The Four Seasons -- Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo proved a great subject for these
four ekphrastic sonnets. My book of 200 ekphrastic
sonnets, including more than 140 images, is available at
Amazon. Search: "My Human Disguise" or my name.

Summer, Sonnet #417

I live the burden of burgeoning life,

Beginning with dropping petals and seeds,

Ending with fruit and grain cleaved by the knife.

I live the engendering of my wife,

Though she hides from me in her stitched weeds,

Ever running and climbing, though gravid,

And when I catch her, laughing and avid.

I live the flight of kestrel and songbird,

Balance murderous capture and escape,

And keep the wolf from reducing the herd.

Sometimes they must settle for mouse or grape.

I live the rain’s basting the sun’s burning

My life until the last day’s turning

Changes all I’ve grown to ripened yearning.

Autumn, Sonnet #431

Almost past its prime, my fruit falls, bruises,

Before the harvest has even begun.

Pears and peaches are picked up in the end —

Even though they rot, they’ve other uses.

The burning bush, ignited by the sun —

The apple trees, whose burdened branches bend

Almost to the grass — are both flaming red.

They’ll soon be stripped of life — barren, not dead.

My grapes tumble into the wine presses,

Where pulp turns to juice from urgent stresses.

The Argiope spider in his web still

Hungers, before hard frost, for a last kill.

My summer mate gone, I am gourd and leaf,

Nothing more. Winter will bring cold relief.

Winter, Sonnet #440

I am old and my blood won’t thaw.

I am the end. My lips are mold.

As if I execute some law,

I imprison all with the cold,

The icy and the bitter winds,

Punish spring’s, fall’s, and summer’s sins.

My eyes, nose and cheeks rot and cake.

A few green leaves cling to me still —

My young branches refuse to die.

It’s time to summon the first flake —

My sole star only time can kill —

And then to open up the sky.

When all is buried I will sleep

A tearless world that will not weep.

Spring, Sonnet #454

The vernal air smells first of earth,

Healthy rot freed of snow and frost,

A renewal not without cost

In drowned worms and corruption’s worth.

But that’s when the wind and clouds still

Suppress urgency with a chill.

Even then magnolias bud,

Crocuses and snowdrops peek

Through the dirt, while a foggy scud

Carries off the unwholesome reek.

A day passes, the sunlight blooms,

Igniting our backyard bowers.

Trailing uncountable perfumes,
A lady’s dressed just in flowers.