Seasons - a toast
Autumn so soon!
Summer shot through -
just one beach,
coolish; one
mountain drive.
Scarcely a single
old-style heat-wave
when you just lie low.
And Winter soon, more
funerals of folk my age -
perhaps my own.
Spring? nothing
I could say that's fresh,
let alone sing.
Should I be here
to greet it silently
that would be enough.
You in your other
hemisphere, you
topsy turvy
temperate-zone
northern antipodeans,
in places where Easter
is a spring festival,
here's health and long
life to all of us
south and north,
old and young,
pious or pagans,
observing the seasons.
Birds are at the apple trees
competing with us humans.
Max Richards
Melbourne
late March 2011
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