Tame your wish to unfasten

the shut bud ‘til she’s willing!

Give her sweetest thoughts of spring.

Attract her, softly thrilling

with your words and compliments.

If the sprout of rose is closed

you need gentle kindheartedness.

Warm alluring breath of love

may touch cheek with such caress

that first petals open slow.

Now ensure her - and yourself –

that there is no other one

that deserves such attitude

under shining moon and sun

no one that compares to her.

But you have to say the truth

or you will feel painful thorn.

If you do, you’ll see delight

Beautiful as dusk and dawn

when the rose unlocks herself.

Ensnare the ears with kindness,

enmesh with care her splendor.

Cautions stroke her fears away!

Then may your fingers tender

detach the outer casing.

Coat the rose with water drops

from your lips – fresh summerkiss

over body, mind and soul.

Feel with beating heart the bliss

when the trembling bud unclench’s.

Shivering the petals spread

ample to receive delight.

Open are the calyx’s thighs

that entangled day and night

the straight erected carpel.

It is written that “Love never dies” in the High Church of our feelings;
There, aspirations are eternal and proof beyond mere reason.
Of our common day regrets and dreams we require no special pleading
And, as with all things natural, we come to see that love hath a season. 

In our mortal heart it becomes a remembered Spring,
A shining thought amidst a blurred and sheltered past;
Embraced as some sweet, gentle and yet unreal thing
We leave unmourned as that which was not meant to last. 

And Summer does no justice though filled with heat, intemperate joy and fire;
The rising tumult, the hurried kiss, the unbridled rush that finds all things late
Fades as hot and quick as it came, the demanding blush of desire
An afterthought of an afterglow that justifies circumstance as fate. 

Then gentle Autumn comes and perhaps promises a certain peace,
A place and time of comfort that surely has the strength to reign,
Eternal.  Much like old and familiar friendship, conflicts fade, seem to cease
But the brilliant hues mellow and the fallen leaves, like fallen days, have a
		certain pain 

That, in the end, renders a Winter’s tale as best to tell
Of the near barren remains of life’s unsure steps in time’s ice clad rain.
And we find love lives mostly dormant, hidden and tightly held
In sleep, unencumbered by memory, yet dreaming that an eternal Spring will
		return again.