Faded Nothingness

"Merry Christmas! Happy December!" was Victoria's good-morning greeting today. 

I pass it on to you as November, like all its predecessors, fades to nothingness...

The last month of 2016.

Has ever a year been quite this quick?! 

We turn the page; as age on age fades into nothingness

Felled autumn’s apple-dappled stage waits for winter’s white dress

The jars that held sweet flower-stars has drained its filigree

As dreamers grapple with seasons, reason, reality

…and while we work and play and pray and hope for things to come

Another year of gold and gray collects its graven sum

This place we stand of shifting sand and gifted bric-a-brac

Transfixes us twixt looking forward, love, and looking back

The making of love’s tug-of-heartstrings takes us by surprise

Its ache of Nevermore competes with our daydreamer-sighs

Where wars life’s lords of hunger with the roar of fallen seed

Mouths and souls in constant demand of basal creature need

We turn the page; the wink and blink of years startles anew

Those age-old warnings once we argued we find out are true

Where love’s finesse of holding-letting-go is the caress

Of stories etched on pages made of faded nothingness

© Janet Martin

Not 'nothing' hopefully, in our hearts 

but still, nothing we can keep in our hands