Season poems are the oldest habit in short verse. The Japanese poets built the practice around a season word, a single term that placed the poem in the year and did a great deal of quiet work in doing so, and the instinct survived the journey into English.
What follows is a turn through the year as the Three Line Poetry archive has recorded it: the solstice, a thaw, the cricket chorus thinning out in September, snow that arrives late and is not welcome. Poets reach for the seasons when they want to talk about time without naming it, and you can watch them doing exactly that here. Each poem links back to its issue.
35 poems from the archive
Autumn rain falls cold,
washes away summer’s warmth.
Thoughts of her, my spring.
Buds swell defiant
Of ice encrusted branches
Awaiting spring thaw
The winter solstice
is the first step in the long
quest for warmer days.
deep winter visit to summer haunt
foreshadows
the desolation of grief
Winter Olympics—
Downhill on the frozen snow,
A dry leaf coasting
Roses shedding tears.
Scents of spring vanished in the sky.
Bye, Donna Summer!
I was never kissed, except
when winter, cold and silent,
pressed my face against the ice.
late-blooming chrysanthemum
scene stealer
when summer’s upstarts have faded
winter horizon
a snow hidden garden keeps
springtime wishes safe
whispering branches
last night’s fallen winter frost
sleeping on the leaves
Flanked by snowy banks
thin ice drifts quietly on
river’s winter path
snow and ale unleash
the bravest lines--war stories
of winter soldiers
Late Spring snow;
winter remaindered
into mittened hands.
winter thaw --
a lone mitten floats
in a puddle
Greene, Iowa got 11 inches;
We wear thick hot summer air;
First day of autumn!
willow gold hair whips
hellebore bells unfurl
under spring snow
Drift into autumn
As the summer fades away
The river still calls
Emperor penguins
Bracing Antarctic ice storm
Distant Winter sun
the first cold days come
winter does not mourn summer
nor worry for spring
Falling like Autumn
I need help for the harvest
Brown, red, bittersweet
winter solstice
the sun embraces
rosy cheeks
frozen ice crystals
clinging Winter tree branches
prismatic sunrise
Sunday morning
Pine boughs droop with snow
Hungover again.
Boreal wilderness
deep snow 40 below
running water titters
Birth arrives in spring
Colorful countryside blossoms
Gravestone marks the loss.
Written on the back of a madrigal to spring,
Monteverdi bleeding into flash,
two halfways combine their camouflage.
Womb-like heat,
damp and throbbing,
birth of summer
frost-christened cobwebs
covering the garage door
the fumes go unseen
In the winter of ’39
I walked through these halls
But could not share their views.
snow flakes swirl
waves crash
on a silent silhouetted shore
The cricket chorus
Slowly fading one by one:
Summer to Autumn.
round dark silhouette
cocooned velvet now spreads free
as spring warms the blooms
Autumn
Jackson Pollack dabbing color
On drab a canvas.
a purple amethyst
radiates between her breasts
my winter moon
First day of winter
Full moon
Redeem the coin for deep dreams
More poems by theme
From the Three Line Poetry archive