SEASONS BARREN & LUSH

Mother Gaia Reframed

A poem inspired by my mother’s painting

Art courtesy of my mother, Marlene Boles

The Greek Old Testament usually translates amen as “so be it”
Encyclopedia Britannica

She’s dressed in gossamer winter whites,
brocade skirt spilling lava flows of wine reds.
Poised

to whiteout an i and pose as spring –
broad hat presaging green brims for barren limbs,
intoxicating summer’s thirst for shade.
A scarlet tanager, a treed pom-pom.

Sunflower fingers potted in her lush, shadowed lap –
a bouquet of assurance and supplication.

Together let’s transform what fences us within
Parched-peeling-bark spirits yearning.
Yellow, white, and red blossoming vines — our veined
river cruises of succor, salvation.

Interconnection’s rippling shores
recognized, tended,
abloom like pansies in frost.

The frosting upon caked earth amended.
Amen. So be it. Please.