July's Choreographer...

 seven-syllable lines is not the norm 

but the Voice in my head insisted on this form!

Something simply needed to be written for this gem-of-a-July-day!

Wild, sultry winds toss luxuriant trees grounded in sweeps of green 

where subtle golden sheen starts seeping through.

Lilt of light strums gilt of gold

Beauty breaks birth’s virgin hold

From its mold of moment-mist

Ethereal tangos untwist

Torturing, teasing the heart

With fond fragments of love’s art

Driving dreamers gently mad

With the melody of Had

Where the ballad is a blur

…. July’s choreographer

Violinist’s serenade

Never sweeter timbre played

Runs a bow across the sky

Ruffles rows of corn and rye

Lofty, lithesome, sumptuous beat

Falling, light as pixie-feet

Soft as petals waft, sun-warm

Wild as wind before the storm

Wrestling from the restless tree

…July’s choreography

Vexes vim with wish and whim

Wakes a waltz in linden limb

Hails from pubs of hollyhock

Pales the hub that turns the clock

Hones the bones that stir the dust

Metronome of wanderlust

Whips the horse that hauls the cart

Hitched to lanyards round the heart

Causes quite a flower-stir

…July’s choreographer

Whispers in high, hazy noon

Tugs at twilight’s lazy moon

Plays a rousing burst of star

Makes us glad right where we are

Takes us by our hands and twirls

Wizened women like school girls

Searing, soothing, high then low

Tempo of hold-close-let-go

Soloist and symphony

…July’s choreography

© Janet Martin

Colm Keegan cover because Garth Brooks' version is not on Youtube...

Summer-tide...

 do you feel it?!

The tender tug from a team of phantom Steads that drew June

with subtle ease to Never-land

 Today we harvested mint leaves (before they go into flower)

so we can drink mint tea to our heart's content next winter while white gales howl

and hiss, rattling windows and bare branches ...doesn't today suddenly feel extra-blissful 😀

The fleeting font of moments metes its mist

Where Hunger’s ageless army wages war

Summer spills thrills in gold and amethyst

It tests the grist where vice and virtue spar  

And moves beneath the hooves of tick and tock

A carriage drawn by steads inside the clock  

The starting place of days is soon high noon

High noon shimmies across a southward slope

Where husk of dusk hoists up a wisp of moon

And tunes unfinished tasks with rest and hope

As mankind copes with strain of rod and staff

While proof of truth like grain is weaned from chaff

The scenes that sweetened winter’s meanest drift

Now keen a sudden, sentimental ache

The team that drew June’s chariot was swift

And left a cloud of wonder in its wake

Whilst mingling farewell’s bittersweet goodbye

With Expectation turned toward July

We find with thorn a rose, with rose, a thorn

Morn melts the dark that rolled in like a wave

The tender tug within the bosom borne

Will follow us, methinks, into the grave

We learn, as Reason yields its shield and sword

Each season has both challenge and reward

© Janet Martin

Summer Serenade...and Welcome, July

Summer, wash through us like wave-song

Turn the pages in your book

With the flutter of a baton

Teasing blue heron and brook

Soften hope’s hard lines with flowers

Drive us crazy with your smile

Dappling ditches, hills and bowers

With daisy and chamomile

Marinade your luscious moments

In translucent honeyed-gold

Let us savour your full flavour

Sweet and salty, sanguine, bold

Run your bow across a fiddle

Made of meadow-grass and wheat

Before buoyant strings grow brittle

In your whittling wind and heat

Let your hymn of nature soothe us

‘Neath a green-treed canopy

Satisfy the poet’s pathos

With its timbre of the sea

Summer, draw us to your garden

Saturate us with your sigh

Before you beg our pardon

In a leafless lullaby

© Janet Martin

Will Heaven Have July?

Oh God, I know in Heaven there will be no cause to sigh

Its wonders none can fathom where there is no ‘come to pass’

But if you could, oh, would you save a corner for July

Where lilies of the field wander a hill of wind-tossed grass?

Where dashing brooks slow to a sleepy crawl; where crickets trill

And lush hush steeps the countryside before the break of day

And could you give the bright-eyed boy the joy of fishing, still?

And somewhere let a meadow spill the smell of fresh-mown hay

And though there is no night can twilight lean its shadows where

The sun beamed bright in middle day, and can its ‘set’ be pink?

And then, because in Heaven there will be no need for prayer

Will there still be a river-bank where we can sit and think?

And watch the butterfly flit by and listen to the hymn

As soft breeze strums the leafy strings where fledglings learn to fly

God, I don’t want to seem as though I fret about such things

…but if Heaven is perfect will one corner be July?

© Janet Martin