Tell-tale Signs of Joy to Come (on the laughing tide of life)

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer for poem-a-day challenge

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Tell (blank),"

replace the blank with a new word or phrase,

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

In Ontario we are in the see-saw season of

'ah, spring, oh, winter, ah, spring, oh-h...'

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace...

Futile to try to pry the bud to haste the bloom, or seize

A broom to sweep dustings of snow from hills and streets and lanes

To everything a season; soon the nakedness of trees

Will don fresh fronds of emerald lace and lofty leaf-refrains

Nature is never anxious, never ruffled by protest

It does not miss a beat, no matter how we rue its pace

Ah look, in the crook of the apple tree, a robin's nest

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace

Foolish to chase the wind or shake an ineffectual fist

At Old Man Winter clinging to what not-a-one can keep

Ah, let him roar and war against the tug of shores, sun-kissed

Soon soft zephyrs will dance across meadows dappled with sheep

Futile to fret. Let hope whet appetites for joys at hand

As the first tell-tale signs of spring intensify until

Nothing can stem the laughing tide of life that sweeps the land

With green grandeur, pink blossom-blush and yellow daffodil

Janet Martin

Spring Waltz (Mariage d'Amour) Chopin

The first line in the 3rd stanza drew me to Ecclesiastes!

The endeavor...

Eccles.1:14

Ecclesiastes 1:17
So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly;

 I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind...

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished

 and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile,

 a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:17

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. 

For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

To the man who is pleasing in His sight, 

He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy,

 but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating

 that which he will hand over to one who pleases God.

 This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:4

I saw that all labor and success spring from a man's envy of his neighbor. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:16

There is no limit to all the people who were before them. 

Yet the successor will not be celebrated by those who come even later. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 6:9

Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

The conclusion...

Ecclesiastes 12:13
When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this:

 Fear God and keep His commandments,

 because this is the whole duty of man.