Dating : Seasons from My Window

The view from my window is in a constant state of flux. Winter lays the earth bare, and the chickens cluck and scrape in the mud. The gray sky hangs heavy over the big tree as she waves her branches in the unforgiving wind.

Spring livens the scene as my neighbor scurries like a worker ant, putting up bean poles and planting seeds in furrows. Soon, green tendrils cling and leaves unfurl with warmth. Cinnabar red bean flowers line the green like strings of lights.

In summer life explodes, and the picture is so ripe it almost bursts and drips down the pane of glass through which I look. Between the greenery and blooms of cherry and lavender I spy the odd chick fighting with a fat worm.

Autumn is a squash of splattered plums and half-eaten apples, scattered as a carpet of crunch and squish as the harvest offloads her last fruits to the soil.

When winter returns life shrinks. It curls into crisp shades of damson and gold and turns brittle. The view sheds its tones and hues; they wash out with the rain to leave skeletons in the frost at dawn.