Seasonings

 

Winter was hard

Not because I was cold

But impoverished in

Other ways

 

The white was too much

Too tall, too unusual

For me, anymore

 

I live in the southern part,

Now, of the state

(Okay, a northern state)

And don’t expect such

Walled-off weather

Often, if at all

 

It was anxiety; I took

A pill, and pretended

That would be enough

 

Now spring is here

I wonder which came first:

The verb or the season’s

Name

 

I could look it up

But I’m not sure that

Would tell me

 

Ancient stories, after

All, have variants

 

Winter and summer

Are, as coined by my folk-

Literature teacher,

Hilda Kring—they are

Characternyms

 

We know what they

Are because value

And form make sound

Thar tell us

 

But the other two,

Spring and fall, might be

Named for what they

Do—or what we do is named

For what they’ve done,

First and longer

 

We’ll, I’ll spring

 

Then you and I, we’ll

Summer (because

We know what

That means), and then

 

Let’s drop like leaves

Of fall, onto an Earth

Softened by snow

And ice, dew and rain,

 

And the gentle

Wearying

Of all other

Seasons

 

 

(Hilda Kring was a professor of

folklore and folk-literature at

my college, while I was a student

there; she made the term

“characternym” for names of

characters who sounded like what,

in depiction, they were, such

as Uriah Heep in David Copperfield

–and maybe Copperfield

himself; she requested someone

to publish this term for her and to

her credit–and here is my try,

“characternym” from Doctor Hilda Kring)