Hail, bright crescent, as dogwood blossoms fade,
and birds’-foot trefoil finds place in the sun.
Wild marigold opens leaves in shade;
forsythia trembles; meadowsweet’s begun
to twine choking tendrils around each stem.
Now cherry bursts in pale velvet splendour;
now young kit emerges in fighting trim,
ready to learn foxing from his mother.
Painted turtle suns himself on felled pine,
after he feasts on tadpoles and peepers.
Bald-faced hornet plots an intercept line
to bee sipping from strawberry creepers.
Sudden rains crater bare earth to stewed mud,
from which shall rise clover and pokeweed bud.
This one is quite late, and my apologies for that. I kept having to look up new plants I found, and discovering that the syllable counts didn’t work quite the way I wanted them to.
