Hope Claps or Of First-Spring

This lapse twixt bud and bloom

In first-spring’s waiting-room

Where we anticipate the gate

Entwined with petal-plume

Inspires, not the mood

Of last-storms as they brood

But births the lilt of flowered kilt

In halls of hope renewed

This stance of ‘someday soon’

Of polished Brigadoon

Of ‘then’ and ‘when’ and ‘once again’

Dripping from yonder spoon

Evokes a pretty prose

Unfolding like a rose

In gardens where we stand and stare

At how lovely it grows

And though the wind is gray

Raw-tongued with winter’s fray

We, undeterred are sure we heard

A robin yesterday

And in this little lapse

Before nature’s climax

As first-spring waits at budded gates

Hearts dream and sing; hope claps

© Janet Martin

Don't you find your thought and conversation peppered with 'when', 'then' and so forth as we plan gardens, picnics and other pleasantries?