Lamentations of the Seasons

By Roy D. Follendore III

Spring…

My love, you probably thought that you could not find me. I am not yet myself for even as I have just lifted the dark elements to reach out, I was born. It seems as though I have simply been awakened by your presence. Of course I feel pleased by my new expressions though my senses are not yet fully open. I am but a child and I speak through flowers and without open eyes because I still feel uncertain that you are really there. There is much more to me because you alone are my reason for waking. I may not be your true love yet and I may never enfold you because of the simple fact that our private promises should not be forever binding though not because we are entangled at this the moment of our betrothal. While others might desire my petals my promise is that this flower shall become your fruit for the taking. My share is beyond the resistance of all mortality. I offer hope that as our days become longer we shall become stronger together. And because the warmth of my desire has already broken through the constant ice which once surrounded us, we shall grow our future together. There is nothing else within my heart for comparison. I understand that I may not be your only true love but within my small space this has become our time. It is now our time to rejoice, not to suffer in solitude. I am your contented virgin fortune, and your future harvest but in time I know that you shall be forced release me to fates edge. My only crime will be that I shall become that which I am able to bring to your table. My fear is no solution to our destiny, but nor is true love a true direction for this vine we now weave shall never changes its upward course. So I say to you this; Behold this face, this my green mask, my garden smile exists upon which our universe are mere tribulations, something that we shall inevitably grow to accept.

Summer…

One day I will not arrive from the night and you may think that I did not love you. That thought shall not be true. Though I may have not been noticed for some time I shall always know that you once cared to have me as your guest. Even before I was first noticed by you I worked hard to clean your doorstep and change the earth at your feet. I worked your garden for your dinner and when I had time I also adjusted that imperfection which you made when you cut your hedgerows. I have been your servant and you have been warmed by me.

One day I shall not arrive from the night and when I do not, you shall know this. When I am missed by you it will be far too late for me. You will have grown tired of me. The things that I have done for you these many months will be in the past and will no longer be considered. You shall no longer be listening to the call that once woke you from your morning sleep. You will not feel the fresh growth of dew as you walk barefoot on your morning lawn. I have been your servant but you shall have no more need of me.

One day I will not arrive from the night and I will find that you will no longer miss me. You shall not recognize that I am no longer beside you because our days together have become far too short. You will have no more time to play with me or think about the heavy sweet smell of magnolia. I would not expect you to grieve my going. Sympathy is merely another lost opportunity of warmth, for you are made to move forward and I am not. I am but another forgotten ghost with the first white frost.

Fall…

As long as you were with her you tried your best not to notice me. Though I shall give you every reason to see my brillient colors I know you will too often chose to only see my subtle shades. I always knew I would have to work harder for your affections. I knew that I must give my all to change the very color of earth at your feet. I must pull the rainbows through my veins and make golden fans bow for your consideration. Oh, for more than that you would not have to touch the imperfections beneith my still warm earth. For you I have made myself yours, and even my sacrament.

When I am naked, you will not remember my dance, And my sacrifice that gave fully, freely by my offering, you shall always remain blind. To that, my completed radiance, the beauty that I give to you as my gift will have been my undoing. You will no longer understand all that I have been to you; I, who once broke your chill with dazzle. You who soon will no longer reach out to touch my swirling breast as softly as you now step through our silent morning wood. But we shall remain soul mates, though how easily you will have forgotten.

When I am naked you will forget my dance and too soon I shall soon become nothing more than a cheap cold thrill. And even then you may soon not even realize you are alone until your eyes lose sight of my beauty. By then I will then have nothing more to give you except my loss in some cold foggy rain. Then be still. Be quiet. I don’t expect you to understand the profound sorrow in this, or to understand that my fire will have been diminishing or why I must go. Just know that you have made the beauty of my existence possible. I am but another forgotten dancer within the first snow.

Winter…

So it was she that loved you before me; before you reached my buried limbs. And though I am not even yet dead you say you will never love me as you once loved the others; others who were before me. I am just another who has become lost in my own icy affections so that I may freeze myself unto your base desire. This skin that you seek to touch is blinding white and the inside of my thigh is translucent and cold. I have wanted you more so that I may feel your warmth and to bind your frigid hope within my longest darkness. I was not chosen to contain your crystalline grief, nor your mistress to honor or discard as you will. I am now always with you even as you think to undress and touch her. I resent her though I resent your next love more. I am as jealous as I am frigid.

Even as you begin to feel your next lover's strength building beneath you, I have already become her weakness. Her last tremble of passion has always been my heartbeat too. It is her completed beginning that is the ending of my virgin birth. Your lovers mortality goes beyond your simple expressions. The fire to which I know you must be set to persevere yourself melts against my heart.. I cry my frozen tears of love my dear so that you may warm yourself within the feathers of my downy quilt.

Please understand that I was not chosen to contain your crystalline grief. You may offer your dark frozen wine to my solstice or that it may isolate your touch from mine. You know my Dear that I accept your complexity completely, as I always shall. You may rest by my side at any time. If that becomes your wish, it is I who will be your greatest lover because I am also your greatest fear. I am your lover who shall never leave and I to whom you shall eternally return.

I harbor your fate as if it were my own and I hold you as softly as any distance you may decree. A part of you has always been a part of me.

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