Tag Archives: December

“Winter Love Song”

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Winter Love Song

Winter alighted this morning without warning:
a swan, snow-capped amidst the green
river bulrushes,
the garrulous cicadas have gone mute with the frogs,
the buzz of ebony bees,
no more fireworks of lightning,
nor heart-pounding thunder,
there is only silence
palpable as ivory snow-bound clouds —

Take my hand,
smitten by December winds,
warm my fingers with the hearth fires
of hours together spent,
when tears overflowed the jars of laughter,
and the laughter drowned the tears,
the letting go yet never forsaking,
when we believed in the loyal light of day
and dreamt through the darkest,
elongated nights —

Winter alighted this cold morning
without warning —
take my hand,
smitten by December winds.

© 2013 D. G. Vachal

*** Photography : Swan Blue by Philippe Sainte-Laudy

“November the Penultimate”

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November the Penultimate

Never was a month so motley in its days:
November, penultimate month
of a year that frames the seasons,
when the leaves in early days
turn to brightest garnet,
a blazing topaz,
illuminated gold —

The latter days come
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

Last Days of December

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Last Days of December

Time to be       tranquil now
no longer the consonant     prattle of leaves
in tussle with vowels         of the wind,
whatever must fall
has
fallen
to the brumal ground,
flower by flower,
seed by seed.

Colors linger in the sky,
of rose bouquets and tiger lilies,
and the poetry of April crouches
in fetal position
within the uterus of vaporous
snow clouds —

Time to be still.

by D. G. Vachal © 2012

*** Photography by Paolo De Faveri

“December Hearth Fires”

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By Stephen Butler 2

December Hearth Fires

December was warm where I was born:
the bougainvilleas bled crimson amidst the thorns,
and in the evening hours
the children, the children, walked with naked,
calloused feet upon the gravel roads,
and stopping from gate to gate,
like orioles they huddled,
expectant
for pennies to fall on tiny cupped hands,
from the carols they sang with seraphim voices,
while the hunger raged
unquenchable
beneath their tattered clothes —

December is cold where I have come to stay,
the scarlet berries sparkle upon the glossy leaves,
and in the evening hours
my children, my children, climb up to bed in cotton
nighttime clothes, swept up to heaven’s gate before they sleep,
embraced by love-drenched arms,
but I remember the hungry
angelic faces,
the parched and naked little feet,
their rags of shirts and trousers,
far away
on a warm December night —

I must go back and find
the children, the children,
and bring them to the glowing
hearth fires
of my December.

by D. G. Vachal © 2012

*** Photography by Stephen Butler @Flickr Commons