Of Life and Leaves and Mysteries

2013 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 11

For today’s prompt, we’re going to write ekphrastic poetry–or poetry based off another piece of art or a photo

The melodies that filled the trees

Are scattered, splattered on earth-seas

Caught one last time upon a breeze

On farewell’s final ride

For in the free-fall of an hour

The whimsy of both youth and flow’r

Succumb to the immortal pow’r

Of mercy’s moment-tide

And one by one, like fallen leaf

We pass this way to rest beneath

The calling, sprawling, falling sheaf

Where death’s great mysteries hide

And none can surely know or tell

When is the hour of farewell

Or when will toll the mourning bell

As flesh and soul divide

The still-life pageantry of Time

Unfurls its little lilt and rhyme

A testing, wresting, hasting climb

In faith or fear’s control   

For, whether with earnest intent

Or bound by blinded ignorance

We, unlike falling leaves advance

To the home of the soul   

© Janet Martin