4 Seasonal Rituals by Adrian Rogers

Adrian Rogers

1—AUTUMN PROCESSIONAL

Autumn, processional

seasonal in many guises

is a shape changer

makeup artist

of extraordinarily transient dexterity,

Andante Con Moto

into sunset singing transitional

blood-scarlet, yellow surprises

turned russet, stranger

than fictional dreaming

diminishing, fading

when light has a clarity of definition

and a coolly sharpening edge

marked stretto

when winds pressing the sedge

and water spreading

under sunsets flamed vermilion

black cloud framed

splash-paint,

firing above gold overspreading

pale flashing a rippling Allegro

rough-stippling fluidity

into impermanence

and emotion is recollected

not always in tranquillity

falling onto lost opportunities

on leaves way-swept

all over creek and river runs in spate.

Storms early and late

scour land and water

hurrying detritus into time’s streaming

accented

world without end

Presto!

Speed frittering away

on colour skittering themes

before a processional ritardando

turns recessional

into winter sleep mode’s

harvested aftermath,

trees skeletally exposed

earth bared

after high wire balancing

flocking migrant singers

fly into winter’s onset

and Adagio

is the sky’s lead heavy threat.

2—RECESSIONAL WINTER

Winter’s slow paced, bleak

Adagio Sostenuto for strings

is long held

starkly overlapping chords

with only

descending harp notes dropping

like frosted ice particles

punctuating Samadhi

interlocking a stillness out of time

seeking no ending

or canticles in eulogy

where memories are swords

winter is length, shortness,

life, death and time

slow leaking across hemispheres

solstice capturing

at the Hitching Post

a retreating sun

turning it back upon itself

as a new moon too weak

against the dark

to rouse a wind’s harsh singing

seeks out fires of festival

stomping the boards accelerando

distracting shadow dancing

haunted minds

accentuating

a need for seasonal courtesies,

the bowing in of longer days.

Winter’s sun-fire rays

once bleeding evening red

flare briefly white

in cold dawn’s dazzling blaze

and icy brilliance

mutes the heart clock’s beat

Allargando

stiff chilled, responding

to Tarot’s death card blending

the Reaper’s symbols

his living and dying forms

by a sunset river circling

eternally beyond the winter’s ice,

calling...

‘let the sleeping seed

dying into rising life

with the iron hard need

of winter met be the strife

of spring’s wild onset, freed

from time and rife

with possibilities.’

3—RONDEAUX DU PRINTEMPS

Spring’s seasonal resonances

green growing into light

bursting

and water jewel/bright swift

flashing

over Winter’s monochrome

out-sparking

are breath and blood

Venus un-girdled

Shamanic drumming

and The Rite of Spring

‘pulse blossoming

into thunderous flourishes

when root stock multiplying

into dawn light cherishes

the sounding Word, ringing

the changes...’

a rondo pianistic finale

beginning the unpredictable

bud into pink/white blooming

briefly flirting colour singing

Allegro Vivace

fulfilling the urge

and sun powered surge

over water, sound and silence

drum caught

lassoed,

poco rallentando...

‘ringing the changes

when a seed self nourishes

the living exchanges

burgeoning from a hidden

thirst for maturation

first into Wisdom.’

Spring will down-wind

copper remain in the soil

Venus testify

in star shaped wanderings

Summer reap her seasonal spoils

Vulcan hold the world

in his toils, and light’s

expanding scope around

a Temple’s daisy-chain like

dancing unity

anchor hope, when the Temple

of the few becomes

the Temple of the many.

4—SARABAND OF SUMMER

Love beneath the summer stars

between above

and below

coordinating with

the River in the Sky,

celebrations

heat exhaling from embodied earth

into a cooling night

when chanting slows the steps

Andante Molto

of a ritual Saraband

liturgies of heart and hand

of heated blood

drawn down

into a solstice passionless

by step and swing

a poise distilled

before the annealing drought

of long-lit days

when green in many shaded rays

primal deceiver

down-weighs ascension’s

evidence

of unseen presences

hopes breathed

out of a land to beige attenuated

and from the stars.

Light and shadow bars

way-goers

by black towered summer storms

wet and dry

dark, light, fitfully contrasting

clarity and haze,

the Grim Reaper’s contradiction

death with life

and seeds of everlastingness.

Within the consciousness

of passing days

beyond our solstice time

‘tempo rubato’

shadows the singing

echoing a summer’s ending,

maturation

in the lees of all our knowing

a glass turned down

recessional

and harvest’s ceremonial closing.

Setu, November 2017