The Beautiful Bittersweet

The wind reclines hazily on the blue hill

Autumn pines restlessly beyond the dark rill

Shadows sprawl languidly, laden with musk

While August scrawls farewell tears into the dusk

I ponder the fulcrum of time’s forward flow

Wondering what to cling to; what to let go

Summer’s retreating stirs corn-tassel seas

Daylight's depleting stirs soft memories

Passion and pleasure and pain coalesce

As gossamer measure dispels Augusts’ tress

Where whispers of umber and bronze-gilded brush

Serenade summer’s unrelenting rush

Tomorrow is a memory waiting to be born

Ripe opportunity wakens with the morn

Weep not for the flower that falls wilted; wasted

But savor the hour spilling to be tasted

What once was is over; what will be a-waits

Like an impatient lover beyond shuttered gates

Cherish each moment but then let it go

This is love’s tormenting triumph and woe

August relinquishes its final embrace

As September steps eagerly into its place

Bravely we reach while still waving so-long

This is love’s bittersweet, beautiful song

© Janet Martin