In the Short Seasons of a Long Year without You

 
A sudden summer
of greenhouse density,
watching five satellites
and a captured score
of jagged meteors
jostle for position
in the syrupy night.
 
An instantaneous fall
that flashes spun gold
for the barest moment,
then withers a planet
overnight and leaves
the landscape spare
and barren as my limbs
abed without you.
 
A fast frame winter 
of frozen lakes
and ice strewn seas,
with cold so sharp
it hammers out
a dwelling place
within my bones.
 
When you stepped
through the shifting
portals of the star gate,
you flickered and
vanished more quickly
than the changing seasons.
 
You promised to return
before the red pods burst
and the winds of spring
ochered the dawn skies
with their pollination.
 
Yet already the days
burn blue again,
the thickening nights
are dense with moisture,
and I feel the rush
of autumn's gold death
soon swift and sure
upon the land.
 
In the short seasons
of a long year without you,
your image and promise
falter within my mind.
Perhaps it is time
to try on a new life,
some different clime,
a time to cede the lies
and reasons of our love
as you have let them lie.
 
In the short seasons
of a long year without you,
the maw of the star gate waits,
a thousand worlds beyond,
another passion spent behind,
this sheet of broken lines
I leave for you to find.
 
Appeared in The Leading Edge