A bleak blanket sopping wet hangs above

Soaked soles, slogging through

A shivered whirl and sloppy earth,

That nips the garbs now quenched in thirst,

And slips the shoes who fight for naught

But purchase on their puddled path.

No warbling wren will sway the wind,

Nor honeycrisp blooms sweeten spent spring air,

For the joys of renewal

Are subdued at the sight

Of a somber sky

And grum’bling ground.

But in its wake of tears once cried

The crooners move the blooms,

And rouse them from their dampened sleep

As thunder rolls and booms through boughs

The deeper tromp it treads,

Leaving here my sodden state.

Through tattering sheets that trail away,

And take the thickened air,

A warming ray breaks loosened bonds,

And sweetly charms the finer veil,

Knit nimb’ly with the remnants of the storm

And gale, a wandering wisp.

An arc of color shimmers over

The mounting mists and shaded spires

And lifts the soul to stride, below

The tangled throng of limbs and,

Along a span some soles do stroll.