Farewell July and Hello August

 Hello all, and Happy August!

After a week away, yesterday was a bit of a blur

trying to decide what to tackle first; laundry-mountain or garden jungle!!

Yesterday was sunny but cool, kindling an intoxicating eagerness for 

back-to-work! such wonderful work, summer is!

My sister texted me while I was shelling peas last night ...

or I might have missed July's farewell moon...

Finches bicker, green leaves flicker where sunbeams and shadows play

Where each hour is a flower that unfolds then fades away

And its petal is the mettle of echo-medleys that waft

A succession of impressions etched on Bygone’s breadth, breath-soft,

July marches through blue arches; boundless awning overhead

Vaulted over corn-wheat-clover fields, like quilts that need no thread

Speechless wonder rolls like thunder through heart and soul, awed, agape

While man gazes God amazes us with summer’s sanguine cape

Garden treasure kindles pleasure unlike any in the world

Spring-time planting now is granting toil and mercy’s fruit unfurled

Earth’s effulgence births indulgence; beauty bids duty to drink

Pause and savor awe’s full flavor-burst of gold, purple and pink

July leaves us; farewell grieves us but August rekindles smiles

It bewitches us where ditches have become wildflower-isles

Milkweed plumage, chamomile, sage, Queen Ann’s Lace and chicory

Cricket-choir catches fire we can hear but cannot see

Hello August, welcome, dew-dust dazzled, frazzled summer-crown

Sultry, sunny, sweet as honey-suckle run wild and wind-blown

Crowded beaches, juice of peaches drips from lip-smacking yes-yes!

Rouses gladness from spent sadness; hello August happiness

© Janet Martin

A little glimpse of last week...

at a lakeside cottage

Welcome August!

Frameworks of Farewell

 

The framework of farewell is filled with moments spilled and spent

Into a little locket frilled with laughter and lament

Where what we argue or reject, or believe and embrace

Becomes part of the retrospect that farewell’s frames showcase

Sometimes it seems I almost see Father Time tease my sigh

With a fedora jauntily pulled down over one eye

He tips his hat and with the other hand touches my cheek

‘There, there, you know I understand the words you cannot speak’

Sometimes I think I sense him wink as one more year becomes

The latest, stationary link of soldered cookie crumbs

And sums soft-shook from flowers that we plant, then pluck and press

Between books filled with hours of love’s hopeful happiness

Where bittersweet, an echo-fleet embarks upon a sea

That surges with the thrum of bare feet lost on Bygone’s lea

Where frames of farewell gaped while hellos rang in the New Year

From thresholds barely shaped before their doorways disappear

...into the mist of faces kissed and arms that ache because

We cannot gather back the vista of The Way/Day That Was

Where the New Year that tolled a bell dangling from midnight’s skies

 Is stilled in frameworks of farewell with now Old Year’s demise

Darling, (dear, Father Time, forgive my bold intimacy)

But you perplex the poet's rhyme without apology 

And vex brave fantasy with fact; darling, then hold me near

And I will hold your hat while you kiss away yesteryear  

© Janet Martin

To Dear November, a Fond Farewell

Another blip aka November slips through our fingers...

fading into a wild flurry of white tonight...

To purple shadows planted on dusk’s barren, burnished path

To sudden snow globe afternoons rekindling Christmas thrill

To fall and winter’s duels in the muted aftermath

Of leaf song winnowed from woodlands now dark and stark and still

To gleaming furrows turned and tucked like umber counterpanes

To harvest-hymn hiatus and to skies that steal the show

To echo-tangos tugging at heartstrings taut/fraught with refrains

Of love, laughter and longing’s ever learning to let go

To winds that wander through a world of golden tapers snuffed

To squash and pumpkin lanterns gleaned and baked and steamed and fried

To brooding tableaus transformed by a big white duvet, fluffed

Until it spills soft feathers over town and countryside

To joy, because of juncos, to the blue jays’ raucous cries

To winter’s feathered friends returned like long lost family

To reveling in the raw agony of time’s demise

To making the most of what all too soon is history

To dear November’s dying embers on a dimming grate

To nature’s somber sweetness after autumn’s robe is rent

I pen this poem as I linger at a phantom gate

To bid a fond farewell and wonder where, oh, where you went

(Ah yes, to hugs and kisses, too many to count, I know

To happiness because it was enough to be alive

To thankfulness to God from whom each season’s blessings flow

Through outstretched touch and taste and such, into Bygone’s archive)

© Janet Martin

And some precious last-day-of-November memories...

...and the world that had returned to green, gray and brown 

after Old Man Winter's mid November bumble, 

when he tumbled out of bed too soon,

will be a white winter wonderland come December!

Good-night and see you in December💖🙏

Of Spent Summer or Of Summer Spent

 Happy First Day of Fall 

The hour is upon us

Where bower, fen and dell

Are laden with the onus

Of flowering farewell

The season of Spent Summer

Like an ocean of stars

Hangs soft upon the tremor

Of autumn’s kindled bars

In thrum of shadow-dapples

In rum-colored remains

In sums of plums and apples

And wild aster-fringed lanes

In diamond studded fretwork

Of gossamer design

Where spider’s artful network

Dazzles shrubs, gates and vines

In countless ways and wonders

Of teeming crook and crease

Earth’s quiet canvas thunders

With many a masterpiece

In Cana lily taper

Brandishing scarlet flares

In leaves, like gilt-edged paper

A Fine Author prepares

In 'toxicating scents of

Ginger, cinnamon, cloves

In foraged storage boxes

For sweaters, scarves, hats, gloves

In zinnia pomp and splendor

In bossy blue jay shriek

In contemplative candor

Of truths time cannot tweak

In hunts for garden treasure

Of Yukon gold and such

In savoring the measure

Of moments meeting/meting touch

In revamped whims and wishes

In sun-glossed tassels tossed

With Jack Frost's first soft kisses

And roses summer lost

The hour is upon us

Where the gleam in Time’s gaze

Stokes a sacred awareness

Of man’s flower-like days

© Janet Martin

...and what a stunning debut to the first day of fall!

The Way a Summer Disappears

 

Happy (Sad) Last Day of Summer

 (Insert brave smile😢)

(Ignore date on cover of slideshow of a very

lovely last day of summer!))

It is as old as smiles and tears

The way a summer disappears

The way a bud unfolds bloom-art

The way a baby steals a heart

The way the voyage of the sun

Knows when another day is done

The way dust settles and crowds fade

After the last inning is played

A flit of yellow butterfly

A bitty bee buzz-buzzing by

A silver diamond-sparkle splash

A bright pink popsicle mustache 

A wave washing the sandy beach

Corn on the cob, a dripping peach

A whisper of leaf-lullaby

A spark that spirals to the sky

A ripple on a turquoise lake

A candle on a birthday cake

A brown-eyed Susan fringed footpath

A grand illusion aftermath

A picnic lunch, a cup of tea

A swing ride high as high can be

A puddle spangled with raindrops

A muddle of mothers and tots

A meadow('s) lark, a cricket's trill

A golf ball rolling down the hill

A shadow-stippled, stubbled slope

A tug-of-war twixt hurt and hope

(And always, always, autumn wins)

Wheelbarrow heaped with squeals and grins

A dance in crocs, flipflops, bare feet

An echo-Rembrandt, bittersweet 

A task-drill run rife with Reward

A basket filled with 'thank-you Lord'

A canning pot, a kitchen, hot

Garden-fare rush, ready or not

A mellowing of green and gold

Of aches and pangs of growing old

As loss and love and longing brim

A dahlia-hallelujah hymn

A happiness that overflows

Like petals from a withered rose 

A boo-boo, blisters, band-aids, bugs

A hello kiss and goodbye hugs

A hard day’s work, a holiday

Is how a summer slips away

© Janet Martin

Supremely Blessed or Of Fond Farewells

Tonight I bid farewell to August as well as

another summer-season routine of childcare.

Others are bidding farewell this time of year to

students leaving for far-away schools.

Some are suffering the pain of permanent earthly farewells!

What a blessing to love enough to

suffer the pangs of fond farewells!

"I don't want to be rude" said Little girl

"but I feel like I just need to run!"

...and I looked at her and said,

"oh, by all means, run to your hearts content!"💖😊😍

...and run they do taking after Father Time with dust flying at their heels!

Draining every last drop from the joy of the moment!

....leaving so many smiling traces in our faces...

(they named one of these peaches Jim!)😂

(and yes, we will be peeling some of our fruit before we eat it!)😅

...planting and plucking a sense of flowers

in/from the gardens of our hearts...

May we all be blessed, as to bear

Love’s tenderest contests of care

The aching, raking throb that tugs

As words give way to wordless hugs

As bitter-sweetest hunger swells

In heart-tempests of fond farewells

May we all be blessed, as to know

The wresting pangs of letting go

Of searing heartstrings stretched and stretched

Until there is no heartstring left

As love and longing toll soul-bells

In clanging, twanging fond farewells

May we all be blessed, as to feel

The raw essence of silk and steel

Entwined about the inmost crux

Of joy and sorrow’s sacred flux

Between shorelines no ocean quells

As we endure love’s fond farewells

May we all be blessed, as to learn

The best and worst of no return

Where time never replays a day

And all that is can never stay

As arms and hearts weather the swells

Of parting’s precious, fond farewells

We thank love’s Giver for the gifts

That try us with life’s dearest rifts

Reminding us within its test

That we have been Supremely Blessed

Both king and beggar as Time fells

Castles of touch with fond farewells

© Janet Martin

To all the students the world over heading out...

an Irish Blessing

Spring Adieu and Summer Hello

Spring wanders from the beaten path

Feet follow, where its aftermath

Is snared in campion bouquets...

Of almost Eden’s verdant sheaf

Of breezes tumbling leaf to leaf...

Of early-morn and late-dusk clock

Of arbors flanked by hollyhock...

Spring wanders from the beaten path

Feet follow, where its aftermath

Is snared in campion bouquets

In daisy chains and rose sachets

Where mint and chamomile are caught

Like artwork in a glass tea-pot

Where buttercups and fleabane stroll

Along the lane, up grassy knoll

To play ‘mongst Canterbury bells

‘neath bottomless blue-sky inkwells

And time is like a poem-book

A rhyme in every nook and crook

Of almost Eden’s verdant sheaf

Of breezes tumbling leaf to leaf

Of early-morn and late-dusk clock

Of arbors flanked by hollyhock

While laughter, like a butterfly

Bobs bloom to bloom with lilt and sigh

While gardens and picnics beguile

While summer-lovers smile and smile

© Janet Martin

a bit of feather-color at the feeders today

(Not quite as clear because I take the pictures through a screen)