Hour-power... a Sonnet

How swift you lay your head on twilight’s stair

The courtship of your pleasantry a-waft

Where hillsides splay blue friendships, shadow-soft

Upon a barricade twixt Here and There

Darling, the chimera of touching you

Provokes ineptness, still, I know I must

Embrace the air that vexes dust-to-dust

Before the color-fall of your adieu

Tell me then how to love you; how can I

Be all that I can be before good-bye?

Tie ribbons, azure-noon, into my hair

Tease me with more than toil’s rigid demand

And teach me how to trust wanderlust’s hand

Lest I forfeit her freeing gait for care

And oh, may I do more than tolerate

Your steady dispensation; let me thrive

And prove with gladness that I am alive

Even as we approach yon Parting Gate

Then show me, ere the tolling of the bell

To be all that we can, before farewell

You are the kiss that breaks the bud-green seal

And when the bloom has borne its utter best

You are the fingers that lay it to rest

Where seed and husk to life and death appeal

The minute-hands upon wall-clocks dictate

Your rise and fall; a rolling, soulful surf

Where twilight rushes blue across the turf

That cradles seasons; longing’s surrogate

Darling, then love me tender, heart to heart

So I may learn to dance before we part

© Janet Martin