Spring is the season of madness,
as fine and also bitter as any high always is in the end.
Every doomed thing that grows boasts in beauty,
and who wouldn't finger the new green blades?
who wouldn't close their eyes in the warm stranger sun and sigh?
Every heart is a blind radio, and what good is the word or song
without someone to hear it, turn toward it,
and seem to know the meaning?
Summer is a fever we invite, because we long to be feverish.
What fool thinks a bonfire will burn a hundred years?
Look, legions of fools consumed by the thing that feeds them,
vanishing because we long to vanish, and then crying, lost, surprised.
In autumn, I have felt myself fall in a million pieces, until I stood
naked as any idiot tree. I was beautiful in a million ways,
pick me up, press me in pages, even just one leaf between leaves,
but I end up with all the others, up against some fence, silent, far from home.
Winter is the season of stillness, and those who have stored up sorrows
find they do not lack for much. Snowy ground makes others much clearer--
where they've come from, where they're headed. There's no need anymore
to build with strips and shreds, we become our own nest and wait,
astonished and patient, a quiet station at rest in the moonlight.
_______________
for Desperate Poets "Desperately Different".
Title adapted from the song Green Rocky Road
Music: The Motels Only The Lonely
"Every heart is a blind radio" - that whole stanza is really deep - the seat of human longing. Beautiful. "Legions of fools, consumed by the thing that feeds them...then crying, lost surprised" is as fine a line about where we find ourselves as a species as can be written, I think. I LOVE "becoming our own nest." Such a brilliant depiction of the seasons and oneself in them, such fine writing. I love it. I love your prompt too.
ReplyDeleteBundles of quotables lines in this mesmerising trip through the seasonal tides. Here's to the doomed beauties and bitter highs. Now where's that Nest?
ReplyDeleteIt's somewhat of a triumph, I'd say, how fresh and uniquely yours you have made the normally banal trip through the seasons worn to death by a million drab poetry prompts. Here each one is given a weight of the heart proper to it, each one is telling us a truth we might otherwise choose to ignore. The hope of spring's greening, the feverishness of summer's passions, the subsidence of life that yet has its own beauty in autumn, and winter, where"..those who have stored up sorrows/find they do not lack for much..." all common enough, yet in your words, painting and shading with such subtlety, they seem things we have never appreciated, never even really looked at before. Just brilliant, Shay--a masterpiece of a poem only you could write.
ReplyDeleteA great season countdown. I'm partial to feverish summers! But this also makes me long for winter and a cozy nest.
ReplyDelete"Every heart is a blind radio, and what good is the word or song
ReplyDeletewithout someone to hear it, turn toward it,
and seem to know the meaning?" - this is so F-ing GOOD!!
The whole thing is quintessential Shay goodness and I simply can't quote it all! Love it :-)
A poem for all seasons. Honesty and irony and everything in between. Wonderful poem..JIM
ReplyDeleteTruths be told here, the heart is its own calendar, ripping the seasonal pages wildly, greedily, forlornly as days warm, burn, turn, still. The collective "we" is a heart standing alone at a midnight moonlit station, waiting in expectation for what never quite arrives or passes by without stopping. Such observations are fiercely loyal to that solitude which is kindred (mine, ours). I'm not sure what this refutes - poesy seems a too obvious target - the promises of youth through the round, perhaps, one's own indomitable pop soundtrack. But its hauntingly fine.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply, B, and what it refutes is my own expectations form most of my life. i tend to idle too high, and have spent most of my life perusing the next thing that will siphon off some of that built-up steam. However, now, in my 60's, i am pleasantly surprised to find that i no longer look for outside things and excitements. I am content (!) living quietly and pursuing my books, writing, and hobbies.
DeleteThis is exquisite.
ReplyDelete