A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of Earth’s orbit around the Sun and Earth’s axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane. — Wikipedia

Hello dVersians! Lisa here to welcome you to the Poets Pub on a Monday to write Quadrilles. The rather dry definition above is lifted directly from one of my favorite cyber destinations. In a bit of irony there isn’t much poetry there. As poets, we all know that seasons are so much more than the above definition.

A season is like a surprise package we open anew each day, making every day a holiday. There are stoics among the living that are unaffected by seasons as they change, but from my experience with poets, we have gossamer puppet strings that pull us to and fro sensitively with changes in temperature, wind, color, growth stage of plants, trees, animals, etc. I do wonder if one could be a poet without such strings?

I know that those in the Southern Hemisphere are going into Autumn. I came across a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind.” Here’s part of it:

“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed…”

And the famous last lines:

“The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”

Season can also be used metaphorically as a time that is in a state of readiness for something, be it a person, a relationship, a country, or a planet. I went looking for a poem as an example and found this delightful copy of Woody Guthrie’s 1942 New Years Resolutions. Anyone who makes one of these lists is in the season of consideration of change, if even only for that moment.

Another use of the word is when one is preparing food. A cyber search revealed this marvelous poem, “How making dal is like writing poetry,” by Nicole Gulotta:

Reading a great poem feels effortless.
No trace of the toil and struggle the writer endured bringing the piece
into the light.
So with food, a great meal lingers. A great dish
fills you with satisfaction, eclipsing the effort put in. No trace of the chopping, stirring, seasoning, just the finished feast.
When I made this dal (my first venture into Indian cooking), I thought of poetry.
I thought of the process. Of stitching together a poem the way I stirred the lentils.
I add a word here or there, a dash of turmeric, a pinch of cumin, stir some more.
The fragrance alone
is akin to the sensation of curling up with a book of poetry when you’re really in the mood.
Choosing spices, like pondering the perfect word in a line.
The right word can make a poem sing, and the wrong word, fall flat. So with food. The right spice, balance. The wrong spice, muddled.
Each step in the recipe, a poem’s stanza.
Separately, you cook the dal, toast the spices, grind the spices, boil rice, prepare a slurry of coconut milk.
When each component is joined together, the recipe is whole. The poem complete.
When eaten, only the layers of flavor emerge. None of the measuring, toasting, grinding. Only heat
and sweet.

So… here we are, at the season of poem writing. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to pen a poem of precisely 44 words (not counting the title), including some form of the word season.

If you are new, here’s how to join in:
•Write your poem in response to the challenge.
•Enter a link directly to your poem and your name by clicking Mr Linky below and remember to check the little box to accept the use/privacy policy.
•You will find links to other poets and more will join, so check back later to read their poems.
•Read and comment on other poets’ work–we all come here to have our poems read.
•Please link back to dVerse from your site/blog.
•Have fun!

Sources:
images taken by me at Meijer Gardens on 2/26/22
Wikipedia definition
Shelley poem
Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Resolutions
How Making Dal is Like…