In the summer, Lord, we idle, plotting our futures.
At your bidding, the seasons of spring and autumn
Are devoted to planting and harvest
In preparation for winter, your especial favourite.
Summer we remember
For the friend who shares his aloneness
with one other,
For the neighbour's daughter who runs naked
beneath the flourish of the palms,
For the angel who takes the name of my mother,
And for my father, and the strength of his endurance.
Yet how futile is summer when compared to your winter!
When you teach us to remember
That the day of celebration is always the day of our doom.
When you allow us to reap the fields of experience,
and then leave us
Because their fruits do not please you.
Now our dreams grow green beneath the mirrors
of your sky.
The stars gleam pink - the nipples of your virgins
in their hour of fertility.
Oh how often, Lord, do we take shelter in prayer,
Asking for memory to be erased,
For the autumn to lie as deep as our desires,
And for spring to offer its dark promise of fertility.
And yet the treachery of winter lies deeper still.