Sonnet of 'Almost-Summer'

The leaf unfolds its glory and the tree

Once stark and bare is nature’s pride and joy

Its lap of shadow sprawls luxuriously

Where we pause, summer’s daydream to employ

As Cold Impossible relents at last

To air that wears our prayers warm, lilac-lined

And we are willing to forgive the past

Allowing love to be kinder and blind

For in this ‘almost-place’ we reconcile

The bitterness of longing for a while

The nearness of you becomes more than thought

And what was once a far-flung fantasy

Rouses within, echoes of what is not

And cannot be restored in poetry

Yet, Longing is too long and far too hard

To endure in this ‘almost summertime’

The tune of moment-song vexes the bard

His obligations torn twixt rose and rhyme

For Duty and desire wrangle where

Spring’s architecture draws and awes our stare

How swift the hour falls prey to yesterday

Nothing exhausts the wellspring of tick-tock

Eager to brush the bud of spring away

In petals scattered on the garden-walk

The invitation of an afternoon is sweet

And yet it seems too often we fore-go

Its beckoning to wander in bare feet

Where wild crab-apple blossoms fall like snow

Kissing the grass with blushing bits of pink

As ‘almost-summer’ teeters on Time’s brink

Are we too old to fall in love again?

This ‘almost summer’ keens thought’s appetite

In reasons complicated to explain

Like love, easy to fall, hard to get right

But ever like the burgeoning detail

Of miracles detained in budded hull

We reach to touch the ravishing regale

Of petal-works splayed where the ground was dull

But now, erupts  in reams of greens and golds

Where ‘almost summer’ bloom by bloom unfolds

© Janet Martin