Tag: Nature

Almost April

Almost April — there is a moment just before spring fully arrives,​ ​​
when nothing seems to have changed, ​​​
and yet, everything has already begun.​​​
​​​
Almost April
​​​
when crocuses,​​​
aconites​​​
speckle colors​​​
on frigid earth,​​​
and buried bulbs unfurl​​​
their green fingers —​​​
​​​
Somewhere​​​
a cold cauldron sits​​​
atop a flame,​​​
warmth simmers:​​​
imperceptible​​​
as approaching dawn.​​​
​​​
Almost morning:​​​
​​​
when softest tones tiptoe​​​
through purple darkness,​​​
and wakening lark arises​​​
in radiant song,​​​
ruptures​​​
daybreak deafness.​​​
​​​
Almost laughter

— D. G. Vachal​​​
​​​
​This poem is from my collection​​​
The Turning of Light
a book that follows the quiet unfolding​​​
of the seasons within and around us.​​​
​​​
If you’d like to explore the full collection:​​​

The Turning of Light
​​​
Image (public domain): William J. Forsyth (American, 1854–1935), Crocuses, oil on canvas.​

The Turning of Light


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


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

Colors of Autumn

Colors of Autumn

The turning of colors
like the turning of tides,
the waxing moon’s gradient shift
to fullness
in pearlescent light,
the chilly air’s osmosis
imperceptible,
permeating a blanket of warmth —

emeralds turn to topaz,
malachite to rubies,
nightingale songs grow faint
as in a moment’s dream —

I was here
many times before
and once again I am

swept in this lunatic array
of colors:
salmon and salamander,
citrine and vermilion,
french horns and trombone,
a cacophony of shades and tinctures —

these moments soon will pass
like many times before
yet for a little while
let me wrap myself
in the colors of Autumn:
Joseph’s coat
of many colors.

D. G. Vachal © 2025

Author’s note: This poem was inspired by a passage from “The Strings are False” by the Irish poet Louis MacNeice. 

“The train for Jersey City was called the Blue Comet and I sat in a luxury Pullman car that was all windows and beyond the windows a reel of autumn madness, the maple trees gone drunk with colour. Tigers and wine, pimento, copper, coral, the bells of St. Clement’s jangling and fanfaronade of trumpets, fireworks out of the ground, Giorgione, Veronese, the tents of all the Sultans. People had told me about the American Fall, and this was it.”  (“Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False, Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain, 1965, p. 30.”)

Image by: chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

The Years, My Friend

Winter by Farhad
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