Weather of Spring - Why

the weather waffles quicker than
thoughts through my mind
smiles then cries in toxic haste
intolerable beauty,
poignant and suggestive smoke
that appear as the roofs of cartoon trees
without their knees - flamingo clouds,
where are your feet?
sobbing reply; do they defend
the sun, or hide its light
thou shalt not covet, or cover it,
they shelter me in lies
how politic, pedantic, pregnant
with foolishness is our sky -
or perhaps it only reflects in the sea
of eyes below
again, I'll never know
anything, unless I find my own feet
instead of woolgathering
beneath the sodden cotton clouds
wondering whether, when, and why
spring resurrected into rain when
we just remembered sunlight
but still it's lovely

Fields, Fruit, and Valleys Full - Dreamy Thursdays

The day started as a Fleet Foxes morning, wobbled its way into a Sufjan Stevens afternoon, and collapsed into a Sigur Ros denouement.  After work it was smiles and Mumford and Sons babbling with me on the drive to drop off A's stuff and pick up my prodigal pillow.

This morning, the early mountain mists sifting into the valley quickly burned off in the summer blaze, droplets tumbling to the ground and turning the grass into opals on the early harp strings of sunlight. Turtledoves chortled, starlings shrieked and dove between the homes before gliding into roof slats, and high above, the hawks soared on the valley's warm updrafts. Plums now sit ripe on trees of like color, and blackberries sneak tendrils across streets, burdened with berries and bees. And figs, even figs, gather along snaking limbs. It's like Tantalus' wonderland, full of fruits within reach, and the river slouching through town. Lazy summer days, even filled with work, are marvel-filled.

I dreamed last night of a cabin in the woods, old-parchment moonlight piercing the canopy and sparkling against the windows. A bubbling burn trickled through the glade, and low rows of herbs and vegetables in the garden behind the home wavered in the gentle breeze. A hart nibbled at the grass at creek's edge, head lowered without fear, while an owl hroo'ed in the branches above, gold-ringed eyes watching the forest entire, hunting instincts prepared.

The door opened into a cool abode, lightly furnished. A rug covered a cedar floor, and paintings of icons covered the walls, replete with halos. A small twin bed built of beech wood occupied the corner opposite the fireplace in which an ember-red fire sparked its last. Books littered the floor, old tomes filled with burnt-marshmallow parchment sitting atop crumbling scrolls. Knobbly, white, wax candles dribbling into bronze saucers were strewn about the floor. The scroll anchored to the floor by piles of tomes read, "There and Back Again... A Hobbit's Tale".
I think the scroll beneath it was a Virginia Woolf (a room of one's own. go figure what that says about my psyche)

Well, sounds pretty idyllic to me. I'd live there.

Seasons

"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." ~ Gaiman

Once, I believed it might be nice living in Guam, or somewhere equatorial, enjoying the steady temperatures preferential for outdoor living. In places in Malaysia, mean daily temperatures often range from 75-85, year round. I've often envied the predictability of these averages.  Barring tropical storms, hurricanes, a season of heavy mists, these places offer a picture of idyllic serenity, especially when enduring the upper and lower limits of temperatures in increasing latitudes. Imagine a world where every evening was beach weather, every afternoon ready with fountains and golden sunshine. I'd soon become complacent and carefree as a lizard on a stone, sunbathing ad eternity. 
But then there are other days, days I could not imagine being without. My cynical comeback towards such pluperfect human resorts is, "where does all your green come from if it does not rain?" Yet, this is merely silly presumptuousness, and curmudgeonly at that. These places, for all their glorious sunshine, are frequently not dull, dry, dusty, but often filled with pines and ferns, coffee and sugarcane, butterfly brush, coconuts, agave, flowers and flora high and low.  How can this be fair? For such verdant life in these parts, the weather ascribes to the "consistent rainfall" strategy. Do secret fowl fly the air at midnight in these strange lands, clasping water buckets in their talons and dripping sugar-sweet dew across the starlit shores, an ancient moon the color of yellowed paper lighting their journey across the sky? Herons and storks and albatrosses, gardeners of these moonlit shores? 
If they do, tell me. I'll pack my bags. Still, there are days, I promise you, when every radiant flower blooming: lilac, tulip, crimson pirate, rhododendron and hydrangea, button flowers and wild carrots, nasturtiums, roses and daisies, trilliums and snowdrops, each flower opens agape its maw and exclaims, "spring, spring, spring!" in singing beyond words, a floral cooing of cherry-blossoms and dogwood trees. When birds tweet and nest and flutter along the eaves in the wild proclamation of winter's end. When summer's short sleeves and flowered skirts,  violins, guitars, and mandolins played across the grassy hillsides while butterflies take wing - summer! When deciduous trees decide its time for changing leaves, golden, red and amber, and button-top mushrooms poke aloft, and soggy moss collects on branches. As piles of sodden leaves cluster beneath ghastly trees and pines still sing hallelujah, where the cold dry earth is replaced with coffee brown, and the clouds in every shape return.
Even winter, snuggled around the crackling fire, sweet cider and kittens across our knees, and stories of summers and springs taste sugar sweet on our memories. When every night, piles of blankets protect us from every inspecting eye, and it's only ourselves and heavenly warmth against an encroaching freezing night, clasped in God's perfect embrace of cotton and fleece - even winter is perfect in its time.

It is for these, I could not forego my seasons. Keep your perfect weather, I have mine.