Summer
We have long been here
Under a sun that grows meaner by the year
the work, the harvest, the heat,
But the children run with their backs turned
We’ll never run so freely,
Autumn
It grew between the soot and rain,
stretching itself sideways into the narrow throat of brightness,
The happiest olive tree in London.
I never meant to leave.
Follow the golden stag into the forest,
Winter
We are still here.
Still here — new flowers bloom from broken branches;
we tremble from the cold they themselves brought upon us.
let us stay awake here until morning.
I am coming home.
Spring
I have seen the first green insist through ash.
Seam by seam swallows have stitched the air, I have seen it.
Rainwater caught in buckets, barrels, cracked bowls, open palms.
Snowmelt becoming river, becoming field, becoming bread.
I have held life’s face in my hands
The year turns again.
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