Well-armed Stranger

Now yesterday has etched its shadow soft upon a street

It wanders through a wonderland where grief and joy compete

Moments that no one can exhume like scattered petals lie

Silk remnant of Time’s fullest bloom asleep beneath the sky

And new upon the orbit of untried and untrod way

Thus we embark; the dark relents emerging as Today

We’ve never met before and yet mindless we recognize

Your gentle chuckle like old folklore teasing far-off skies

Familiar yet stranger striding without backward glance

Over  highlighted agonies in ease and confidence

Ah, Maestro of moments, soon you set to memory

Those clandestine collections that only the mind can see

My, my, but you’re a heart-throb shedding colors to the dust

Rendering seeds of happiness; harvest is up to us

Suffused with free surprises you unfold from formless deep

To spill gold light in footsteps where your predecessors sleep

And where you etched your shadow soft upon thought’s palisade

You come, armed from somewhere aloft with mem’ries yet unmade

© Janet Martin