Seasons of Clover 

 Along the Soap Creek bottoms,
 wild clover covers the earth like a violet duvet,
 here for a season, gone tomorrow.
 These are saffron days
 when even in the hollows,
 light teases the shadows, unraveling
 the dark edges of night. 
  
 That this will pass,
 that these days will not last
 is like a descant that lilts above
 the song of seasons. 
  
 Like tangerine dreams which take flight
 and later come to rest, still and spent,
 in dark heaps along the creek bed.
  
 Like happiness, 
 that pink-cheeked child who, for a season,
 dances with rosehipped abandon
 until she returns, ashen, to earth.
  
 Like love
which crowns the buckthorn
and lays hands upon the brambles.
Like love whose filaments--
slight as cottonwood seeds--
rise until we can see them
no more.