The Summer's Revenge

Long ago, when the seasons
To the Year bowed their heads,
Or decided, for their own reasons,
The ordered cycle of the Year to tread,

Summer alone of them refused her,
And looked in her eye, and said, "No.
I alone know when I must stir,
And I alone when I must go.

"I am the scion of the sun,
The child of the fiery light.
I alone know when day is done;
I alone when I take flight."

The Year's trust was abused;
She stared at him in surprise.
None of the others had refused,
Or stared at her with flashing eyes.

She spoke at last, with white rage
Threatening her calmness's border.
"I am not trying you to cage,
But my cycle must have order-"

But Summer interrupted her then,
With his rich contemptuous laugh
Which since has been heard by men
When he treads his season's path.

"Order? There is order in decay-"
And he gestured to the Fall.
"And when life has gone away-"
To Winter at the back of all.

"And order when life begins-"
A gesture to the shrinking Spring.
"But, my lady, when life wins,
There is chaos in everything.

"Flowers bloom without a care
That they are not immortal.
Birds swoop like mad things in the air,
Though not all pass the portal,

"Not all fledglings leave the nest.
They dwell in the intenser day.
My lady, thou art human in breast,
To think that order matters in any way."

And so the Year charged the other seasons-
With what strong words they were bound!-
To prevent Summer from committing treasons,
And make him tread the cycle round.

But chaos is patient; time it has,
And long tricks to delay with.
It waited eons before it took laws,
And created life to play with.

The Summer called, for his revenge,
To his father, the Sun so fierce.
And so the Sun, his child to avenge,
Through the ozone strives to pierce.

And it is humanity, the Year's pride,
The most like her in heart,
Who most with order in fear abide,
Who have played the greatest part

In the world's chaotic fate.
Each year the Summer comes sooner,
And each year he lingers late.
His laughter will one day cocoon her,

The Year who is his old foe,
And banish order from the face
Of the earth, as it will shadow,
And sunlight will take their place.

Humanity has always honored the Year,
Believing order natural to life.
But the Sun one day the earth will sear,
And chaos and Summer be rife.