Category: Seasons

Now snow in October is surely the thing–
I get a great kick from it then.
I smile as I wade it a-going to work
And grin as I gaze from my den.

For it all seems so new and so beautiful. too
When the first snow comes tumbling to earth.
But now in the spring I’m so tired of the thing
I just can’t pretend any mirth.

And still I suppose when next fall brings it’s snows
I’ll be grinning as I’ve grinned before,
And smile as it hits me and gets in my ears–
THEN cuss it in spring as before.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, March 29, 1933

And what is so rare as a day in July?
If you don’t wilt, you melt or fry.

If you’re not happy with any of these,
Some July mornings you wake up and freeze.

But please don’t give up on July as terrific–
No month you can name is completely perrific.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, July 8, 1947

O month when winter’s grip relaxes,
And man’s lets go too–income taxes–
You’ve girls with skates, and little boys
Complete with marbles, kites, and noise;
Icy blasts, and slush and snow;
Grass that tries in vain to grow.
You proffer spring, and to our sorrow,
Jerk it back again tomorrow.
Mud below and sun above–
A month of contrasts, still I love
You, March, for all your hocus-pocus-
Yesterday, I saw a crocus!

by Ray Romine Saturday, March 5, 1949

The winds of spring blow gently now,
Perfumed with living chlorophyll;
Secretively, they tell us how
They did, with kindly weapons, kill
The snow collected by the hedge;
How ice-clouds at their giddy source
Were slain with laughter’s ringing edge–
And winter fled, his only course!

by Ray Romine Friday, September 7, 1951

Die-hard snowbanks escape the sun
To skulk in shadows spring things shun.
Determined, they hold fiercely fast
Till reinforcements come at last,
Riding, on a colder day,
White parachutes against the gray.

by Ray Romine Thursday, October 11, 1951

Did you kick when it was hot, now,
Did you grumble last July?
Did you pray for Fall or Winter?
Sonething cooler? So did I!

But November finds us grieving–
Five months by us now must roll
‘Fore we stop a-carryin’ashes,
And a-totin’ in the coal!

by Ray Romine Thursday, November 1, 1934

My heart was more attuned the winter through ,
I think, to what of Nature I could find:
The sun-touched snow that glinted red and blue;
The bird or two pretending not to mind
The icy cold. But now in spite of spring
With opened buds and earthy smell of wood
And flowered field, and birds of fiery wing,
I fail to find the thrill I know I should.

This season, all in all, is better, far–
But has too much of good for our poor minds;
And so it is with you, my dear. You are
Quite like a perfect April day that blinds
The eye, so used is it to life’s Cook Tours
It cannot grasp such loveliness as yours.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, April 11, 1945

The winter time may have been fraught
With grief. No matter what it brought,
There’s hope; there’s life; there’s joy; there’s God
In every foot of greening sod.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, March 24, 1953

My envy of those richer folks than I;
My glances at the monarch on his throne;
My longing for the leisure I’d have known
If born somebody else–all these I try
In vain to put aside. They multiply,
These seeds of discontent, once sown.
And then comes April, green and blossom-blown,
When my ego, in one soul-bursting cry
Is grateful I am who and what I am:
That I have eyes to see and lips to sing,
And ears that hear, away above the sham
Of man’s gross noises, all the lilting Spring.
If he I envied knew the ecstasy
I find in April, he would envy me!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, April 2, 1946

Always, at the end of June,
Nature to me changes tune,
Growing adult with a sterner voice
More funeral-march than croon.
There’s a salty sort of tear
In the muggy atmosphere
Showing summer’s dread already
Of the winter’s numbing fear.

And the grass-heads, turning brown,
On the vacant lots of town
Bring to summer’s gentle visage
Just the vestige of a frown.
Too, the bird’s nest hanging there
Owns a lost deserted air
Just to emphasize the mourning
That the season seems to wear.

In the leaves that sigh and droop;
In the martins as they group
To climb again their height again
And effortlessly swoop;
In the thistles’ rampant bloom
Bringing gentler sisters doom
There’s an undernote of dying
Unadulterated gloom.

But–July is summertime!
August has a comely clime:
Who am I embalming friends of mine
Before they reach their prime?
Let the battle, far from lost,
Walk right to the gates of frost
When, on looking back, I’ll wish in June
I’d left one bridge uncrossed.

by Ray Romine Sunday, July 1, 1945