Here's one for the elementals....

"NATURE'S JOURNEY HOME"
Stacia Grace

SPRING

Unborn baby blossoms
eager to drink in
one final ray of light,
one single dewy drop
to unveil
intricate green
gossamer matrices
held within
tiny wombs.

Thousands don
naked fractal fingers
of my softwood sister
stripped in spring,
standing wet
amidst a symphony —
northern oak, hickory,
basswood, burr, black cherry,
white pine, ash, and silver birch —

She, a sugar maple,
soft and sanctified,
an angelic pillar.
North woods nymphs
swing like baubles
from her limbs.
She their nurturer, their nourisher.
Viscous amber liquid
drips from her lips.

Last year’s leaves
litter knolls
I love to lie
when forest hills fill with snow.
Mud as sticky as her
seeping nectar
soaks the spot
I love to sit
on summer’s sultry nights.

Stand and listen.
Elemental existence
to this woodland haven
has returned.
A male woodcock,
first of feathered flock
from southern states
struts and screeches
its signature “peent.”

His sky dance…
…tight spirals…
…generate…
…high-pitch…
…tweettering…
…cool air…
…rushing past…
…wing feathers…
…signifying spring…

Year in, year out,
similar cyclical homecomings
to see
my sister
growing old.
I scale her wings
hopeful to be clothed
in garbs of glorious green
feather panoply.

SUMMER

Nature’s patchwork macramé,
homespun
flecked with clover-crazed bingers
drunk with flower nectar.
Olfactory hues,
posy palettes
permeate my aura
while I recline
beneath my soaring sibling.

Inhaling heady heights,
pungent pines, elven herbs,
wild raspberry bushes blend
with cold water creek and cumulonimbus. two piece items for homecoming party
Rising above the rest
a candied distillation.
Sugar sap
drools from the wound
halfway from her crest.

Baby buds now wave
like hands of local beauty queens
in Fourth of July parades.
Since six I held my palms
to the five-fold fronds
that grace my deciduous kin.
Thirteen summers
my own surpassed hers.

Still she strives
ever higher
for the silver,
twilight
master.
Good morning and goodbye
we call together
to the orbed
evening trancer.

AUTUMN

Moody,
maybe passionate,
humiliated,
frightful,
irritated
for stinging gusts and
darker days force out
placid breeze and
wispy winds.

Outraged outburst,
blazing flares bursting forth
from the depths
of a shining countenance.
Foliage firing with the flame
of an inner herbal elixir.
Fascinating blushes
burgundy, copper,
rusty cherry.

Nuances —
subtle scarlet,
crimson
saturated with ruby
grapefruit,
carrot ginger —
glow like a pyre
raised for coming loss
of her maiden locks.

Herbage undulates like
sun glints
off manes
of mighty kings
under Sahara skies.
Friendly gnomes
and fairies gather round.
A single sprite alights;
a solitary leaf in tow.

Within the highlights
and the lowlights
of her golden-vermillion
spectral tones,
a patterned impression,
two eyes,
a mouth,
and
nose.

Smiling down, offers me
first sacrifice of surrender
as she and her company
prepare to retreat,
anointing the earth
with garnet tears
lost in their campaign.
I vow to visit
during her frigid lack of livery.

WINTER

In the midst
of milky mounds
amassed
by cascading
crystal
matrices
she ascends
dressed not in green
or Autumn’s prismed ensemble.

Adorned instead
in robes of virgin purity,
powdered from fingers
to fountainhead.
Pearly points
of snowy untouched tones
glittering like
Yukon gold in California
river beds.

A few furry-footed prints,
signs she spends winter
not alone
like lockéd lake tops.
With my mitt
I mark the place
upon her breast
I believe
her heart to be.

Honeydew
streams
from the secret
chamber
through
the full extent
of feathery
down-enveloped
limbs.

Adolescent anticipation of
vernal fluctuations.
Nights to freeze,
days to thaw,
sap to flow,
woodcock’s warbling song.
Cycles makeup cycles
in nature’s journey home.