Cycle of Seasons

By Olivia Wronski & Louise Edwards

A collection of poems that showcases our collaborative efforts as a pair. The collection delves into themes of growth, nature, and self reflection.

I.
Winter truly begins when the flurries of snow

Waltz down, down, down

Collecting at my sock-warmed toes. 

Summer truly beings, when the cicadas sound,

And the sweltering heat ripples in the air

And the summer night fireflies leave me spellbound. 

Autumn truly begins when warm colored leaves fall everywhere,

Waltzing like their snowy sisters

And the wind picks up from a gentle breeze one day out of nowhere. 

Spring leaves behind soft breezy whispers

Of Summer beach days spent lounging,

Oh to think soon we will once again be with biting winters. 

Winter to Summer to Autumn to Spring, the cycle of seasons is so grounding,

With breezy winds and spring sun I look towards winter’s cold fun.

From winter’s cold fun I look towards Autumn’s surroundings. 

Each season feels like rebirth, like a new era of me has begun.

Yet as each season passes pieces of the old me’s stick out of my body like threads undone. 

II.

To be a woolen doll, spun from sheep soft threads,

What colors tell the story of the lives I’ve lived

And the days I’ve passed?

What pieces of me are picked out by sewing needles,

Tucked back in by crochet hooks,

Cut off with the sharp silver blades of scissors? 

How complex are the stitches of my torso,

Whipstitched to protect my edges,

Ladder stitched for a completed finish?

Or am I just made from the negligent hands of a child,

Who could not tell the professional stitches of a master

From the clumps of yarn they shove together in small hands. 

III.

When light shines against my hands they glow red

and sometimes I wish I could feel soft warmth 

like a vegetable garden tended:

functional and growing in swaths 

of green that scream I am cared for 

and the green peppered with kernels of color: corn

filled with sun, orange face of pumpkins. Earlier, July tomatoes outpoured

matching the heat that outlines my hands. The beams

radiate through my skin. How can I know in my core 

that I am still growing, when I no longer grow taller and fruit does not gleam

from my body? Please sew me a map. Sew me 

a path. Sew me into the ground where I came from by a stream

where I can grow again. Drink me in, bee. 

Bite my leaves, ant. Sometimes, maybe, I don’t need to know

that I am growing. I just need to know my body can foresee

another season. That seeds can be blown

and land where they may grow or not grow. 

IV.

And can you hear the cicadas buzzing?

Those strange periodical bugs that only emerge

every 13 or 17 years. Their percussing 

muscles sucking their torsos in and out. Merge

music and body. Suck in your chest 

so your ribs buckle one by one. Deform, reform, resurge 

300-400 times a second. I’m at my best 

in a chorus where no one can hear me, but I know I’m singing

and we’re creating sound and summer. But most of the time I’m nesting

underground in an outlandish goblin mode. I fling 

clothes that pile in mounds and then spend days tunneling 

through them. I could live in this soft cocoon of earth spinning

into cloth spinning into all the shapes of my old bodies. I could smuggle

myself back into childhood. I could live most of my days as a nymph.

I could spend 15 years there. I could snuggle

most of my life. But once in a while, when it’s warm and dry, I’ll unstiffen

myself from the burrow. We’ll paint the sky with our bodies as if they were hieroglyphs.

V. 

Papers of poetry stapled together like patchwork, 

gardens patched from seeds and soil 

catching flower petals like I can catch the words

in my ear. They spiral around my cochlea, coiling 

through my bloodstream in quick steps. 

Outside, fireflies blink to the rhythm, lights like sizzling oil 

reminding me of drops of sesame colored gold specks.

Cook me a meal filled with all the seasons 

cycling through time makes me reflect.

I think of changing tastes and shifting reasons.

I am an unraveling spool of thread and it is my season of spring.

I live and relive, coming alive again, blazoned 

to tie it all off with a bow I take the end of my string

make two loops and twist them together on an upswing.