Seasoned with Love

by Eira Needham
PenShells
First Place, August 2017
Judged by Tim Mayo


Emerging sun is draped in lazuline
and chariots amidst the clouds. We dance
until Selene conjures up romance
with umbra shade. We rumba in between

magnolias to our floribunda shrine.
Southwester squalls destroy tranquillity
and offshoots fracture. Yet beneath our tree
vast roots are firm. As temperatures decline

vermillion tresses tumble; dogwood’s bare.
Celestial orb reclines on nimbus pillows.
Shivering, as breath of autumn billows,
we entwine, repelling gelid air

prepared for icy crystals, drifting deep,
humming a threnody until we sleep.


The compressed language of this poem is also “seasoned” with assonance and a number of internal rhymes. The poet has imagined to capture the changes of day to night as well as the movement through the seasons from spring through summer, autumn to winter, an entire life cycle from emerging or awakening to sleep and death all in one sonnet. --Tim Mayo