Seasons (revision)

The long evenings helped
to make sense of it in daylight.
Flowers hurt; night-scented
remnants from another life.

Orange and black; candlelight.
The day you walked unaided to the garden gate.
Flowers curled back to ground; we retreated indoors.
Glowing air; hot drinks; camped
around your bed, we talked in firelight.

Harshest since 1963.
The hospital drive through snow, each day, to you.
Frozen trees; branches gnarled in ice and shadow.
That sunlit Monday you stopped traffic,
strangers held my hands at the gate.
Lowered heads, foggy streets and silence.

First snowdrops.
Shadows lengthen.
Pale, intangible sunlight.


Original

Life in three seasons

Summer
The long evenings helped
to make sense of it in daylight.
Flowers hurt; night-scented
remnants from another life.

Autumn
Orange and black; candlelight.
The day you walked unaided to the garden gate.
Flowers curled back to ground; we retreated indoors.
Glowing air; hot drinks; camped
around your bed, we talked in firelight.

Winter
Hardest since 1963.
The hospital drive through snow, each day, to you.
Frozen trees; branches gnarled in ice and shadow.
That sunlit Monday you stopped traffic,
strangers held my hands at the gate.
Lowered heads, foggy streets and silence.

Spring
First snowdrops.
Shadows lengthen.
Pale, intangible sunlight.

Hi Ephiny
I was just getting ready to go to bed, and am quite tired,
but want to let you know how much I enjoyed this.
It's gorgeous! A great example of "show not tell"
I loved the way you used flowers and trees
to produce images of suffering and pain...
The line about "stopping traffic" was that a funeral?

K

Dear Lucie,

Am I being too pedantic to say it looks more like 3 and a half seasons ?

Love
Alan

I really like this, It is sad and showed me how a loved was loved and lost in three seasons. I am not sure if I interpreted correctly. I Loved how you used such few words to show the emotion the person felt.
Hugs kimi

Anaisa,

Thank you so much. I really appreciate your comments and yes, that's what that line is about. It was my mother's funeral and the poem is about last summer onwards which she first became ill. Thank you for "visiting"..really appreciate your encouragement.

Alan,

Thank you for your comment and no..you're not being too pedantic at all! That's a point that I'm wondering if there might be a better way of expressing. I've played around with the ending for quite a while now.

Kimi,

Your interpretation is exactly right..thank you so much for your lovely and encouragaing comments.

Dear Lucie,

With your explanations I now get the whole thing, and am quite touched by it.

It is not the ending that is a problem, but the title.

How about just

SEASONS,

or

LIFE'S SEASONS

only ?

I still would not change a thing, your tribute to your Mum is beautiful, yet also shows how life carries on.

Love
Alan

Hi Lucie -

Beautifully written!

'Flowers hurt; night-scented
remnants from another life. ' (Love these two lines.)

In my opinion, your ending perfectly gives way to life moving on but is something much less rich and colorful without your loved one in the world.

I do agree the title needs a little tweaking. It threw me off a bit because when I read the title it had me thinking the poem was about the three seasons of life...youth, middle age and old age. And when I read the poem, I was confused for a second. Maybe something along the line of Final Seasons.

Robin

Hi Lucie,

I'm quite struck with this poem. First of all, I'm sorry about your Mom. You've had a tough year, Lucie.

I haven't read anything of yours for ages, but immediately this piece brought back memories of how well you play with lightness & dark in your poems.

I don't think I have any nits of importance.



Finale is perfect. As if a question were lingering in your mind. I feel emotionally touched, Lucie.

A lovely, sad poem with 'sunlight' to complete the different tones of light amidst the darkness. Thanks for sharing this, Lucie.

Hugs, Syl**

Hello Alan, thank you so much and I really like your suggestion about tweaking the title instead of what I have been doing..I like the thought of "Seasons"..and thank you very much for your kind words

Robin, thank you so much for your lovely and encouraging comments and a huge thank you for the nomination..I'm honoured and I appreciate what you said and understood so much and I like your point about the title too..thank you

Sylvia, thank you so much for your thoughts and comments and kind words...you interpreted it all beautifully and yes, that line about 1963..it was this winter gone by..a very harsh one for us and apparently the worst since that year..in one sense it kind of went over our heads at the time but everything just looked and felt so different with the extreme weather (extreme for us anyway!) As always, I really appreciate all you said and I know that you understand xx

Dear Lucie,

Another thing occurs to me - you do NOT need the title of each season within the poem, the wording makes what they are very clear - long evenings, curled-back flowers, snow, snowdrops.

Love
Alan

Hi Lucie

It's a real pleasure to see you back at MM. This poem is amazing! I am so sorry to hear about your mother, but she has inspired a wonderful poem. I love the way you have taken us through the seasons with this. Your mother's illness seems to be hinted at from the start (hope I'm right)

Flowers hurt

The day you walked unaided to the garden gate.
Flowers curled back to ground;


You stopped the traffic is a heart wrenching line. I remember this so well four years ago for me.

The ending gives a glimpse of hope/recovery with its pale sunlight.

I see this has been nominated for the IBPC - a worthy nomination which I wholeheartedly second.

It's so good to read your work again.

Snow

Lucie, I too was a tad confused by the title and thing that seasons or a variation already mentioned would help immensely. Other wise a wonderful poem for your mother and her passing. Amazing how death affects so much of what we do in our lives, making joys brighter, how we look at things in a different way after death passes so close. Wonderful nom to the IBPC.

Take care
Steve

Thanks so much everyone..

Alan, that's a great suggestion about not needing to name the seasons..I think I'll give that a go and maybe have the title as "seasons" and see how it looks? Thank you very much

Hello Snow, thank you so much for your lovely, thoughtful and understanding comments. I really appreciate them

Steve, hello and thank you so much for your comments. It's really great to know how it reads for other people and I think the suggestions I've gotten will really help to make things clearer. Thank you again

Hi Lucie,

It's really good to read your poetry again! I am certain your mum is smiling down at both you and Stephen and is as thrilled with inspiring this piece as we are to read it. Emotions can be so beautifully/poignantly portrayed when we lose a loved one, and you have done a fabulous job in tribute to your mum. Bravo.

There are many images to like here and I'm glad to see this nominated for the IBPC this month.


Some of my favs:

Flowers hurt; night-scented
remnants from another life.

That sunlit Monday you stopped traffic,

and the references to light.

I agree that the deletion of the seasons works well too. In this stanza below, I had to re-read the opening line a few times to understand it completely. I feel that line may need a tad bit more of an explanation imho. In your reply you mentioned that this past winter was the harshest since that year - so I would love to see you incorporate that into the line if possible. Maybe its as simple as changing the word from hardest to harshest, but I understand the coping factor wouldn't convery the same way as with 'hardest'.

Hardest since 1963.
The hospital drive through snow, each day, to you.
Frozen trees; branches gnarled in ice and shadow.
That sunlit Monday you stopped traffic,
strangers held my hands at the gate.
Lowered heads, foggy streets and silence.

I hope to see more of your work in the coming months.
Enjoyed the read,
~Cleo

Hi Lucie!

I see you've been working on this one. Whatever you do, it'll always strike readers' hearts.

I must be the only one who likes the original version best! With names of seasons included. Makes for easier understanding and they look good in italics. Without them one has to figure out what's what a lot more. IMHO...LOL....

But I agree that L1 of Winter is a little confusing, altho' it doesn't really matter whether 'hardest' applies to the weather or some other difficult event in 1963. Actually, I like 'harshest', as Lori suggests, then we know it's the weather.

Am I making sense?

Sincere congrats on the nom, I certainly second it.
Syl***

Hi Lori!

Thanks so much for your response and sorry about the delay in replying. I really like your suggestion about "harshest" rather than "hardest" because that really does pin things down to the weather which was what I was aiming for..it's occurring to me that without the names of the seasons that line could have been even more obscure so that will be a good start with that:) I'm really glad you liked it and thank you so much for your wonderful comments.

Hi Sylvia!

I must say...I'm tending to wonder about putting the seasons back in but can't decide! Somehow I think the poem might need them..so I'm really interested to hear what you said! I'm going to "play" with it for a little while and see what people think. I definately agree with Lori and you about "harshest"..I like that change of word and what it implies.
Thank you so much xxxx