Forced Early Retirement

I was not planning on retiring my broom and mop

Or putting my feet up, while in the orchard apples drop

But somehow you seduced me with your soft sun-dappled dance

And I could not resist a stroll among my garden plants

Where suddenly my to-do list became a ball and chain

Suggesting I retire from life's laundry-cook-clean-strain

And I could not think of one reason why I should decline

An offer that would allow me a bit of reading-time

 

A sit beneath the blue, blue August afternoon-wide sky

So by reason of flower force and wind-song lullaby

And cricket-serenade permitting, nay, urging I shirk

The rigid line that never strays too far from work-work-work

Thus I retired; no, I had not planned to quit so soon

But I was sweet-talked into it by August’s afternoon

© Janet Martin

 

I was not planning on retiring my broom and mop

Or putting my feet up, while in the orchard apples drop

But somehow you seduced me with your soft sun-dappled dance

And I could not resist a stroll among my garden plants

Where suddenly my to-do list became a ball and chain

Suggesting I retire from its laundry-cook-clean strain

And I could not think of one reason why I should decline

An offer that would allow me a bit of reading-time

A sit beneath the blue, blue August afternoon-wide sky

So by reason of flower force and wind-song lullaby

 And cricket-serenade permitting, nay, urging I shirk

The rigid line that never strays too far from work-work-work

Thus I retired; no, I had not planned to quit so soon

But I was sweet-talked into it by August’s afternoon

© Janet Martin

...even if it is only a thirty minute retirement... take it, dear girl! 

Before the white wind wails

through a white, white world