Day 15: The Sin of Spring (the full sestina)

If Autumn is the age of gluttony

‘Twixt Winter’s sloth and Summer’s glorious pride,

No sin, you think, can sully childlike Spring

For there is nothing on which vice can feed –

This is the season soil brings forth the seed.

Oh, but the sin of Spring is surely Greed!

Give me more, more, more! says Greed

My eyes are bigger than my garden. Gluttony

Whispers from the left, just one more seed;

And from the right – bold, over-ruling Pride

Encourages me: feed, feed, feed.

I can’t deny my plant lust in the spring.

Oh, what a joyous revolution, Spring!

This season when I have the luxury of Greed –

It finally seems possible to feed

My frame and fancy both. (Note: Gluttony

Begets the fall oft credited to Pride,

For nothing grows well when I crowd the seed.)

So strong, and yet so delicate, the seed

That pushes through the cold dark earth to spring

In one great burst for sunlight, as if pride

Were felt as well by plants as men. No greed

Can grow enough for Autumn’s gluttony –

I have a perennially hungry soul to feed.

But first comes learning how to feed

The soil, which must then nourish the seed

With its insatiable hunger (is this gluttony?)

I feel I must know everything in Spring –

A thirst for wisdom, too, can be deemed greed

If in my knowing I take undue pride.

My vegetables will be my garden’s pride –

If only I can grow enough to feed

Both family and wild creatures’ greed,

Then – then – I will have planted enough seed.

I want to live up to this promise (tease) of Spring –

This more, more, more! demand, this gluttony.

With humbled pride, I plant this prayer, this seed –

From this age of Greed, may bounty spring

To feed a family’s autumn gluttony.