Where Do They Come From? (For Richard:)

‘Where do they (the poems) come from?’, asked my friend Richard on Sunday morning, as he remarked at the amount of Another Porch titles in his in-box.

They come from beneath, all around, overhead

As night to the light of a new day is wed

As new day unravels in blue, gray and gold

And colors the whispers that run through our hold

To cover with kisses and wishes the sigh

That flushes time’s clime with hello and good-bye

In constant outpouring of moments un-moored

They leap from a wellspring of Love Reassured

…or the clippety-clop on the tarmac of morn

From a four-horse team headed to fields to plant corn

From ‘peekaboo, baby’ and ‘how do you do?’

From cups made of lily all shiny with dew

From the how and the what and the why of this life

From love-lessons rendered to husband and wife

Where oft we embrace grace-lent blessings and such

Simply to feel them dissolve ‘neath our touch

They sparkle on raindrops that mirror the sky

They flicker on feather of finch flitting by

Or flutter like butterfly, buzz like a bee

Or sing like a hymn in a soon-memory

They croon in a pale halo-moon lullaby

They smile, giggle, weep, lilt, murmur and sigh

And taunt the poor poet haunted by the sound

Of an almost-poem wafting soft, all around

They splash in the dash of feet following us

As they try to tame adult hurry and fuss

They skim like a swallow and brim from bud-eaves

To lavishes bare limbs with the music of leaves

These precious word-rubies, these diamonds and pearls

Put on pretty dresses, sparkling eyes, golden curls

And sing ‘Jesus loves me’ and ring heaven’s bells

While over and under us poetry swells

…and spills from the hills green with spring, autumn-red

Or pristine with winter, or pink-clover mead

They tumble from heights where white clouds bumble by

They shimmer in whispers of willow-July

And beckon from bracken-swept hollow, they burst

From the echo of ages that sleeps in in its dust

And oft on the dark side of day they appear

To hush-a-bye mother and comfort her tear

They groan in the undertow stealing to naught

That which demands and commands utmost thought

They long like a lover or the wolf as it wails

And nobody answers save the wind-stricken dales

…or the flagstone of petals where flowers are lost

To the moody atonement of time, hour-tossed

In yellows and hellos and mourning dove coo

They come from ten-thousand pens primed with adieu

The yen of years, oh, and the laughter of lips

The tug-of-heart hunger and fond fellowships

They drive from our bearing the fear that would be

If not for the poem to keep company

In the nest of lark, in the dark of the dawn

In lattice-work lace on a sun-shadow lawn

In the ache of landscapes, November brown, bare

Or handshakes worn, frail and tender with time's care

Where do they come from and how, oh my

A well-spring of ocean, a belfry of sky

A river that runs through a quiver of days

Where Poet must seek to preserve it in phrase

While, all the while Time in svelte season-attire

Drums up old-new Wakening for pen to sire

Where do they come from, these poems that be?

Why, they are the offspring of God’s kind sympathy

© Janet Martin

 This poem runs in the same vein as one written a while back entitled Twilight With Tea