Sounds of the Seasons

Our vowels
     long and luminous,
drifted south last fall along
with geese and soft colors.
Consonants, on the other hand,
stayed the winter;
and like cold rain they now
fall heavily into our season;
ice-crunching sounds, snapping limbs,
rain and rain again
          drumming   drumming.
These consonents,
       these hard-bitten stones,
serve as clean-edged reminders
that soon enough, come spring,
sounds soft as rounded choirs
shall once more swell the air.

Even now, in January, geese
are stirring from wintergrounds
in Baja and Marcaibo.
And vowels are converging there.
Soft as new flowers they converge,
gathering long colors, rising above
          Oahu and Monterey,
rising even now in long
          elliptical sighs.