A Song Of The Seasons Poem by Diana van den Berg

He and she
touch and sing
and talk and walk
and dance and dream
and plan and meet
in mind-meanderings
and souvenirs of had-to-be-there words
gift-wrapped in sungold paper
and happy ribbons
sweet-chosen and understood
from yesterdays lost in the mist
and tomorrows longing to be found
and today’s songs of many yesterdays
and laughter and whispers
and fingertip promises
and smoke-signal conversations
that wisp into the hungry air
drawn across oceans
faster and surer
than homing pigeons
back and forth
and forth and back
never a word
lost in meaninglessness
nor blown away in the wind
nor drowned in the oceans
nor speared on mountain tops.

He and she
secluded in their paradise of words
nurture a breathing language
that everyone else misunderstands
a paradise of further apart
than bears and hippos
and closer than
leaf and stem.

The angry moon
tears their fervent tides apart
and relenting
rushes them together again
and again
and again
lost and found
found and lost
fear and longing
forlorn and bliss-kissed
sunlight and shadow
dusk and dawn
droughts and floods
they are the cycle
of the seasons
the leopard and its spots
the lion and the gazelle
the alpha
and the omega
the beginning
and the end
spinning
spinning
spinning...

They do not understand
why it has to be them,
just that it does.

(19 October 2011)