Bards of May

How merrily the bards of May

Spill sweetness to earth’s calloused gray

Now shouts the rising sun to earth

Of longing quelled, of glad re-birth

And hearts, mantled with bleak despair

Embrace May-song like answered prayer

How graciously the bards of May

Ease somber filament away

Oh, bonny bliss of green and blue

Of purple kiss and golden hue

We gaze with beggarly delight

On orchard haze of pink and white

How free and fair season’s bequeath

This thing of air; we lie beneath

The lacy arch of wreath-plumed bark

Where noon sprawls high, its gilded arc

A pleasant, poetic disguise

Where Time slips past our half-closed eyes

…as merrily the bards of May

Tease trees and meadow-lands to play

The tune we crave in winter’s grief

Of sighing grass and lilting leaf

Where soon mid-May reality

Is naught but bits of poetry

© Janet Martin