Frames of Fading Awegust...

I spelled August 'Awe-gust' because that's what it is;
a gust of awe that leaves us a little
aw-don't leave-us-yet stricken!

The pulse of Mother Nature thrums

Buds breaks from bloom to burnished crumbs

The torch of golden rod is lit

The cricket minstrel does not quit

Long after day has met its mark

Its tweet-tweet-tweet stipples the dark

The garden groans with dreams come true (or work to do)

The sky, a sweep of satin-blue

The creek-bed overflows its edge

With streams of burdock, milkweed, sedge

The fence flaunts wild-bloom bric-a-brac

Where lands make up for much we lack

Bones ache with wear of honest toil

As we pluck summer from the soil

To snare its fare in jars and bins

And bear the brunt of curse for sins

Where through the pain of blood-sweat-tears

We gain the battle-wounds of years

The flower spreads its rainbow wings

The hour too; where summer sings

A hymn of farewell-flavored bars

In ditches stunned with petal-stars

In fields still filled or harvest’s sheaf

In butterflies of soybean leaf

The pulse of Mother Nature throbs

In musky, dusty dusk it sobs

In mid-day mid-task quick retreats

To backyard front-row window-seats

Where like forbidden sweets we taste

A second fistful of time’s haste

…and let a tear or two escape

To plop on non-stop echo-scape

As bud to bloom to seed runs rife

And death of days soon makes a life

Where August drapes its cape of sighs

Across earth’s scar-pocked paradise

© Janet Martin