Passing through the Year

I know how to mark my days – the sun
will not let me overlook a single fold
in the skin of my forehead, the sweep
beside my eyes. It is spring, and I flower
slowly, a pale hellebore fresh from sleep.
I harm no one, and even the shadows
are small around me. Then June rises -
a floodlight - and the faintest creases dry
on my cheek like a delta. I paint myself bold,
strut with my garnet lips and calla neck.
July gardens sing the music of desire.

I am not prepared for fall, but it catches
the end of my scarf and spins me in a leaf
dance. The white chill settles on my hair.
My face wears a river now, impossible
to tame. It runs past a mouth thinner
than washed soil, eroding. My grown child
stands bright as a birch, waiting for wind.
I am rooted in a dark and different forest.

But at the last, there is only snow blowing
softer than feathers into my hands. I drift,
too, frail shape freezing as I move –
a glimmer in the porch glow, so very cold.
I am the icicle that punctuates December,
falling point-first to print a final period
into the blank below. Clouds blur the air.
This is where the measuring must finish.
All my lost summers will surely melt
to blossom-food when the warm returns.

BJ Tate