A Blissful Madness

The hour is mad with possibility

As summer drools against my window-pane

Strumming the leaf-notes of the maple tree

Its music trickling into life’s mundane

Where duty wields its tried and tireless force

And wander-lust, clad in golden day-dream

Bids me to stray from labor’s staid discourse

To wander by the woodland’s ambling stream

The scent of farewell rushes to me, warm

Like waves to shore before a summer storm

I‘m tethered to the hand pushing the plow

Freedom, a fantastic and foreign ploy

As landscapes burgeon with the after-glow

Of hope and harvest; living’s grief and joy

Dare I to shirk the rod of humble toil

To loiter in the crook of summer’s arm

While others work; will I collect their spoil

Yet languish where her parting kiss is warm?

Temptation urges my heart to rebel

A tug-of war twixt duty and farewell

Oh, tender bliss of love; sweet rivers run

Toward the stream where darker waters move

But shadows only happen in the sun

And grief can only happen if we love

I care not where I spend summer’s last hour

My mouth is full of her wine; bittersweet

For love is a mystic, manifold flow’r

And though I feel her presence wane; retreat

I will embrace the parting tear that flows

Without the thorn we cannot have the rose

© Janet Martin