Spring, long awaited Spring
burst in last night
in a thunderclap

You’re here at last!
I said, rolling over in the
flashing bed

Here at last
is the warm air
and I can put away
my tight, heavy
undershirts and
stockings and
turtlenecks and
woollen scarves
and gloves

Spring has been
a tease this year
sending forecasts
of warmings
that never arrive
and catch us unlayered
in raincoats
shivering outside

Yes, Spring is here
trailing a string of broken promises
like a kite that
doesn’t have enough
wind to launch itself
into the sky

She doesn’t mind
And every year she tries to tell me
the same thing:

Hope may spring eternal
but hold it loosely
throw it up into the air
and catch it, bounce it
and learn to juggle
more than one hope
at a time

But never grasp it
never hold that your
hope must
happen or else
you’ll drop the ball

Appreciate the warm days
Spring might say
But take every one
in stride, know every
single expression of
my ever-changing face

And keep your hopes high
Because I am there
In everything, even
when Old Man Winter
sinks into his gloomiest
room, even when he
sleeps the sleep out of which
the dreamer wakes
into another dream
not knowing
how many dreams
it will take
before he bursts
onto the earth

Hope is always here
says Spring
in her last thunderclap

And now I am awake
I put on my robe
and go to the porch door
with my sleepy-eyed mate
where we watch the
storm depart and the
ground of the sky
change.

Michelle Tocher, April 10, 2015

Illustration by Florence Harrison (1877-1955)

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