In May brought down and blinkered
When summer calls the tune and fondles
Fond wish not will, as the magnolia’s candles
Burn white to greet the courteous evening light,
I have my strength, yet lack ability.
Having desire, yet without energy
My fingers trance the soft-faced season’s features
Too easily, forgetting all the strictures
They learnt in picking sharper strings and hardly
Stray to May’s chord, nor seek the blackthorn’s secret.
Others have made the May since Juliet
Held in her face four centuries of summer,
Creating a pedantic myth. We later
Must root in print our young endeavour
Without the promise of an August saviour.
Having no increase but the willing labour
As tulips gulp the sun, of procreation,
I praise this unheroic generation
Anchored to earth and confident and hopeless
Of bloom this May as any wry-limbed cypress.