Love’s Return
thaw—
chameleon-clad hylas
swarm the moss-green ponds
and buds of water lilies
arise from stalks
among the mottled pads—
I thought you were gone,
buried under hills of snow—
now you return
in the low hum of bees,
the soft whisper
of butterfly wings
I feel you near
in the warmth—
yet I somehow know
you have always been
with me in the cold.
— D. G. Vachal 2026
Image: Seerosen (1915) by Claude Monet
The cover of my second poetry book collection, The Turning of Light, features Claude Monet’s luminous painting, Woman With a Parasol, Facing Left (1886), one of the most beloved images of the Impressionist movement.
In the painting, Monet captured more than a woman standing in a field. He captured a moment of living light — clouds drifting across the sky, wind moving through tall grass, and sunlight shifting across the landscape.
Nothing in the scene is still. Light moves, the sky changes, and the moment itself seems to pass even as we look at it.
That quiet transformation of light lies close to the spirit of the poems in The Turning of Light, which follow the turning of the seasons and the subtle ways time reshapes memory, love, and the inner life.
The Turning of Light can be found on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover versions.
November the Penultimate
Never was a month so motley in its days:
November, penultimate month
of a year that frames the seasons,
when leaves in early days
turn to brightest garnet,
blazing topaz,
illuminated gold —
the latter days arrive
with the fire of the winds,
and the burning leaves take the plunge
from infernal towers of the branches
to the burial grounds of a gun-
metal, brumal earth —
November, November,
calves ache from the marathon,
hearts pound the door
to another December
when holly berries huddle upon the petals
of the soft-spoken snow,
and the fallen leaves breathe again
at the sound of the carols of the children,
the children rejoicing.
D. G. Vachal © 2013
Photography Credit: November’s Decline by Bucaneve
The Years, My Friend
The years, my friend, have not been kind
upon your marble face —
I hear the river songs
tinkle with the cymbals,
I see your eyes shrivel
like unpicked grapes on the vine,
your mouth a wounded cherry
pecked by restless robins.
Take my hand, my friend,
let us go to the calling fields
that blaze with diamonds
under the eternal skies,
to the orchards in the midst of winter,
where leafless branches stand dauntless
in the endless cold,
telling jubilant tales
in the blizzard of their days —
Hearken to the legends
of root, of bud, of sun,
and to the promise
(believe the promise)
that warmth and springtime
will return,
(they always return)
once again.
by D. G. Vachal © 2013, 2025
*** Photography by Farhad
Waxing Moon and Summer’s Farewell
How swiftly the season turns:
moment passes by another moment
as in my elusive nighttime dreams,
all the while the ardor for life abides
though cooler breezes quench
the noonday fires —
I hear summer’s last melodies
edged with change
cedar waxwings whistle among the birches,
the meadow edge
hums with crickets and katydids,
mourning doves croon their yearning calls
into the twilight air —
evening approaches:
a waxing half moon sheds silver threads
upon the garden fronds,
forest trees cast blurred shadows,
open fields lie platinum pale
half radiant, half shrouded,
inlet waters quietly flow
into their appointed oceans
in albescent half-light —
last day of August
I stand at the precipice of summer’s departure
on a quarter moon evening,
revealing yet secretive
of what approaching Autumn holds.
D. G. Vachal © 2025
Image by W.carter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
lilies, sparrows and grass 
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