Eternal Garden

This week's piece was influenced by Walt Whitman's writings, particularly This Compost. I wanted to attempt to write in a style that was influenced by nature.

Vivid cycles were spoken into existence by the Creator.
Our life’s stages mirror the seasons of nature.
We are born in springtime, blossom in youth;
bud forth in magnificence as we strive ardently
for the next change in our short life's span.

In summer we yield the fruits
of relationships, and relish in the bounty of
being. Then, we meander into autumn, not quite
ready to relinquish the splendor of the previous season,
but more than willing to slow our pace while we enjoy the harvest.

And what a glorious harvest! A season of color
splashed with love abounding. A magical kaleidoscope
of oranges, golds, russet, magenta and ocher
tinged days follow the zealous summertime.
Memories glisten in diamond-like brilliance as the morning dew.

Then winter arrives much too soon.
Its chill permeates our core, stealing the
warmth and passion of our youth. A thief, this winter!
Stealthily pick-pocketing life to bring closure, it
paints stolen still-life canvases with somber colors.

Brittle and brown, the grasses have ceased to sprout forth
from the earth. The land rests as the flora
that sleeps until their time and season comes. It is winter and the
woods are painted with drab gray and brown hues,
that I never envisioned as the colors of rest;
more the melancholy colors of mourning.

Perhaps the earth is grieving
its beautiful springtime when all was green and redolent.
Teardrops in the form of snowflakes fall on the
landscape covering the decaying and rotting visages
of beauty past; blanketing the ugliness that is left.

Languishing where once we flourished,
decomposition chases naissance.
While the seasons reincarnate continually,
we exist briefly in a worldly flash of testimony;
a lovely sporadic flower spent here on earth,
we will bloom forever in God’s eternal garden.