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...
