A Brief Season Explained

The poem I posted yesterday, A Brief Season, evokes textures, colors and sense of touch when I read it just as it did when I wrote it. It is about a relationship. It takes place in Florida - in old Florida, not the land of subdivisions and swimming pools.

As I was writing it, I followed a woman on a winter afternoon as she walked from her dark, silent, unpainted house down the cold wooden steps into a still cold yard. I heard the screen door creak and slam shut behind her as old screen doors do. There are a few tears in the screening and the handle is rusty and a bit sharp at the edges. . The woman's feet are bare, and she has not taken the time to put on a sweater or a coat. The skirt of her dress falls just at her knees and it makes a muffled cottony sound as she walks. Her husband is walking ahead of her, and she feels the need to follow him. Perhaps he told her to follow, perhaps he asked her to follow, perhaps not.

She lets herself lag further and further behind as they walk toward a path in the sandy yard. After hearing only their footfalls, his of boots on sand and hers the quiet pattering of bare feet, she becomes aware of the sharp piercing call of blue jays. She looks up through the leathery leaves of the live oak trees looking for sun and warmth, but the sun is not warm and she can not find it's shape through the graceful branches draped heavily with Spanish moss. She knows that Florida winters are brief, and realizes that her relationship is suffering a "winter" and that, with some effort,those winters can also be very brief. She begins to walk faster, to catch up with her husband. To find comfort from the warmth of him.

This is the first time I have explained this poem - even to myself and I am surprised at how much more I see beyond the words.

I wonder what you saw or felt when you read it? What story does it tell you?