Dear Almost-Autumn...The Way I Fall In Love

The way a red and orange leaf caught our attention last night

as my friend and I strolled through her yard

The way each butterfly in flight is a sun-catcher

The way fading flowers begin to number summer days

The way sedums begin to blush...

The way September steals in then sweeps us off our feet

Is all part of the way we begin to condition our heart to embrace the art of autumn...

The way that sunshine turns translucent, wings of butterflies

The way one’s breath is stolen by September’s sanguine skies...

The way that jars snare summer after its Season is through...

Is the way, Almost-Autumn, that we fall in love with you...

The way that sunshine turns translucent, wings of butterflies

The way one’s breath is stolen by September’s sanguine skies

The way that jars snare summer after its Season is through

Is the way, Almost-Autumn, that I fall in love with you

The way farewell’s suggestions start to seep through woodland tress

The way it tweaks soul-strings still thrilled with petal-happiness

The way The Inevitable presents its points of view

Is how I start to tell my heart to fall in love with you

The way bloom’s fringe turns brittle but Beauty remains intact

The way earth’s tinge showcases established matters of fact

The way no coaxing can revoke what is constant and true

Is the way, almost-Autumn, I yield to the touch of you

The way we cannot stay the heavy hand of come and go

The way wild asters spill to hill and field like purple snow

The way time’s give and take can make a heart ache with desire

The way late day starts earlier to stoke dusk’s shadow-spire/fire

The way goldenrod lamps gleam from creekbank, fencerow and woods  

The way each milkweed plume is primed with silver parachutes

The way the air begins to wear a chill we nigh forgot 

Is the way, Almost Autumn that I can forget-you-not   

The way the world is twirled on a four-season carousel

The way we straddle tides saddled to hello and farewell

The way we start to cherish clock-shaped treasure, moment-spun

Is the way that I always fall in love with You, Autumn

Dear almost-autumn, bear with me while I learn to begin

To undo summer’s tendrils tangled somewhere ‘neath my skin

Somehow, the way you wait while I grapple with gold and blue

Becomes the way, almost-Autumn, I fall in love with you

© Janet Martin

September Skin...

Happy September Saturday!

SO much is happening to remind us

of the preciousness of Time...

Let's cherish moments with our loved ones because

we never know what a day holds!

Each morning is set free from a fresh flask of moment-dust

Then seize its opportunity and raise thy glass to Trust

The colours of the countryside have lost their lustrous sheen

The timbre of time’s telling tide shucks cornfields of lush green

Deception’s furtive favours, for a small while may appease

The heart with summer-flavours steeped in ling’ring fantasies

But cannot keep at bay for long the truth that will be told

Where September tolls welkin gong and turns the pear tree gold

…and tips yon cruet, spilling bluest awning overhead

Where sweet time as we knew it runs a sentimental thread

Through you and I as we grapple with subtle season-shifts

While comforted by apple-orchard orb’s enticing gifts

As we count down last days of summer with awed gratitude

For who can tally the vast ways of God’s goodness renewed 

Each morning is set free from a fresh flask of moment-dust

Then seize its opportunity and raise thy glass to Trust

For everyone can ill afford to pine for yester-years

But taste time’s vintage being poured, before it disappears

We have an obligation, nay, a privilege to give

To God pure adoration for each single day we live

September stokes in us an ache for Season almost spent

Where we are beholden to make the most of Mercy’s ‘lent’

And learn to love the colours that are slowly seeping in

For glove of youth and valour will soon don September skin

Where the fool mourns what once was, but the wise remain content

Time is too precious to fritter in bittersweet lament

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3:1

To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven:

It is also still very much canning season;

Off to make some salsa!

(I got up at 6:00 to start the canning 

but then the sun was rising 

and then a poem begged!)

And such is always the poet's quandary/dilemma

...to heed domestic duties or to poem-a 😏😊

Of Dwindling Kindling

 

Because winter fireplaces/woodstoves take a lot of kindling 

we are already on the look-out at the end of people's driveways 

where camp-fire wood is for sale.

Reminds me of a different kind of kindling, 

always dwindling far too fast...

This hour where the flower bluffs

On beauty’s candlestick

Cannot escape the hand that snuffs

Its flicker from the wick

Now frets upon heart’s deep desire

A fond, intoning knell

Where joys that kindled friendship’s fire

Have dwindled to farewell

The dying embers on a hearth

Where round we gathered, oft

Wakens in us the dusk of mirth

In footsteps, keen yet soft

…where pain bends pleasure’s maiden form

In pangs of sweet refrain

To take the tender heart by storm

With ‘till we meet again’

…until in some morrow’s delight

While wounds of parting heal

We’ll tend the echoes that ignite

What farewell cannot steal

P-s-s-s-t! ash to ash and dust to dust

The quickened pulse will fell

Death veils frail trails of wanderlust

With whispers of farewell

This hour where the flower bluffs

On beauty’s candlestick

Cannot escape the hand that snuffs

Its flicker from the wick

Then cherish well heart's deep desire

Beneath high-noon's blue bell

Where joys that kindle friendship's fire

Are dwindling to farewell

© Janet Martin

Season-sparks

this poem was sparked by the soundless spiral of a petal...

We've gone from This...

...to This

...to This! in a matter of weeks! (4, I think)

How swift a season sets a match to moments tinder dry

No one can find a net to catch the sparks that upward fly

How soon the garden-patch showcases a seed’s wondrous ways

While barefoot laughter races through life’s care-unhindered days

Oblivious and chivalrous to time’s unbridled flight

While morning sheds its blush cocoon, and noon morphs into night

The flower flares ere petal ash settles its beaming score

Come, let’s not wait until too late to take the time to pore

Over a gate or arbor laden with bud’s maiden boon

Over the pretty pages of a summer afternoon

Over the landscape changing right before our very eyes

Where none can find a way to bind the seams through which time flies

The way to where we were is always barred by where we are

Then let’s not linger, looking back or wishing on a star

But rather, run our fingers through the fabric of today

Before its gold turns misty blue then fades into the fray

Of yesterdays, gossamer-gray and always out of reach

For none can stay the waves of dusk that wash across yon breach

We’re all in this together, getting older by the hour

All learning how to weather where we’ve never been before

Coming to terms with what time gives and takes, momentous must

As lessons of relinquishment compel us to adjust

Our points of view where vantage points are altered or estranged

Where no one can persuade time’s hand to leave the sheave unchanged

Let’s never take for granted, morning’s easy come and go

For soon the seeds we’ve planted turn to reaping what we sow

While Now-to-Then beneath a swaying sickle soon is felled

Where none can stem the trickle filling seasons, briefly held

Like brushstrokes on a canvas that keeps changing its façade

Each season softly dances to the music played by God

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3:1

To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven:

Psalm 103:15-18

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16For the wind passes over it, and it is [b]gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
17But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
18To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

On Going Through The Change...

They don't call it The Change for nothing, my sister and I conceded as we

lamented some of the maladies of middle-age😓

As I pondered this it made me think of a few other changes

that we should, by God's grace, go through

(and some that eventually we will) by God's promise, 

go through...

***

Some changes are anticipated eagerly,,

like the change a new baby brings

or winter warming to spring

Others we would dodge if we could,

But changeless God, if we allow Him

works change for our good!

***

Always day changes to night

then night to day...

Change challenges and teaches us

It vexes and delights

It startles and beseeches us

With ruthless appetites

Oh, nothing stays the same for long

In life’s foray of days

The hand of change is sure and strong

Insisting on its ways

Both good and ill do not stand still

As surge of seasons roll

Change wistfully winnows until

All that remains is Soul

Change tempers us and teases us

The wrinkles it bestows

For all the ways it squeezes us

The least of our woes

Change changes us, estranges us

From who we used to be

A slow and steady genesis

To immortality

© Janet Martin

Behold, I tell you a [m]mystery: 

 shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 

52in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 

at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, 

and the dead will be raised incorruptible, 

and we shall be changed.

1 Cor.15:51-52

Eph.4:17-24

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, 

that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 

18They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God 

because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

  19Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality 

so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

20That, however, is not the way of life you learned

  21when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, 

to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 

23to be made new in the attitude of your minds;

  24and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Colossians 3:9-10

Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 

and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge 

according to the image of the One who created him—

Faithful One-Robin Mark

Of Love Well-lived (or Life Well-loved)

Better to be keenly aware

Of all the kindnesses that you bequeath...

Aware…of how you run your fingers through my hair so casually

And trace my face with lines without excuses or apology

Your touch, oh Father Time, is such, that none can tame or duck beneath

Better to be keenly aware

Of all the kindnesses that you bequeath

…in spite of all you steal and how we sometimes feel at loss for words

To spell the knell of farewell rolling through each season undeterred

Aware of heartstrings pulled and tugged in every tender way but loose

While a new generation fills

Our hugs and thrills to rhymes of Mother Goose

Aware of how vital prayer is; where we never know what we’ll meet

Aware of how your kiss, oh Father Time, is both bitter and sweet

And how the stage of middle age runs rife with life’s curious surprise

Aware of how a friend in deed

Is better than anything money buys

Aware that truth won’t change its mind no matter how we twist our pleas

Aware that youth will soon find out time is a mist of memories

And not on their side after all; as they turn into acrobats

Trying to balance hopes and dreams

On tight-ropes of less glam-matters of fact

Aware that our relationship should work in me, as years go by

A gentler attitude and more subdued approach to 'me' and 'my'

Because oh Father time, you are a teacher with uncanny ways

To reach beneath exteriors 

And turn want's restless passion into praise

Aware that we grow too soon auldt and too late schmart, as we become

The generation of old-farts/folk, out-of-fashion dad and mum

Aware that each day is a gift that we cannot afford to waste

But rather gather into hearts

The echo of fond, love-well-lived keepsakes

© Janet Martin

Two things I request of You
(Deprive me not before I die):
8Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—
Feed me with the food allotted to me;
9Lest I be full and deny You,
And say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And profane the name of my God.

Prov.30:7-9

For We Who Tread The Thread of Numbered Days...

 

The ice-cream truck was such a special thrill last night

to celebrate a whole bunch of family birthdays!

I kept saying 'ch-e-e-e-ese' to try to get their attention, but, well...

they were deliciously distracted! 😋😄

So much birthday-joy already

celebrating so much to be thankful for

to the Giver of life's gift!

Meal cooked by one daughter and son-in-law...(last night)

 

Cake baked by another daughter for double celebration;

both parent's birthdays...

We get stretched out of comfort zones with or without approval’s nod

We start to feel in joints and bones the impact of life’s tug and prod

Futile to wish we could turn back the hands of time taking its toll

But take stock of this skin-bone rack; it is the Chariot of the Soul

We start to feel the subtle keel as scales of age begin to tip

Toward a stage, once so surreal, before our wheels began to slip

The stern command and upper hand of Father’s Time’s insistent gait

No matter how craftily planned, nobody can manipulate

This gift that always steals the young collects itself in numbered years

It peals from daybreak’s golden gong then rolls westward to join its peers

And takes us by age-old surprise; Time is both gentleman and brute

He tames the tiger in our eyes with Wonder’s sweeter substitute

How common day-to-day appears to we, aboard time’s teeming barge

Where one-by-one we disappear as death collects its chosen charge

Where none can order or predict who will be next to disembark

And meet the Giver of life’s gift as time flies upward like a spark

Cherish this gift but bear in mind the fugitive flight of its toll

This dust-to-dust we leave behind is but the Chariot of the Soul

An essence that remains concealed until that solemn, sacred day

When the gift’s Purpose is revealed as mortal wrapping falls away

Because life is a gift from God we do not authorize or choose

The why or wherefore of its rod, the tender tenure of its hues

The precious part of you and I is to revere with grateful praise

The One who grants the grace whereby we tread the thread of numbered days

© Janet Martin

Job 14:5

A person's days are determined; 

you have decreed the number of his months 

and have set limits he cannot exceed.

Never Too Old to Cherish...

After a long laundry-line full on Saturday I thought I had a head-start today!

Still lots for tomorrow plus whatever is hatching in hampers!

Whether it's never-ending laundry or other such chore

Soon time leaves us gaping at what is no more

no matter what stage we are in, it is a bubble about to pop!

So cherish💗

In the middle of the muddle

of whatever we are in

Whether kiss and cuddle baby

or a more teen-aged chagrin

Or, perhaps the nest we feathered

with a mother’s heart and soul

Is weathered, like a heart-shaped box

where echoes lilt and toll

Wherever, and whatever season

we are passing through

Pray that we cherish dearly

what will soon bid us adieu

Whether uphill puff and pedal,

whether downhill coast and glide

Soon dusk dons its gleaming medal,

Soon love sings here-comes-the-bride

Whether its chug-chug and puff-puff,

or run-run, like a gazelle

Live, laugh, love and pray, for today

always fades into farewell

Whether past time’s precious prime

or feeling like a super-star

Pray that we learn to cherish life

exactly where we are

© Janet Martin

(Inspired by a little conversation with my sister)

Date With Daybreak...

PAD Challenge 23: For today's prompt, write an appointment poem.

Ah, let me look at you longer

You always hurry by

As if you had appointments too

Up in the big blue sky

Ah, let me linger in your blush

Of young and fresh appeal

…yet, as I plea I sense the tug

Of duty’s tireless zeal

Ah, let me lean over the brink

Of where no one has been

To touch the hemline of your robe

Shimmering, silver-green

Ah, from my perch upon my porch

Let me learn, sweet and slow

Beneath the sunshine of your smile

The art of letting go

© Janet Martin

Of Weathered 'Would'

 

Weathered wood flaunts fresh foliage...

just as weathered 'would' unfolds fresh faith!

We try to turn the other cheek

To think twice, thrice before we speak

To make the most of More with less

To simplify our happiness

When life holds up to trembling lips

Its Cup of Joy, we savour sips

Where delight and despair compete

To cull a vintage, bittersweet

We work to win a well-earned rest

With good intent we strive for Best

We pray, we till time’s teeming sod

We plant, we wait; no ‘late’ with God

We wage wars twixt wonder and want

We struggle with faith’s feathered font

We try, but every now and then

We trip and need to try again

Inhale deeply, then exhale, slow

One foot forward, ah, here we go

Not crippled by Discipline's rod

But bolstered by the grace of God

From weathered wood/would fresh bud is borne

From Bygone's bloody bars, new morn

From slip and trip's face-planted low

We learn the little that we know

© Janet Martin

Phil.3:12-14

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; 

but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, 

forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 

I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."