by User:Mdf (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Signal
The harbinger of winter is
The flash of falling leaves;
The color floats and drops to ground
As trees roll up their sleeves.
And as Old Winter loses grip,
The trees repeat their thing,
As flash of color, robin drops –
The harbinger of spring.
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.
“trees roll up their sleeves”… Great image!
Thanks! They do bare them, don’t they?
Fabulous poem!
Thanks very much!
Change of seasons, good write, Dennis Lange…
Thanks, Lindy. It’s interesting how one incident can spark a combination of things in a different way.
I don’t know — maybe it’s just me — but with the word “robin drops,” I saw all these big drops (made by the robins and a dozen other birds on my front porch and sidewalk — my shirt — and my hair) all of which are very colorful — depending on what they had to eat. You may have intended to have us see the color of the spring tree branches as well, but I lost that whole image when I got to the robin. It makes a terrific surprise ending! If you weren’t trying for that, I’m sorry. But I laughed out loud, and if the surprise is intentional, it’s a masterpiece!
Looks like experience counts quite a bit in the writing or reading of a poem!
But…no masterpiece!
No, my experience wasn’t like yours. During early spring, I was pulling up to the stop sign at the bottom of my hill. To my left, I saw a flash of color as a robin “dropped” (flew down) from a branch to the ground. My experience was more pleasant than yours.
Maybe I should change the line to: A color flash, a robin drops -
Well, if you made that change it would probably make sure no one else misinterpreted that line, but then again, if some of the readers have had the same experiences as I, leaving it as it is would probably give them a good laugh and a better attitude toward their experience — as it did me. Either way, you can’t lose.
Our winter starts tomorrow (well what passes for winter in this part of the world).
Good one Dennis.
Thanks. Our long hot summer begins this month.
Beautiful imagery and flow…simple but so visual and lyrical!
Thank you! It’s strange how one thing can begin a poem (I saw a robin float down from a tree to the ground) and the rest comes one by one after that.