Big Lake Poems: Trillium and Pine

I'm creating a volume of poetry that I call 'The Big Lake Anthology' about my life and memories growing up near Lake Michigan, or The Big Lake as we called it. This one 'Trillium and Pine' is centered around a white tri-petaled flower, also known as grandiflorum, native to Michigan's old-growth forests and protected by the DNR. This early spring blossom is welcomed every year with a festival in my home town. Some trillium are red and so my poem reflects those species in metaphor. It also celebrates the short lives of my two infant daughters, deceased at birth, Mary Therese and Isobella Raine Sachteleben.

warm wine glow
tranquility flow
trillium and pine
rhythm and rhyme

good with the bad
happy I've had
time upon thyme
trillium white wine

from flower bower 

then turns the hour

up a steep hill
some remain still

some things to grow
some to let go

rest in the vale
tell of the tale

sad winter time

crusted in tear-salt rime

gall bitter vine

blood red wine

mem'ry is song
singing along
verse and refrain
of lyric-ripe pain

sing to the dark
cling to the mark
libate the night

drink to the light

feel the days go
rain and then snow
fresh summer wine
rosemary and time

the trillium still bloom
in deep new-spring gloom
white as a maid
born in the shade

pine stands true
ever green-blue
withstanding the pain
shining the in the rain

warm autumn wine
golden twilight, thine
now is the time
for reason and rhyme
trillium and pine.