Buds and the foliage of April
waken to gaudy apparel
Proserpine’s welcome arrival.
Blossoms and ladybugs carol,
dancing in spider silk stocking
as meadows of forest green beryl
set all the swallows to flocking,
enviously twittering their melodies,
endlessly larking and hawking.
The showers of April hold memories
lasting a season or lifetimes
for commoners, kings or deities
in pastoral bundles of rhymes.
But August belongs to desire.
Drowning in illumination,
buds will have burst to aspire
to love’s caressing invasion,
fickle and light though it be,
and lovers’ alienation.
August bewitches us to see
ourselves immortal and mighty.
Giving so generously
our souls up to Aphrodite
pausing not once to consider
why we must hold on so tightly
makes us all foolish and bitter.
Soothing, the autumn winds blow
humanity’s wisdom to auburn,
yellow and dusk. And you grow to
become immensely stubborn,
cherishing loved ones like never
before. And suffer postmodern
delusion to be that whatever
which souls can cry out for. Disorder,
desire, despair are so clever:
rob they the proper word order,
have we all role is reversal,
partner is rival is warder;
this is a truth universal.
Only with darkness comes insight,
when we are the light that we shine
on ourselves, perilous and bright are
the darkest of days, the hours divine,
traipsing down memory lane.
Yes, we regret the decline —
husks in the Reaper’s domain –,
but fondly look back on our feelings
and live them again when insane.
What then can still be appealing —
why our sweet moment stall –,
as to a leaf softly wheeling
when all that is left is the fall?
Joris Lemoine 