Time's Citadel

Yellow school bus flashes black wink, etched in rising sun

How quick familiar passes, blink. Where sage is silver-spun…

Those years of ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ have shed their green

Now I pray, Lord, guide and bless and ever keep their conscience keen

Too soon pale stars search out the cove where daylight spilled its mirth

A little bit of life, my love, before Death’s second birth

Time’s citadel cannot contain its sweet four-season surge

Yet fills its hills again, again with litany and dirge

Faith is the substance of our hope and Unseen’s evidence

Toward its Higher Clime we grope for living’s recompense

© Janet Martin