Of Hints and Tints

Now stirs the dormant seed in wintry bed

Where from the bond of autumn-frond it fell

The visions that we nursed of storm-cursed dread

Surrender to time’s rolling, tolling swell

And loam that lured dusk’s early lullaby

Grows restless now where summer’s gardens sigh

The overbearing gale pales as the sun

Expands its strands before the day is done

And bronze landscapes are eager for the snow

Of daisy, anemone and musk-mallow

How long the tree has waited, not in vain

To cradle nest and fledgling on its limb

To croon the tune of leaf-song once again

Where now its stands bereft of nature’s hymn

This tug-of-temperatures soon must relent

As Old Man Winter's will and chill is spent

Soon orchard bowers will flower and spill

Fair, pink-frocked ballerinas to each hill

And everyone is young and full of smiles

Eager to dance upon spring’s silk-green isles

Methinks I hear a low, lush river blush

Is it the heady rush of budding shoots?

This game of waiting for the blossomed bush

Teases the frost from nature’s muddy boots

And teaches us the art of patient sighs

For spring that never yet has lost its way

To earth, and the rebirth of paradise

Soon, soon this stone-cold hold will roll away

Where even now both sod and sky are rife

With hints of resurrection and new life

© Janet Martin