Heart-string Tempests

Something on yonder berm tugs at something inside of me

And draws me to the verge of what I cannot fully see

Darling, it seems before we have a chance to fully taste

The moment in our hands it is extracted and replaced

The tempest on a heart-string blurs fathoms of faith and fear

Where ‘hello, love’ and parting intertwine and commandeer

Look, look, the shell of new farewells is dawning on the east

And oh, I dare not linger for Time is a hungry beast

But still I must for soon the dust of it drifts on the west

A sun and shadow vortex never needing time to rest

Darling, a sacred citadel of hold and letting go

Erects itself within my heart in tempests, searing, slow

Sometimes I barely bear this thing surging o’er yonder hill

For innocence must soon learn recompense; life’s good and ill

Are never very far apart; the heart will testify

How readily its laughter spawns oceans within the eye

Meanwhile, the smile that fathers tears ever so willingly

Strengthens the tempest in my heart soft-softly killing me

© Janet Martin