My Sadness Has No Seasons

Few things match the “Oh yes, yes! Exactly!” feeling you get when you come across a poem that describes exactly how you are feeling at a given moment. James Kavanaugh did it for me this time.

My sadness has no seasons,
It comes when the leaves
Surrender to the persistent wind
And lie at attention,
When the snow
Coats twigs and footprints
In a gentle obituary of white,
Or when the birds
Fly back to the parks
To help the old folks count the years.
It even comes when the hot air
Keeps the crickets awake,
Complaining in the parched grass.
There are no reasons for my sadness
Except living, and maybe dying.
But mostly it moves in like the fog,
Seeping from some secret cave where shadows live.
I wish I were a planet so my sadness would have seasons,
If it came with sun or snow, I’d somehow know its reasons.

-James Kavanaugh