Like Parting Friends...

Like parting friends, soft we let go

The rush of Time is bittersweet

As it touches the poet’s song

In cadences of ‘no repeat’

We toast its triumph, weep its loss

And carry on, no refuge lies

In some forgotten interlude

Where we can pause past’s transfixed prize

The cottage hearth where children played

Will soon be silent, save for cheers

Of ticking clock and echoed days

Lost somewhere in Time’s sweeping years

How tenderly we touch the air

For this we know, its moment-mien

Claims little girls with golden curls

And little boys of carefree grin

A visceral, intrinsic zeal

Interweaves every season-smile

Futile to quietly appeal

To ticking clocks to pause a while

Thus we linger, perhaps to taste

A moment longer Time’s delight

Before it succumbs to the haste

Of centuries sealed from our sight

Like parting friends we tarry ere

Farewell satisfies its demands

Darling, methinks I feel you where

A sea of echoes sweeps Time’s sands

© Janet Martin

John Clare wrote some of my most-beloved poetry...here is a beautiful stanza from his poem December...

...and many a thing, a minute's sport
Left broken on the sanded floor
When we would leave our play and court
Our parents' promises for more
Tho' manhood bids such raptures die
And throws such toys aside in vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye
And count past pleasures o'er again...