Why I Am Still Awake...

Too much to tell before the bell of midnight chimes time's solemn toll

And all the walls that wore thin shawls of noonday skin are black as coal

And all the days of golden haze and green-grass chaise and gorgeous bloom

Have fallen prey to charcoal gray and strewn like ash to Bygone’s tomb

Too much to do before the hue of aural blue turns velvet black

Before the sweep that always keeps the moments scattered in its track

Before the door to Nevermore swings shut and turns what is to naught

And all we hear of This, my dear, is echoes in a world of thought

Too much to touch and taste and see where daylight dims too soon, it seems

And most of what we have and hold is tendered to yesterday’s dreams

And places too far-off to reach because of midnight’s soulful knell

As tomorrow becomes today and today turns into farewell

Too much to learn and teach and earn and preach and praise and warn and pray
...before the dusk is like a husk after morn-noon is shucked from day
Too much to live-laugh-love and let go, before oh, the hug-tug-war
Where soon the air will wear the whispers of what was but is no more

© Janet Martin