How Is It (that as Time goes by I do not come apart?)

Catch a Falling Star...

PAD Challenge. day 4: For today’s prompt, write a catching poem.

This is one of those poems that threatened to go into full gallop

unless I reined it in...

They get caught on last, little leaves still clinging to tree-limbs

And on dusk’s fading fringes, as eventide’s tableau dims

And on the corner of the street each time you board the bus

As love’s tether learns to weather the Apartness of Us

They snag on echo-wisps and on November’s brooding gray

And on a phantom frame filled with pictures of Yesterday

A tender memory of suppertime for at least six

Before I was acquainted with Time’s age-old bag of tricks

They catch on freckled noses and on orchards, doffed of fruit

And on the wind that moans outside the door, like a bold brute

And on the close-cropped counterpane of harvest gathered in

On the moon as it pins the sky with lopsided half-grin

They tangle in the awkward angles of a child, half-grown

And catch on flakes of first snowfall, on milkweed silk, wind-blown

And on the notes of vintage melodies at Christmas time

And on the big clock tower at the hour’s solemn chime

On gardens as they slumber after pummeling of feet

After summer-sweet laughter begets ballads, bittersweet

After Autumn has yielded to the order of the earth

After the spoil of toil displays the fruit of labor’s worth

…on four-season masterpieces delighting ardent gaze

On wonder’s unpredictable and unexpected ways

On commonplace, second-to-none familiarity

On silhouettes etched on sunsets, on Baby on my knee

On petals as the prime of bloom is siphoned from the stem

On the slow-but-sure weaning of youth’s teen-green diadem

On so much more than page can hold, or poetry can tell

On gladness of hello and on the sadness of farewell

How is it that as time goes by, I do not come apart

As often as life’s catches at the strings around my heart

© Janet Martin

A tender memory of suppertime for at least six

Before I was acquainted with Time’s age-old bag of tricks...