…whose four seasons each last forty years

In health and luck and providence
from our cradles to our graves
our earth will gift us many seasons

spring with her fragrant floods of petals
gentle showers and warm winds
taking leave when she has done her flowering

as summer with all her sighs and murmurs
comes at our open windows
bestowing golden dawns and summer moonlight

before dark autumns’ cooling winds
come seeping into woods and dales
long shadows and falling leaves

a prelude to winter’s icy darkness
swooping in on frosted wings
waves of white and blackened nights

so fortunate are we with our blue orb
for in the outer reaches there is Neptune
whose four seasons each last forty years

all dark and cold and volatile
and who, despite her many moons
holds Triton captive in retrograde orbit
in her eternally dim, twilight skies
© Ann Bagnall