The Seasons

It seems to me we favour most
the season of our age --
though truth to tell, the summer's heat,
for all the time that I recall,
would leave me cool inside.

My first love was
vivacious spring,
its joie de vivre,
its brightness, hope and colour sense.
It was a long affair. Perhaps too long.
But then again: no one got hurt.

So summer time was overlooked
and went without the small amount
of credit it deserved. Harsh of light,
bunged full of stuff,
it lost its shape.
Warm, staid and comforting,
its boring days
were friendly and reserved.
I kept it just for doing things --
other things, not things with it.

Autumn took me by surprise
(the way that summer did to Eliot
across the Starnbergersee),
but like a lover in my case --
like one I'd always courted,
but never thought to win,
who'd never shown the slightest heed,
but then had caught me willy-nilly
with dark and flashing eyes.

But now, ah now, 'tis winter time:
the season and my soul agree --
and if the body jibs a bit,
it always was a misery,
not liking this or that...
I bow to winter and its charms,
its stark and minimal delights,
its skeletons and filigrees
like blueprints in His pattern book
the Craftsman opens just for those
who'll revel in His Winter show,
and so reveals this time of year,
the elegance of structures,
the underlying rhythms:
His reasons and his rhymes.