Category: Seasons

Take the bluster of November,
Add the gentleness of May,
And the glamor of December
If you want a perfect day.

With the tang of January
Put the spice of August’s noon;
Stir it well with February:
Heat the mixture, then, with June.

So the perfect day is average,
It would seem, and thus we find
One is scarcely more important
Than a plainer, poorer kind.

And the lesson to be heeded
If we take the human clan:
One is just as badly needed
As the fairer, richer man.

by Ray Romine Saturday, September 7, 1946

The trees snap sharply in the chill;
Curved snow hugs closely to the hill;
The lifeless brook stares blank and still,
And summer days are distant things.

But, dreaming, tight-wrapped buds recall
The fairer time; and, safe from fall,
The moth hangs in her silken shawl
and sleeps, aware we sometimes crawl
Through cold aloneness for our wings.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, October 3, 1950

The summer’s passing should provoke’ no tears:
Some progress lives within the worst of fears.
Summer constantly, would, after all,
In spite of its perfection, surely pall.
The change, the sharp-drawn contrast is the thing
That makes all nature welcome back the spring.
And so the earth, whose whirling never ends,
Turns on to winter as the snow descends.

by Ray Romine Saturday, June 26, 1954

Sultry noon, a burning sun;
Drooping leaves, their courses run;
Whirring insects from the mass
Of dead or dying leaves and grass;
Just a breath of careless breeze;
Butterflies that loop and tease–
September days are made of these.

But at dusk, horizon’s haze
Quickly quenches summer’s blaze;
In the air a sudden chill
Paralyzes chlorophyl,
Makes the moon a huge embossed
Cube of ice, its corners lost–
September nights are made of frost.

by Ray Romine Friday, September 6, 1946

I like September’s sun and shade,
October’s brilliant cavalcade.
November brings an appetite;
December’s carols cheer the night.
And January has its snow;
In February, most hearts glow;
March sees crocuses again;
And April’s showers serve as rain.
The Iris splash with bloom in May,
And June is the month of the Perfect Day.
July’s the height of summertime.
Here’s August, and also end of the rhyme.

There’s fun to have, or so I’ve found,
In every month the whole year round.
Whatever set of conditions thrive,
It’s very good just to be alive!

by Ray Romine Wednesday, September 10, 1947

Here we are in mid-July!
It’s time to castigate the fly;
Write a nauseating ballad
Railing at potato salad;
Crab at the grass crop we have grown,
While sipping in the shadows, prone–
Or sing and moan about the heat
There isn’t any way to beat.
We’re all somewhat inclined to shout
At a month we wouldn’t be without,
But I won’t kick and thus annoy it–
The summer’s going–let’s enjoy it.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, January 16, 1952

Wind-tossed trees beneath the clouds
Straining after whirling leaves
Typify the autumn season.
Earth at summer’s passing grieves.
But one quick break in all the grayness
Shows us stars again, or sun–
The heavenly bodies, eyes of summer,
To buoy us through cold winters run.

by Ray Romine Thursday, March 20, 1952

The sun sits high on his sky-blue throne
And fixes the snow with a baleful eye,
To pass his judgment in solemn tone:
“Too bad. It’s March. You will have to fry.”

But the snow is old in the ways of crime,
And he shows his teeth in a wicked smile.
December has always returned in time
To set up his empire in elegant style.

by Ray Romine Saturday, January 27, 1951

Now, on the dry plains of summer,
With the sun reaching hot hands for noon,
I find an affection for winter
With its lemon-dashed sherbet of moon.

by Ray Romine Friday, July 9, 1948

All bright Octobers pale beside this one.
And yet, because the weather didn’t stay
Forever, “Lord!” he cries, “A lousy day!”
And this the first of rain we’ve seen for weeks!
The farmer looks into the skies, and what he seeks
Is there: he’s glad. Perhaps the man who said
“You cannot please them all,” had quite a head.

If man could run the works, he’d ride rough-shod
To trample all the world, and back-talk God!

by Ray Romine Thursday, October 17, 1946