Winter Sonnet of the Summer-heart

Blow then, oh mistral of the barren deep

Torment the frozen landscape with your wrath

And seal the womb where summer lilies sleep

‘Neath echoes of a dusty, garden path

Splay on the earth your frigid spite and scorn

Well, well you know that you cannot allay

The overtures of spring-tides swelling morn

Where songbirds herald the dawning of the day

The quill cannot dispense a warmer breeze

Or paint the dainty danseuse on the snow

As you employ cold winter’s maladies

Where hellions of January blow

But we cling to the proof of centuries

Soon you must go where all your kindred go

***

Blow then, for numbered are your numbing brawls

The purple pansy and the daffodil

Will soon reply to Mother Nature’s calls

Brushing your grudges from the ridge and rill

For April, with a guiltless damsel’s smile

Will kiss the brooding bluster from your mouth

As you relinquish to her gentle guile

Your tempest for the zephyr of the south

The mellow-yellow noon of lustrous June

The emerald rhapsody of middle-May

The aura of April’s first ardent swoon

Gleams like a rainbow on your frosted fray

Before the lure of cerulean croon

Will melt your brusque and bully scowl away

***

Blow then, oh merchant of ice-gilded glee

Harassing ocher hills in hoary rage

Screaming in sleet-spiked mutinous melee

Shivering cold, across earth's glacial stage

For all your predecessors testify

That soon the hour of your squall is spent

And soon the frozen fury in your eye

Will soften, slowly soften and relent

To the fair maiden with the lingering glance

And when she reaches for your waning will

You rush toward her begging for a dance

The trellis, heavy with mid-winter chill

Will  bear green buds burgeoning with romance

Where honey-bees return to drink their fill

© Janet Martin