The Turn

Hope comes easy in basking sunlit hours,

When under short-shadowed trees, shade meets light,

And dazzled lovers forget to fear night,

But lay supine among nodding flowers.

On verdant carpets, in green-spun bowers,

Unfurled, we dream whatever dreams we might,

And with forever beyond blinkered sight,

At summer's breast, build our gleaming towers.

How soon though, come the crisping, brittle dusk,

We curl wide eyed upon the hard hoared ground,

And look to naked stars for better fate.

But in our fisted hand lays summer's husk,

And such is ever how this world is wound,

Kept warm, a seed of hope may germinate.