And so the seasons

Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that I said? etc.,. . . may be an old song but it keeps coming back like a. . . (should I risk it?). . .ahem. . . song. Well, look at it this way; I'm in the 8th decade of my life and suddenly summer, having blazed across the weeks of its allotted season, slipped by me when I was looking the other way, leaving only a few sad, brave roses to remind me she had been. Autumn came along, stepped  over the  doorstep and stood beside me as I looked out from my window, admiring her  handiwork. I wondered again how this new season came into my embrace while my arms still ached to hold, if but for a day, the deserting love of summer past. Oh! the beauty and scents of summer! Oh! the colours and forms of autumn! The seasons! How infinitely lovely, how infinitely lucky we are who live each one in its entirety. Autumn, as we watched together suddenly left me without comment, surprising in her haste. I glanced at the door she passed through, shrugged and looked again towards the sea and saw no longer the glorious colours  of a moment before but mountainous waves, stinging slanted rains blown in mad confusion by the wind. What a devil this Autumn was leaving us to contend with such unwelcome and unfriendly days. Ah! Well, coming soon to a garden near you, stroking his frost woven beard, waiting impatiently around the next corner is Old Man Winter, ready to slam the door on Autumn and eagerly blow upon one and all his fiercely white and terrible winds. Frosting trees and shivering lands with crystals of snow he pokes his icy fingers into every unprotected nook and cranny; laughing as we dream of warming fires and season's cheer shared with friends and family. But at last, his time run out, the Old Man  slips and lags behind, unable to hold back the racing child who leaps and bounds ahead, happily thawing ice and snow with eager sun and warming April rain. Joyous Spring, full of boisterous youth, bursting with the promise of renewal, scatters his cornucopia of wonders over a waking world. Though all the seasons of the year are loved in their fashion, and some hold a place more dear than others, it is Summer, the maiden of light, who wears the crown.

                                                   Summer is a-coming in,                               
                                  Sing a loud "cuckoo!"
                                  The seed grows, the mead blows
                                  The wood springs anew.
                                  Sing, cuckoo!

                                  For her calf lows the cow;
                                  For her lamb bleats the ewe;
                                  The bull rouses, the buck browses,
                                  Merrily sing, cuckoo!

                                  Cuckoo, cuckoo, O, sing you well, cuckoo;
                                  Nor let your song be through:
                                  Sing cuckoo, now, sing cuckoo;
                                  Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now.
                                                             (An ancient English song)

Oh, glorious summer, you've been, you've gone and how dearly we long for your return, but your siblings who bring in the seasons must have their day; and as always, they lay the way for your return.

And now - forgive me but I must  give due where it is due. The above tribute to the Wonder of the Seasons was brought about by the remembrance of a certain  poem by Ezra Pound, an American poet of the early years of the 20th century. I will not go into his varied history but with the freeze of winter coming my memory launched said poem into my tottering mind.

                                                                    Ancient Music
                                                                                  by Ezra Pound
                                         Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!
                                  Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!
                                  Winter is i-cumin in,
                                  Lhude sing goddamn!
                                  Raineth drop and staineth slop
                                 A nd how the wind doth ram
                                 Sing goddamn!

                                   Skiddth bus and sloppeth us,
                                An ague hath my ham
                                 Freezeth river, turneth liver,
                                Damn you, sing goddamn.
                                Goddamn, goddamn, tis why I am goddamn,
                                So gainst the winter’s balm.

                               Sing goddamn, sing goddamn, DAMN!