Past-Tours or Pastures

 Sometimes something as simple as a small Christmas card can spark a shower of echoes...

where bliss of innocence never gives Time a second thought

(is the scene below not purely idyllic?!)

Can't you hear the creak of snow beneath the rudders of the sleigh,

the lilt of youthful voices stirring white silence...

the horses eager snort, as they break through pristine sweep 

showcasing the startling artwork of shadows!

New day, like morning’s child stretches and yawns; dawn turns time young

The weathered stead that twilight tethered is a foal once more

Where on the air an untouched stair of raring grace is hung

The space that morrow’s Thought will trace where Yet begets Before

Ah retrospect; a room that opens up its one-man view

As memories and echoes culminate to paint a scene

Where once upon a childhood ‘neath untarnished gold and blue

We peered through star-filled eyes to life, so rife with virgin green

Then time was on our side, it seemed and we forgot its haste

But kicked it in the flanks and urged it on toward the dream

A rider on a stead too docile for hope’s heady taste

We tore across wide open fell like geldings full of steam

…and somewhere in the rise and set of Yet, Was grew and grew

And fact insisted that we reign in foolish fantasy

While filling flawless air with all the pictures that we drew

While living in the moments making, shaping history

…while waking our senses to the truth we all must face

Time waits for no one, head held high with fire in its feet

And always young at daybreak where its diverse droves give chase

The proof of mileage tattooed on the rider in its seat

And somewhere in the process of learning’s kick and caress

The stars turn into dust pressed hard upon time’s beaten track

Where once-upon-a-childhood startles retrospect’s finesse

With happiness much humbler from fence-lines of looking back

© Janet Martin