Su Ben Poet Narrative

Four Season Woman

One early morning I heard the sound of approaching spring.
It was the sound of a bashful maiden crossing the stream 
barefooted, holding the skirt in her slender fingers.  

An azalea on the hillside is, with flushing cheeks, 
peeking through the gap between two rocks.

I heard the swish of whip under the scorching sun, 
it was the summer wielding the whip in middle of air 
to drive a poor little white cloud away.

It was the great struggle and cry of a maiden 
who was dragged by a big hand for forced marriage 
to an overly arrogant, and therefore, disgusting man, 
who lives in the village on the other side of the hill.
     
A cicada in a perfect impersonal beatitude is meditating 
under the shade of a tree eyes closed on worldly matters.

On one nightfall, I heard the sound of autumn passing through 
the plain, accompanying fallen leaves.  It was the hollow resound, 
a sardonic self-scorn of a lonely woman who walks over the fallen leaves.

It was the empty echo, a painful sigh of the broken hearted 
woman who looks back the horrible past from the forgotten path 
of perverted fate.
     
Under the beam of moonlight a cricket in the dungeon 
as a confined prisoner, overwhelmed with grief, sadly chirps.

I saw an approaching winter violently punishing a dead tree’s limbs and branches.  It was the roar of fierce tempest, it was the grudge of a woman who stands 
in the middle of blizzard.

I saw winter walks on the stars above frozen sky in white garments.  
It was the lamentation of the woman who roams in the other side of netherworld. It was the horrible memories of absurd past the woman can only recollect.

The tiny seeds in the soil, to overcome the bitter cold, are keep reciting 
the last line of last stanza from Shelley’s To The West-Wind s— “O wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” with tightly closed shivering lips.

♡Like0

Share Poem

---

Post Comments

Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.

Please Login to post a comment