Seasonal Dance

The summer has thickened, it has turned the hare into a dervish, the raccoon to a pantomime villain, made mice sing in the beaks of owls. The woods are bare now trees rattle, grackles cackle, blue Ice chimes in the deep freeze. Witches flirt and flit They have skeleton corsets, they ride upon racks of lamb. Their mousy, grey moon petticoats are tattered by thorns. By December the land crunches under tread, the snow creaks like a an unearthed catacomb. Reckless children are lost In the rumors of dark folktales. The year turns, tinder burns, lovers remember an inner climate where limbs blush when kissed by a kindness as soft as sunlit rain. Now and then, and yet again, clouds circle a bright fanlight of sky. Seasons return only to sail on by.