OctPoWriMo 14 - A Year in the Life of Mother Earth

Prompt: Mother Earth
Form: multiple tanka

A Year in the Life of Mother Earth

Hot sun beating down,
Lazy sleepy days of heat,
“Let’s go to the beach”
Time stretches out like taffy—
But then, much too soon, it ends.

The leaves are turning,
A chill creeps into the air:
Sweaters, pumpkins, boots,
Pumpkins, scarecrows, apples fall.
Ghosts may walk among the stones...

And then the snow flies,
Slush and ice and freezing cold.
In the longest dark
Red and green and gold and gifts
Remembering Jesus’ birth,

But soon it all melts;
Leaves and grass and flowers sprout,
The earth born again,
The cold is ousted and then:
The heady scent of flowers.