The seasons have so much to say, each in their own unique way, and never so eloquently presented as in this image-filled poem, who message of promise doesn't disappoint.

I interpreted your poem as a lesson from nature. An allegory. You refer to the four seasons that cycle every year and ensure new growth and a ready supply of summer harvest stored for winter's hardship. We humans have learned from nature to store food for winter, but in our latest sophistication we have been hoarding money or commodities to prove how rich we are. But when the cold winter comes, money, gold or crude oil will not feed or warm us.

As for the squirrel, they have a wonderful warm coat that allows them to easily withstand very cold temperatures. In their nests and former woodpecker holes, they can curl up in their furry tales and sleep warm. They spend a good part of the fall burying nuts. But they don't remember or can't smell in the dead of winter where they buried them. But in the spring, new saplings will fight for a place in the sun under the canopy. Most will die from lack of sun or the deer pruning them to death.

In late winter, when squirrels get desperate, they will eat the bark of trees. It is during that time that they are picked off, by hawks and even owls as they scurry about looking for a morsel in the snow and frozen ground. I have seen tracks of squirrels leaving the cover of hardwood trees 200 or 300 yards out into a harvested corn field to find a few ears of field corn left after harvesting. Exposing themselves, not only to birds of prey, but foxes and other farmland predators like raccoon.

Ron

This one is particularly difficult for me. Reading through four times, I think there is sophistication that eludes me. But the impression is there, and feels close-up. I like my interpretation of woven crystals of snow, strands of thread interlaced. . such a close and quiet examination, that. I really like how the seeds provide “…innate connection/to all that is/from all that was,” — concise and expansive way to express the miracle of seed. I wish I understood what the light is that we don’t allow. It’s okay, though, because good writing doesn’t deprive a reader from the challenge of rolling something around in the mind, like a lozenge. (mind lozenge reference from Pat Conroy’s book Prince of Tides). The Albert Camus quote somehow got cut short… The puzzle phrase is: “knowing how little life requires
of comfort we so covetously horde,”. . . that’s a good one* ~~ djl