To Time's Touch

In August you lie on my skin, sun-warm and flower-kind

In December you vex my grin with summers left behind

Still, ice-kisses pressed on my cheek remind me not to weep

But fumble with what dusk dismisses to past’s darksome deep

...because what was cannot return; and what waits, who can say?

Futile to ransack today's urn in search of yesterday

Thus, though we pine for zephyrs strumming vine laden with leaf

We drink the pink of snow-sunrises veiling slumb’ring sheaf

The hour, like a flower, unfolds, blooms, its shadow dims

And fades to nothing but the tune in bygone's hallowed hymns

Time's moment-gold we hold soon drifts in ashes cold and gray

December's embers snuffed like stars at dawn or summer's day

© Janet Martin