The Poem Calendar

January brings an icy jaundice 

that infects the land and yellows it; 

then bandages it in wintry white 

of a 'cotton' made of snow drifts. 

February finishes what months before hath wrought; 

All the grayed earth reduced to silence 

and to reflection, and to thought

entranced in cold compliance 

March makes for springtime,

promising some warmth 

transforms snowbanks into riverbanks,

thaws out the agrarians' farms 

April initiates the rains

so powerful and purposeful

washing all in cloudy stain

to turn all sunlight null 

May begins all botany

with rain to give it birth 

shall sing the florists' litany- 

'to live and love thy Earth' 

June enlightens with its summer evenings

milky dish of moon simmers high above; 

and the trysting trees of forests green

will give refuge to romantics in love

July brandishes its sear-blue skies

but its dusk sun is the purest gold;

and the nightfall a lurid lilac sigh-

the stars number a million-fold. 

August burns to brackish crimson

dog days to talk and to tell

to each other atop the escarpment's run, 

the strange stories we will sell

September glowers slowly, as summer drips to dregs

back to books and scholarly pursuits

as the north wind gets back on its legs 

the leaves will wither quietly, the demise then of their youth 

October welcomes orange and red

to paint an autumn panorama 

the orchards with their apples fed

speckled songbirds like the thrush 

November remembers the winter to come,

hot cooking to line the window sills;

first snow to descend upon the home

the frozen front that will finesse the hills 

December will elate the soul

the hearth glimmering rosy fire;

festive food to fill the bowls

and a happiness un-bemired.