October Lullaby

The weightless leaf grows heavy ‘neath the tears of autumn’s sky

Filling leaf-swollen levies; fall exhales a lullaby

Of heaven-tinted awning dropping soundless to a berth

Where the echo of the ages slumbers, layered in the earth

A metaphor of moments trickles from the weeping limb

Relinquishing the beauty of the bud and blossomed scrim

The hour adjusts its images to nature’s perfect rule

And mortal searches, scrimmages for shadows on its pool

There is no bugle blowing; no salute to Time’s demise

As sod and stream are flowing with the tears of fall good-byes

But quiet preparation glimmers in the silver air

In raw juxtaposition of keen triumph and despair

The weightless leaf grows heavy; soon the laughing tree is mute

As winds scatter its bevy of bygones without dispute

And we behold the Truth within its stark and unclad form

The summer of fair youth is but the prelude to life’s storm

© Janet Martin

Oh, Do not Leave~

Oh do not leave

Or else I may forget

All the words I want to tell you

But have not

Yet

An hour is short
Darling, please stay

A life-time is too brief

For all I want

To say

Oh, do not leave

The night is dark

And long alone

Silence is too cold

And monotone

J~

Autumn's Approach

You are here

Somewhere

Standing on a gate

Slowly closing…

There you wait

Beneath the silver sash

Of dewy lawn

Above the splash 

Of ocher dawn

Within the tawny burnished leaf

And summer's sighing, barren sheaf

You press against reality

In whispers spilling from the tree

And leaning, like a memory

Deep against the heart of me

In mornings I cannot reclaim

Like the echo of a name

Of someone that I used to know

In a summer long ago

I hear you tiptoe through the corn

You will be here

By the morrow's morn...

J~

I Want You

…like a baby nuzzling to its mother

And it is enough

Come to me now

Oh, my love

Do not fade away

Into the silver-gray dusk

For I need you

There is no other

Lover

That can warm me

Quite like you

But your waning gaze

Rouses concerns

You are growing distant

Even in your half-grin returns

I sense you

Pulling away

And all I can do is beg you to stay

To lay your head on my shoulder

Just one more hour

Perhaps,

When I am older

I will have the will-power to

Let you go

Already I know

 I will miss you so

Darling,

I will not ask for much

But oh please,

That I may languish ‘neath your touch

A little longer

Only until I am stronger

For I am so much colder

Without your kiss

Upon my shoulder

© Janet Martin

Yes, the sun is

waning a bit…

Summer-set

A short while ago it gleamed with elation

A highway of hope to the edge of the sky

Somewhere, somehow on the lilt of a season

It falls from hello to the brink of good-by

It folds and unfolds in the dusk and the dawning

And somewhere between the bare fallow and sheaves

We plant, we harvest, and we lie on the awning

Of clover and daisy and sun-dappled leaves

The absolute blue of July’s noon pavilion

The tundra of green in June, tender-sweet

The blush of the rose in Augusts’ sultry garden

The deepening amber of barley and wheat

The laughter of children in barefooted banter

The song of the sea as it rushes to shore

These shape the memory caught in a moment

Of pure summer sunshine and nothing more

…but now, as we finger her frayed, tarnished presence

And beg her to tarry a longer while yet

We feel her reply in the day’s waning essence

This is the hour of sweet summer-set

© Janet Martin

Wisteria, Blue Moons and other Loves

September's Song...Mantovani

It is not my intent

To shut you out

Blue moon of half-grin

As you drift to the south

Above silver bracken

And the rushing of time

Teasing the tendrils

Of wisteria vine

I would rather fling wide

The pane I shut tight

For the cricket choir

Is in top form tonight

Where the chill air keens

The lust in its swell

As I sense the presage

Of a season’s farewell

I long to draw you

Through this shield of glass

To keep you warm

As the fleet moments pass

But you must submit

To nature’s stringent pull

The hour will not quit

When its portion is full

…and I must surrender

To resist is vain

As I tug on the window

To keep out the pain

Of the cool night sweeping

Over time-swept plateau

And the throb of its weeping

In gossamer flow

© Janet Martin

Last night I felt like I should apologize as I was forced to close the windows to its beautiful CHILL!.

Of Imminent Departure

Press the curves of your ethereal body
closely to me; there is urgency
trembling beneath the sultry serenity
of imminent departure as we
put on our best brave faces
to preserve moments sealed in our hearts.

Climb over me, align the fire
in your tortured gaze with my heartbeat,
Quite suddenly your lips
blazing with passion and desire
suffocates the dreamer’s bliss
in the quiver of imminent departure

I must inhale the scent of you
in our last dance; heady musk
filling my veins; eyes of bachelor-button blue,
Your neck is warm, your breath sun-sweet intoxication
highlighting the agony of waiting
in the gathering dusk of imminent departure

A ball of crumpled wishes
lodges achingly in my throat
barring all the perfect words
that I would tell, before you go
across the pale blue hill; and so we stand
as I beg you to press closer

Seal your promise of return within my hand,
Not with summer's roses, for shortly
they too deck the sand in bleak shadow-breaths; oh, come closer
so I may hear; not the foot-fall of imminent departure
but the landing of your tear
upon my cheek, in this farewell hour 

J~

Dear Summer,

Farewells are not forever, love

and if the grace of God above

extends Time's sands another year

then we shall meet again, my dear

Come darling, the sun-drenched ballroom floor is ours...

For some reason I feel like summer ends at the end of the kid's summer vacation instead of at the end of September.

Sonnet of Farewell

The aching twist of ‘knowing’ hovers low

Against the languid mellow yellow day

Over the hill a breath of moments flow

Stealing another gasp of life away

Bloom by falling bloom the moments pass

One lonely cricket serenades the hour

As August surges swiftly through its glass

Laden with tears of summer’s faded flow’r

I shed my own; Time’s unrelenting pace

Plucks summer’s thinning shroud from my embrace

***

The solo cricket-lay is amplified

Into the hush its chirping cantos swell   

Filling the shadow-lengthened countryside

With affirmation of summer’s farewell

Where latent hints of gold and scarlet brood

Beneath the placid flush of sighing green

Too soon the gale will howl through rustling wood

Stripping the petal-garb from nature’s queen

I too feel stripped: Time is a brute uncouth

It snatches up the remnant of my youth

***

Breath by breath and tick by ticking tock

The fullest hour shrinks and disappears

The rigid order of Time’s austere clock

Expands its swift demise to days and years

The goldenrod replaces daffodil

But soon it drops its gaudy, burnished plume

Surrendering to autumn’s painted chill

Thus seasons file across earth’s living-room

I too surrender; pleading with Time is vain

And if it wills, summer will come again

© Janet Martin

Thoughts and sounds of the day and evening...

Over...

 With the 'mellow full-moon'  it really is a beautiful farewell party.

Leave then, leave

If you must

Over a carpet

Of cricket-tuned dust

Over the skyline

To bygone beyonds

Over the echo

Of lost, empty ponds

Over the slumbering

Wild-bloom as it nods

Over the platoon

Of  green goldenrod

Over the farmer

Who lays fast asleep

Over the woodland

Mysterious and deep

Over the moments

That ceaselessly rush

Over the mellow full-moon

Midnight hush

Leave then, Sweet July

Leave if you will

August trips lightly

Over the blue hill

© Janet Martin

July's Departure

I beg you to hold me in your azure gaze

Dance to a warm willow-vesper

Nurture my mind with abandonment’s blaze

Sweeten my mouth with your whisper

Cradle me where you will seal my last kiss

Gather me in your brawny hunger

Torture me tenderly in your farewell bliss

Tarry until I am younger

You know that I will not shackle the gate

I know that you must be leaving

Passion and sorrow; love’s juxtaposed weight

Entwine in bittersweet grieving

I beg you to hold me, sweet azure July

But moments do not pause or linger

Caught in a vortex of half-breaths, a sigh

You vanish on my outstretched fingers…

© Janet Martin

Preeminent Farewell

There’s a key change in the wind today

It drops from a lilt to a sigh

It clings to the tendrils of wild morning-glory

In the preeminence of good-bye

Tomorrow perhaps it may cart-wheel or amble

Nonchalantly over high-noon

Today it lingers; fingering the tassels

Of July; leaving way too soon

Long we a-wait the coveted candor

Of mid-summer’s languid kin-ship

Somewhere within its mellow meandering

Over Time’s fringes it slips

There is a key change in the late afternoon

It trickles from lintels of musk

Pooling in mouths of day-lily blooms

Then disappearing into the dusk…

Solemn, the orchestra of cricket-song

Ushers her over a floor

Of stubble and clover; while we are asleep

July suddenly is no more…

© Janet Martin

I Remember

The night dips low in a forlorn tune
Her robe is heavy, blurring the moon
With silver breath, yet no limb stirs
Inaudible song; unscripted word
As I remember…

The darkened hue of her moody eye
Deepens the blue of the night moving by
Gone is the frolicking laughter of May
Cold and silent, it slips away
And I remember…

The air is keen with memory's sigh
Pushing the snow-laden dark awry
The hush of midnight sprawls on the air
A hymn of longing, love and despair
While I remember…

... the cooling of lips as you walked away
the aching of words that we could not say
the bleeding of anguish against the sky
the echo of years in one word...good-by
Yes, I remember


Janet~

Love's Parting

There is parting, in love
But never good-bye
Though its force like an ocean
May flow from our eye
Sweet, ever sweeter
Its memories gleam
Caught in the current
Of Time’s hastening stream

There is pain in love’s parting
And an ache in its thought
But love overcomes
What desire cannot
Though oft, for a moment
A tear dims the eye
At the thought of love’s parting
…but never good-bye

J~

Moments are like bubbles..
we cannot catch them, but simply marvel at their
delicate beauty as they pass.

Parting of Ways

You lay your arm across my shoulder

We are feeling much the same

For we know we’re getting older

And in this there is no shame

As a hint of lambent shadow

Steals across the summer noon

E’en the flower in the meadow

Must relinquish her perfume

You and I are kindred spirits

So, my love, we will not weep

Bravely we resolve to bear it

This last lap before we sleep

No one can escape dictation

Wrought by time’s unbending rule

Youth, ah, grand sprint of elation

Leading to life’s higher school

I lay my head upon the hour

Where I see that we must part

For I do not have the power

To deter love’s finer art

Parting, truly is sweet sorrow

We have loved, but not in vain

Ah my love, in some tomorrow

I know we will meet again

Janet Martin

Dedicated to the Summer of 2011

They were saying on the radio that this is the last day of summer,

so I took a picture of one last summer morning sun-rise...I just checked the calendar!

We get one more!!! Lord willing:)

Of Imminent Departure...

Press the curves of your ethereal body
closely to me; there is urgency
trembling beneath the serenity
of imminent departure as we
put on our best brave faces
to preserve moments sealed in our hearts.

Climb over me, align the fire
in your tortured eye with my heartbeat,
Quite suddenly your lips
brimming with passion and desire
suffocates the dreamer’s bliss
in the quiver of imminent departure

I must inhale the scent of you
in our last dance; heady musk
filling my veins; eyes of blue,
Your neck is warm, your breath intoxicating
highlighting the agony of waiting
in the gathering dusk of imminent departure

A ball of crumpled wishes
lodges achingly in my throat
barring all the perfect words
that I would tell, before you go
across the pale blue hill; and so we stand
as I beg you to press closer

Seal your promise of return within my hand,
Not with summer's roses, for shortly
their petals deck the sand; oh, come closer
so I may hear; not the foot-falls of imminent departure
but the landing of your tear
on my cheek, in this farewell hour

Janet~

No Pretty Pink Bow...

You held it too me beneath the pink sky
It was so lovely that it made me cry
I took it gladly; for oh, how could I
Know it was simply
A beautiful good-bye

No pretty ribbon, no neatly tied bow
No hint of parting; how was I to know
As you gave it to me with a tear in your eye
That it was going to be
A beautiful good-bye

I did not see through its beautiful disguise
Beautiful love song; beautiful eyes
Beautiful moment of beautiful sighs
Prelude to the torment
Of beautiful good-byes…

Janet Martin

Storm-tossed

Today as someone spoke your name

I felt the blood rush through my veins

Like the wind, a ruthless fiend

Lashing out across the land

I retrieved the things I’ve kept

From you…and wept

The wind may tear and claw and scream

At grassy stair and woodland stream

It may rush, with stormy tear

Across this vulnerable hemisphere

But it cannot reach the hidden part

Of you…rainbow in my heart

Today as raindrops lash the soil

And bar me from life’s sweeter toil

I look upon the picture of

Laughter, smiles, tears, love

A threshold of a thousand skies

With you…I hate good-byes

J~

And Blood-streams Ache......

As the rough fibers of his jacket
Burn their farewell into her cheek
She cannot see beyond the moment
Or hear the words they speak
But feels the reddened torrents
Drip in quivers from the sky
Landing in impending silence
Good-bye,
Good-bye
Good-bye

Janet~

Chit-chat.....

Sometimes it seems I keep talking
To avoid the inevitable
I’ll talk about the weather
Things, places and people
I won’t look right at you
Or meet your solemn eye
Because I’m not quite ready yet
To hear you say good-bye

Janet~

Off-guard......

You caught me a little off guard today

As I was walking by

I paused; for your gaze, over-powering and gray

Suddenly captured my eye

And the tear in your sad eyes seemed to say

Good-bye sweet summer, good-bye

You caught me a little off-guard today

The trembling in your sigh

Wove through the limbs, barren and gray

A sad soliloquy

As the landscape joined in the solemn lay

Goodbye, sweet summer, good-bye

You caught me a little off-guard today

I thought I was over you

There is a certain raw beauty in gray

That cannot be found in blue

You caught me a little off guard today

As you bid summer adieu

Janet~