La Ronde
When crocuses first blazed beneath the trees
as harbingers of warmth and light to come,
I met you, and the curved continuum
transported us beyond high summer's ease.
Thanks be to God above that things rotate.
The bloom is ruptured by late summer's breath:
its seeds, in flying, validate its death.
Our cycle is complete. The hour is late.
Yet every night is scattered by a dawn,
each fallen oak replenishes the soil.
If life-in-death brings on us endless toil,
the pains of birth and grief, I will not mourn.
I know new shoots will strive up from dead ground,
and love will flame again, though now snowbound.
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