Saturday, February 18, 2012

Ethereal Echoes


In the evening she would lean against the pillar of the porch
As nature dropped its chatter like parishioners at church
The breeze ran cooling fingers soft against her pensive stance
And in the gathering twilight how those memories would dance
‘ Oh Mama, watch our somersault’ she sees two little girls
As cotton dresses flew awry with tousled braids or curls
And then her eyes would rest upon nasturtium, lily, rose
The ivy on the south-west wall; how subtly it glows
As noonday sheds maternal warmth in dusty pink and gold
The farmer walked toward her then, his stride youthful and bold
Unlike the creak of wooden planks as now he sits and rocks
While time re-plays before his eyes the ticking of life’s clocks…

…the weathered pride of heaven’s walls charms intrigued passers-by
Pausing to hear time’s clock rewind in nature’s reverent sigh
Frames of a perfect romance lure the wanderer to its door
Hungry for glimpses of the life that played across its floor
But timber seals its creaking lips, eyes stare back silently
Its staid facade a soundless dirge of sweet melancholy
The ivy claws tenaciously against its wooden breast
Beneath a hundred-season sky its longing is caressed
And we are drawn toward the song of hallowed history
Of tumbled lawn, perennial bloom and musing's mystery
Where in the eve she leaned against the pillar on the porch
We gaze with awe-hushed voices like parishioners at church

© Janet Martin

I loved all the pictures but kept returning to this one...
Thank-you Mary-Ann for sharing the wonderful photos!

Photo Prompt at Real Toads

It could work for the previous prompt as well:)

12 comments:

  1. Yes, it certainly could work for the previous prompt, and it definitely worked for this one.
    I love the way the ending brings back the beginning, but I especially like the way you took us into the picture, as if we were there.

    Kay, Alberta, Canada
    An Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel

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  2. Wow! You certainly have captured the past and present moments in time in this response to the photo. I like the way your rhyme never became intrusive, and these lines particularly caught my eye.

    The ivy claws tenaciously against its wooden breast
    Beneath a hundred-season sky its longing is caressed...

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  3. Oh, Janet, this is just beautiful! You've blessed me with your response to this photo. Everything flows so well here, especially the motifs of flowers and hushed voices.

    I took this picture just a few miles from our farm. There are sadly too many abandoned old places like this in our rural county. I believe in preserving them with my photos. Now you've helped preserve this one, too, with your lovely poem!

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  4. Beautiful. I love the cotton dresses!

    ~Mimi
    Collage Pirate

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  5. I have the urge to explore places like this, to imagine the lives lived, the drama and the joy. Your words capture all so well.

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  6. Lovely, nostalgic and reverent. I especially love "how subtly it glows", "the weathered pride of heaven's walls", and your two closing lines are perfection.

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  7. I chose the same one....I love that picture. You have painted a picture everyone can identify with. Lovely as the day is long and so easy fo me to see in my minds eye. Just lovely.

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  8. Janet, this is one of the most intricate of your poems that I have read. You really captured the essence of the scene, got inside of it, and made the reader FEEL.

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  9. This is so beautifully done. My favorite thing was the "hundred-season sky."

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  10. A lovely picture you painted, of happy days gone by. Happy memories can become so precious, can't they.

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  11. So beautiful..I do feel at times when I have come upon an empty house it is a cathedral...a holy place of dreams

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  12. What a lovely peak you gave us at the inner heart of that home... once so alive (little girls somersualting... and her man striding youthful and bold)

    and now it stands soundless, eyes blank...

    You gave this house a soul.

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Thank-you for stopping by my porch! I hope you were blessed!