in too many ways

at too many times

often when it shouldn’t

starting at the edges

creeping to the core

snatching away all the covers

driving out the flames

or

slowly, softly

almost tenderly

like a gentle, timid lover

will winter drift into days

as autumn delicately falls

little dip by little dip into winter’s icy arms

then a frozen world is made.

At times winter rides

with sword drawn

into spring

after life has begun

to wreck havoc on all things

green and growing,

make still all hearts feeling the flow of life begin,

at those times, winter rides

until sweated out

in the course of time.

Yet winter may freeze us solid

in the midsts of summer’s heatwaves

as we stand over gaping mouths of graves.

While some breathing in the hope of spring

as others live in winter’s black ice

suffering the bite of hunger and need

winter’s winter grows larger still

beyond Arctic, beyond talk of tundra,

or talk of some kind of permafrost—

but something too many know.

we will not end in fire

nor will we end in ice

in the end,

it will be the lukewarm breeze

of indifference,

the one to do us in.

 

 

Winter

Blurred edges of a winter morning

A dawn leached of color

Where silence and stillness walk

Holding hands

A moment captured waking

Lasts

As warmth fades

And coldness settles in

To stay.