FIFTH SEASON
Just give me one more season
so I can figure out the other four.
-John Prine
Summer ends, the last lights of
the late dusk dripping across
heat wilted river lilies, while
the hummingbird dances a few
swoops for the remaining sweet,
for the last hurrah, the last zing
on by.
We turn to fall in shades of
amber, goldenrod funneling
pollen through the breeze, each
sneeze assured. The palms grow
cold, the mittens tucked away
are finally called
upon.
The dark is also the cold, and the
months stretch long into a white
desert once the evergreen has
been strewn to the curbside for
pickup, holidays passed. There
were few ghosts to show for it,
though we long for the sing-
song spirits which once dotted
the Douglas fir, the now-stripped
oak.
After frost we tap the maples,
draining sap into condenser bags
careful so as not to spill, so as not
to rain liquid gold upon the turning
mosses, driving themselves
slowly out of the ashen claws of
Winter.
Though syrup is sweet, sap
alone crawls across the tongue
like cement dries in the tepid sun,
leaving teeth to grit themselves
against the adhesive liquid devoid
of any saccharine
sweet.
Spring,
of minds between, is much the
same. Sand lines the snowbank,
etched by tire grease and boot
tracks. The boys have gone to
work peeling the pavement,
tearing away the black tar
bubbles thrown upwards by
ice stowed beneath thawing
road. North State is upturned,
throngs of students abound,
circumnavigating the newly
dug pit. Hardhats align the
corners, we are rebuilding.
We are repaving. We will
repave again, and again.
Then maybe one more
time. No—
