Tracing Tempests

The ragged fringes of the heart are like a battered shore

But oh, the tender treasure cradled where tempests implore

As moment-gems of days gone by render a brooding gleam

To diadems of memory’s indelible requiem

For we can never sever from time’s merciless rampart

The pattern of love’s whispers in the fragments of the heart

The hand of time doles out its share of hellos and good-byes

Meek mourners congregate; somewhere a new-born baby cries

Ah, life and death; none can escape its ordained certainty

Our final breath is but the gate to vast eternity

The feathered brush of finger-tips and lips extend their touch

Within the rush of rising tides and sinking ships and such

Darling, sometimes I hide behind the skin that shapes my face

Where love is strung; silver sequins on echoes I embrace

For utter grief and joy are imbued by a tear's caress

An uncharted alloy of bitter-sweetest tenderness

Evoking in keen, sudden half-breath, a tsunami force

Yet delicate awareness of Time’s ethereal discourse

Time is nothing but moments melding one into the next

The past an unveiled eon of hope’s imminent pretext

For now the tune that spawns our laughter falls into the deep

Of ageless ever-after; unmarked graves where moments sleep

As hearts with ragged fringes bear its onslaught valiantly

A gate of mystic hinges opens and shuts soundlessly

© Janet Martin