Of Numbered Days

When daylight fades cool and gold sun turns to pink

As shadows splay blue to the edge of earth’s brink

When refreshed intention that tuned morning’s spire

Drifts keenly in echoes of dream and desire

It seems I can feel soft, phantom fingertips

Gather its surreal caresses from my lips

Smoothing to the skyline its flicker of worth

Beneath a pavilion of heaven to earth

Where gladness and sadness like fire and ice

Burns through my stilled senses in ruthless solstice

The fine wine of love leaves its warmth to cajole

In whispering comfort swift seasons that roll

For grief is a beautiful thing golden-lined

As each passing year leaves its treasure behind

And love is a splendor of passion and pain

A turbulent tempest and tender refrain

How quick the dark night claims the dying of day

Snuffing the sun-wick that lights its little way

How soon the swift year is laid gently to rest

Its farewell song fades like daylight in the west

And all we can do as we pause on the edge

Of day slipping over time’s undaunted ledge

Is humbly relinquish into the soft air

The thought that forms mutely an un-uttered prayer

For none are immune to the vaunt of an hour

The winnowing tune plucking fronds from a flow’r

The best we can hope for in each season spent

Is learning the secret of being content

And never to cling to what must be let go

But treasure the measure of love’s precious flow

For we are sojourners and we cannot keep

One thread of a moment binding twilight’s deep

The chart of stark digits marks years on its page

It offers no hint of the heart’s tender stage

But candidly adds one more day to its cast

Robbing from the future to give to the past

We cannot thwart its unchallenged intent

And none can reimburse an hour when spent

The power and glory are returned full-fold

To He from which our life-story un-molds

And soon the repeat of night’s lowering sky

Croons moonlight-metered midnight’s lullaby

Pressing frost to the pumpkin then dew to spring-girth  

Seeds to the harvest and graves to the earth

When daylight fades deep over dusk-darkened hills

Folding to its hold living’s stumbles and spills

We lift our hearts to life’s Giver in praise

And murmur, ‘Lord, teach us to numbers our days’

© Janet Martin