Hope Springs...

Hope Springs

We hide our dead in haste,
yet on the blossom-heavy bough
among the quickening flowers -
for all to see - hangs one rotten fruit.
It goes tardy to its grave,
for graves are patient.

Gaunt and gibbeted now, this fruit
of last year's cradle joys
is gnarled and shrivelled,
shrunk to a crinkled black;
yet home still, still among its cousins.

And though no starker sign
could show more clear
the outcome of their enterprise
(for it's no perpetual suffering Christ
who labours on their tree till doom),
the siren blossoms sing their song
to conspiratorial bees.

A busying murmur speaks eternal:
bring out your living;
hang garlands on the trees,
and never cry for one who sees.
No, never cry for me.