Moment-minuet

Hemlock and pine strum the strings of adieu

Darkness embraces dusk’s vulnerable blue

Here a wee quiver and there a wee sigh

Day is a shimmering tear in time’s eye

Lullaby softens noon’s sun-polished lilt

Muffling its laughter with  star-studded quilt

Where on still-silvery sedges thought hears

Satin-soft slippers as time disappears

Midnight, the mien of beginning and end

Touches time’s timbrel like stranger and friend

Tomorrow becomes what yesterday was

Present succumbs to Past’s deepening pause

Leviathans of mankind’s love and lust

Crumble to eons of ashes and dust

As, ever hastening days become years

Breath-by-breath chastening; time disappears

Hail to the piper of viperous flute

Grasp at the strain of refrains growing mute

Dance to the violin’s quivering lay

On ether oceans drip-dripping away

Beg not for plunder of miserly dirt

But beg for wonder because moments flirt

Momentarily; silk, sixteenth-note spheres

Flowing through fingers where time disappears

© Janet Martin