Recompense of Hope

Wanton wind broods hungrily

Where June’s leaf-song used to be

Gone is summer’s sighing tress

None its season can possess

Now the street is lined with hosts

As earth claims Time’s petal-ghosts

Just as every half-breath, slipped

Into past’s eternal crypt

We are chancellors of hope

Blue wind broods on barren slope

Yet the discourse of an hour

Holds within its force, spring’s flow’r

We embrace this wondrous thing

Hope is heaven’s offering

For the brooding wind that blows

Will again kiss summer’s rose

Waiting is a hard-learned hurt

I have watched its seasons flirt

With my darling dreams, and I

Have sad and silently stood by

As they fell, like autumn’s leaf

I have suffered waiting’s grief

But within its grip I’ve learned

Happiness is hope returned

© Janet Martin