A Blip of Blue and Gold...

('Mom calls these sparkles five o' clock diamonds' I heard Victoria explain to Emily yesterday as they looked through our vacation photos)

July always seems like a blip of blue and gold...

These daily deaths, shrouded in season-song

Clothes our imagination first and then a sigh

Ever the imminence of time’s good-bye

Trembles. We hear it where the cricket-throng

Heralds the gloaming; creek-beds flow with bloom

Of chicory, chamomile, Queen Ann’s lace

Our walk-ways to farewell wend where fern plume

And wisteria frames fortune’s resting place

But we are on the path, not at its end

This is the time to laugh, live, love, my friend

The wood-length weeps; we hear it where the wind

Washes through knee-deep green or bends the bough

Of apple-orchards; suddenly the mind

Is keened with affection and letting go

Did not but yesterday, the violet burst

In starlet-purple waves across the mud?

Yet we dashed hunger-shod and dream-immersed

Where soldiers baptized gardens with their blood

Nature is not detained by our wars

See how the night is overcome with stars

The doorway to a new day swings ajar

And we do not remain glued to its gate

For this is where life’s fullest wonders are

…not in the things of thought while hours abate

But in the here and now, the bleeding bud

And barefoot bliss, sweet summer’s crown of days

Unfolds its fathoms while mute mem’ries flood

Our eyes with happiness; ah, nothing stays

But daily deaths; life’s laureate enthrones

With echoed breath Time’s virgin stepping-stones

© Janet Martin

The Flowers, the Sunset, the Trees- Jim Reeves