Twelve Months in Verse

It started in January when I wrote a poem about the cherry tree in the front of the house.  I had built a simple bird feeder that we hung in that tree.  The feeder mainly attracted chickadees.  Our daughter and son liked to push a chair up to the kitchen window and watch them.

Then I wrote another poem in February about an Amaryllis that blossomed in the kitchen window.  I think it was after that poem that I set myself the task of writing a poem for each month of the year throughout 2013. 

I managed it and here they are.  I like some better than others, but I can say I'm pleased with each of them. 

The poem for March, Crocuses, isn't an accurate reflection of what March was this past year.  Normally crocuses do blossom here in March but this year we lots of snow through the first week of April (including a snow fall on Easter Sunday that had it looking more like Christmas!).  The crocuses had to wait until April.

All poems are written by me except where otherwise noted.  I include Wanda Chotomska's poem Łabędzie (Swans) in Polish that I translated for the month of December.

I hope you enjoy them.



Cherry Tree in January

Black against a lime green wall,
bare branches
with black-capped chickadees
          quickly
                      flashing
   from branch
                      to branch,
black against a lime green wall.


Amaryllis in February

Dull are the days in late winter.
Trees tug the skies like a blanket.
Freezing rain spatters the window.
In the sleeping kitchen darkness
A fire star erupts in the night:
Amaryllis in the morning light.


Crocuses

Up from the March mud
and melting ice of Winter's hems
retreating,
come sky blue, blood
red and sun fire gems:
Spring's greeting.


April Orchard

In clouds of blossom
Billowing pink and white
Bees thrum and birds sing bright
And clear - Listen
Fallen man
Listen and you will hear
Creation exult
He is risen!


For Our Lady

Come, crown the Queen of May
With lilacs, tulips and apple broth.
The chestnut trees will light the way,
A thousand torches held aloft.

Bring spotted lilies, peonies;
The dandy-lions will guard the way.
With flags of flowers such as these,
Come, crown the Queen the May.


June

There on my left the moon hangs white as wax.
On my right, the western horizon glows.
Some late birds twitter unseen in their roosts.
Incessant crickets pulse and pulse and pulse.
Overhead the stars slowly salt the night
As on we're hurled through frigid space.  Yet still
I stand in this orchard of swelling fruit.
A brief half-night and then the cocks will crow.
Now's the soft unfolding of the season.
The air is cool.  As it is in summer's
Beginning, so shall it be at the end.


Summer

In the cooling air of an evening in July,
Beneath a space of blue, magenta clouds sail high.
Swallows, sharp as arrows, swoop, turn, then rise again
In arabesques as swift as light, sweet as rain.


Harvest

August comes a fiery king
     In robes of radiant gold;
Embroidered figures thereupon
     With stories to be told:

Rolling fields of grain new shorn
     Reflect an amber light;
Squared and ribbed and crossed by roads
     Of blinding dusty white

That run away to wooded hills
     Of green burnt at the edges,
Where thrushes rustle furtively
     In thorny black cap hedges.

A hamlet's nestled on a stream.
     Great chestnuts and a steeple
Lift a cloudless sky above
     A bronzed and honest people.

There walks within an orchard cool
     A girl with golden hair,
'Neath russet apples, purple plums
     Suspended in the air.


Potato Season

A haze hangs low in fields
Where families stoop in staggered rows
Gathering potatoes into buckets.
A tractor and wagon stand nearby.

Hours turn, the wagon's slowly filled.
An autumn sun burns bright as now
One figure stands and stretches,
September light reflected in each eye.


Early Fire

Is that the smoke of war
this early morning,
punctuated with bursts of orange fire,
bursts of yellow, blasts of magenta,
a mute artillery fight?

The morning sun reveals
October fog
pierced by radiant oaks and maples
afire with day's new light.


Novemberland

Gray watery sky
On damp brown weeds;
No sun, no song, no breath.

No sparrows fly
To gather summer seeds;
A day of quiet death.


Swans

Great swans are flying.
Their white feathers fall
on the quiet earth below.

Careful swans a'flying,
you're losing feathers all!
But no -
'Tis only winter's first snow.


Łabędzie
Wanda Chotomska

Odleciały
łabędzie o świcie.
Białe pióra
spadły na brzeg.
- Uważajcie,
pióra gubicie!
- To nie pióra,
to pierwszy
śnieg.