Summer’s Gold / The Lover Strong

For those who've always lived in the tropics, these chords might have little resonance.  But those who have spent years or decades in the high latitudes might buzz a bit when reading this.
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Summer’s Gold / The Lover Strong
 
How pleasant is the summer’s touch
To those who’ve borne the winter long.
For them, the spring’s the suitor but
The summer is the lover strong.

Caressing is the summer’s warmth.
It licks and opens every pore.
In plant and beast, the honeyed sap,
The musk and oils and juices flow.

In winter’s chill, it’s fit for yin
To counsel us to hibernate.
Then spring arrives.  Perhaps it’s sin,
But yang then urges us to mate.

As flowers bud and bloom in sun,
So humans do—and much besides.
The seasons strum—and we vibrate.
So seas and beings pulse with tides.

So autumn whispers in our ears
And winter nips and we retreat.
The spring then coaxes us from fear
To summer’s arms and kisses sweet.

******

The summer, in the polar places,
Releases us from winter’s cold.
We can’t escape its warm embraces
Or shy from all its urgings bold.

Although we wish that summer stays,
Its time with us is often brief.
When autumn’s gone, with all its blaze,
Then memory is our sole relief.

As with seasons, so with fate:
When spring and summer both are past,
Our autumn comes—and then we wait
For winter, when we’ll breathe our last.

And though a season comes again,
We know that we will not return.
We die, as we are born, in pain,
Yet in-between we live and learn.
 
So when we’re in our final years
And shivering from those fingers cold,
As death, with winter’s visage, nears,
We still remember summer’s gold.
 
2015, July 1st, Wed., 6:07 pm
Bensonhurst Park
Brooklyn, New York