Art of the Four Season

Poetic Observances about the Four Seasons by Kenneth Boyd

Photo by Hans Isaacson

PART ONE: Winter in an Iowa Cornfield

Why start nattering about lucky tracks

Neath a waning storm on a tarnished night?

Haystacks in a disciplined platoon wait,

Hooded with coats, caves of hibernation

Standing in formation with watchfulness.

Six columns and six rows of perfection

Thirty-six baled soldiers in transition

Marching forward in a biting snow storm,

Blindly floundering in a final surge.

A good resistance fighter is lonely.

PART TWO: Spring on the Seine

A young girl in white is staring at Georges

Beside her overprotective mother

Midst a springtime cliché on a posh isle

Of jade smoke trees in daylight and shadow

Sustaining hues of commingled stippling

For a sternly idling Parisian crowd

Pretending to look like the bourgeoisie

At a standstill, artfully attracting

The notice of aristocratic ranks

In Seurat's condescending mockery.

PART THREE: Summer on Martha’s Vineyard

June Morning, passing the solstice, slaying

Embattled creatures in relenting trails,

Chasing away green skies of resistance.

Storm threat dissipating, shunning a wave

Of dawdling clouds chasing uncertain skies

Overlooking a surrendering fence.

Benton's centerpiece with the hollow cant

Of a surly tree dozing in malaise

Shuns the moonflower vines bringing reform

With the courageous song of young dogwoods.

PART FOUR: Autumn on a Stone Table

I perished and rose as your centerpiece

I'm staring at you, Bartolomeo,

Taunting your dormant anonymity,

Laughing at your vain obsession with books.

I’m shadowed by heaps of fruits and flowers,

Table of tribute, crowded vanitas.

My toothless threat is partially eclipsed

By autumn's harvest beginning to wilt.

I'm stuck in time with this peasant's basket

Vaguely like dinner table foliage.

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Footnotes:

Still Life with Fruit Basket and Vanitas by ‘The Master of the Acquavella Still Life’ (Anonymous), Circa AD 1600.

June Morning, Thomas Hart Benton (1945)

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat (1886)

Haystacks in the Snow, Grant Wood (1941)

Winter in Wartime, Jan Terlouw (1972)

Kenneth Boyd is an emerging poet and jazz musician. His poetry appeared in Of Poets & Poetry. His collection of poetry, Grasshopper Dreams, was published in 2023. According to Kirkus Reviews, “Page after page, Boyd offers a compilation of evocative and graceful poetry.” He holds a BA and MA from the University of Minnesota and worked as a marketing executive for IBM and other high-tech firms. He’s enrolled in the UCLA Extension Creative Writing Program studying under Miguel Murphy (Blue Linx Prize), Rosebud Ben-Oni (Alice James Award) and others. He’s a member of the Florida State Poets Association, the Florida Writer’s Association, the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of America.