September Symphony

All day long the prelude played

...leading up to twilight's climax! 

The rainbow lasted quite a while...pictures don't do justice to the most vibrant rainbow I've ever seen!

Soft blended hues of green-gray-blues

Unravels a symphonic haze

Like cello-tune, yellow-maroon

Empyrean boon woos mortal gaze

Landscape sprawls rife with earth’s still-life

Nature employs Beauty’s baton

Where Maestro of mercy and love

Composes hymns to look upon

Gold-gilded leaf, dust-spangled sheaf

Heath, haloed with amethyst mist

Sun-dazzled rills, blue-bathed foothills

Amber-anointed dusk, musk-kissed

Vermilion tints and russet glints

Prelude to crowning crescendo

Tempo of rain on burnished main

Cadence of poplar, birch, willow

Percussion-plume, rainbow in bloom

Minstrels attired in grass and wood

Coral and purple, orchestral

…and Author’s assent, 'it is good'

© Janet Martin

So many stunning snap-shots today. It's hard to choose only a few:)

Mercy-song...a Rubáiyát

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt  The Rubáiyát

The music of life’s fervent flow

Is bittersweet; now swift, now slow

The rise and fall of centuries

Surging, to melt like streams of snow

Hail, moment-tear, why do you rush

To tune the sphere of midnight’s hush?

I pause to hear your subtle sigh

Sparkle on daybreak’s dew-drenched brush

The virgin gleam of morning-spire

Throbs, a requiem of new desire

Replenishing our flagging vim

In cadences from heaven’s choir

Ah, agony of moment-mirth

Of shadows spilling on dusk’s girth

Where soon the dawn provokes the dark

And splashes grace across the earth

We lift our cups up, brave and high

To taste life’s honey from the sky

For soon its dripping melody

Will sweep in languid lullaby

The music of life’s second chance

Inspires us to dream and dance

Forsaking yesterday’s lament

To revel in hope’s moment-glance

Mercy and grace do not keep score

Kissing our failures through Time’s door

They tune their harps with renewed zest

And beckon us to sing once more

© Janet Martin

Mistral-music

Blow then, oh frigid gale of howling song

Sweep over argent landscapes petrified

Across blue tree-limbs splayed upon the lawn

Cajole the winter-stricken countryside

Unleash your silver gusto; evergreen

Bows low beneath the tempo of your tune

And over all the earth a gilded sheen

Rivals the opulence of emerald June

Blow then, for every season has its day

A splash, a dash and then it drifts away

The deluge of your gripping overture

Though startling in it raw, ruthless release

Depletes its stores of winter-white verdure

The world is tranquil in snow-muffled peace

The kiss of Father Time is not reserved

For flesh and blood; seasons succumb beneath

His touch; the remnant of its mien preserved

In memories of alabaster sheath

Thus we do not despise your vulgar thrust

For soon your venom dies; dust unto dust

Tonight your song lunges against the sill

It moans outside the door, a lonesome wail

Oh, I would let you in but for your chill

So you remain, a wild and wandering gale

With renewed passion you employ your wrath

And we are at the mercy of its lay

Beneath your shroud the brook and garden-path

Wait patiently for Spring’s imminent day

Then fling your melody into the air

You are the harbinger of breezes fair

© Janet Martin 

Tonight the song rises and falls, from flurry to calm.

Song for a Winter's Night -Gordon Lightfoot 
 J~

Tug-of-war Tango

Oh, quell this eager, effervescent surge

Kissing my mouth while subtly it steals

Rending my heart while tenderly it heals

Author of love song, lullaby and dirge

Oh still the rampage of this ruthless stream

Luring the child from mother’s pleading eye

Yet, she has prayed her young-ling learns to fly

She will not snuff the splendor of a dream

Oh, quench the fount of moment-melody

May I have one more dance; curve melding curve?

Yet, one half-step is more than I deserve

Passion and pain align intricately

Oh, hold me close, for I cannot resist

The imminence of what is yet to be

And love is such a precious agony

Twixt farewell tears and waiting to be kissed

Oh tease me, tease me not, hold me, let go

I cannot bear, yet must endure its ploy

Of bitter-sweetest misery and joy

Wrought by the tempo of life's moment-flow

© Janet Martin

Waterfall- Jon Schmidt

Of Muddles and Music...

Dance through the muddle of life

For oh, when the music stops

You’ll wish for the tune of clattering spoon

The music of messes and mops

Sing through the muddle of life

For oh, when the house is still

How oft we will hear the music drift near

The way that a memory will

Laugh through the muddle of life

For oh, life is too short to fret

And we do not care to fill its brief share

With days we would rather forget

Love through the muddle of life

For oh, if we choose to wait

For the perfect time and the perfect rhyme

Well then, it might be too late

© Janet Martin

Sometimes when its ‘teen-age noisy, messy’ I need to remind myself of this! And dance, sing, laugh, love.

November's Farewell Song

What is that song you play tonight?

It rolls across the cobalt eve

Where finger-tips of silver-white

Strum branches aching for their leaves

What is that melody we hear?

Of still and starless diadem

Tolling the waning of a year

In farewell notes of snowflake gem

Who plays this moody minuet

A sudden, surging solitude

Where daylight rests her weary head

As rushing winds are calm, subdued

Where is the Maestro that instructs

This tender, tortured euphony?

It trembles in the midnight arch

And drifts across the frozen lea

What is that song; a humble hymn

Autumn’s postlude, a lullaby

That trickles from the silent scrim

Of deep November-night good-bye

© Janet Martin

Summer's Requiem

The acoustics are muted; tinged with musk

Arabesque canticle filling the dusk

Mournful madrigal; a hallowed hymn

This is the hour of summer’s requiem

Soundless, it drips from the edge of the earth

Slipping to vaults of intangible girth

Deeper and deeper its purple-blue shroud

Merges with mantle of midnight’s first cloud

No sheet music forms summer’s drifting dirge

As passionate parting and sorrow converge

Over the meadow and frost-stricken swell

Murmurs a monody; Tender Farewell

Quivering quiet; its swan-song is still

Darkness descends over hollow and hill

Echoes of laughter cajole the dark limb

Tuning the ‘after’ of summer’s requiem  

© Janet Martin

She slipped away early...in a gown befitting the occasion; blue, very deep blue.

I Come Out Here to Listen...

I come out here to listen

To the sky-line lullaby

To hear its vesper glisten

On the deep end of good-by

The Maestro of this orchestra

The Hand that tunes its choir

Composes twilight’s masterpiece

In chords of holy fire

Above this troubled clod of dirt

With all its torn devotion

He calms our visages of hurt

With heaven’s flaming ocean

I come out here to listen

To love’s soulful solitude

As it melts upon the evening

In a tender-whelming flood

The bumps and scrapes of living

Are predictable and plain

But the overtures of heaven

Who can imitate its strain?

I come out here to listen

To His hallowed vespers swell

As I hear Him softly whisper,

It is well, it is well

© Janet Martin

Dance to the Music

Dance to the music God gives you

A montage of moments is brief

Soon its lay will drift away

A whisper on autumn’s leaf

List’ to the melody playing

And do not ignore its worth

Tomorrow’s sorrows are waiting

To strip the lip of its mirth

The music of this life is fleeting

We see not the end of its song

But we hear drums repeating

Eternity is long

…is long…is long…is long…

© Janet Martin



Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Psalms 96: 1

A Perfect Scale of Bliss

Who knew that doh-Rae-meh-fah-soh

Could leave me breathless perfectly?

Who knew that la and tee and doh 

Could shift the earth beneath my feet?

There are no verbs or nouns yet heard

That move like sound without a word

Janet~

Fur Elise

Timeless Madrigal

No instrument, minstrel or crooner

Can imitate, or compete

The low, melancholy languor

Of this melody, tender-sweet

Into deep-hushed charcoal hollow

Over moon-gilded plateau

It rises and falls at my window

Now restless, now moody, now slow

No violin quickens the pulses

Like its haunting madrigal

A ballad of longing and losses

Wanders earth’s somnolent hall

It curves quickened notes in an ocean

Clutching love’s bitter-sweet thought

A solo of dissonant emotion

Soothing, yet searing the heart

There is no other song equal

In lyric, in measure or rhyme

No composition to rival

This hymn since dawning of time

Over the graceful willow

And earth's silver-blue diadem

Over the tear on my pillow

Croons the wind-song of one a.m.

J~

Soul-song

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/12/think-tank-thursday.html


If you listen
Well, I guess that
You won’t hear a thing
It’s another kind
Of language
Caught in whispers
Deep within
And I can feel my heartbeat
In a tender sort of pain
Its timbre, blue and bitter-sweet
Yet, warm as summer rain
I feel it rise within me
In a sweeping melody
As its tenure rushes through me
Like a storm on midnight’s sea
For its whisper is an ocean
Yet its ocean but a sigh
And its lone proof of existence
Is a teardrop in my eye
If you listen closely
Well, you still won’t hear a thing
But I can hear it clearly
In a montage deep within
Its lips upon my memory
And its voice against each breath
Its notes a sudden longing
And an aching in my chest
Not a flicker, not a murmur
Not a single, tiny trace
Of the orchestra within me
But the half-smile on my face

J~

Encore, Please

Your voice flows through me like the blue of your eyes
I’m caught in a trance, not unlike paradise
The timbre of passion and longing and hope
Drifts over hillside and valley and slope

Seduction in whispers of purple and gold
Emerald and scarlet pour from your hold
As I hear time's agony bleed from your voice
You want to stay with me, but you have no choice

Sweet are the sonnets played on the soft wind
Of sunshine and laughter when living is kind
But purer by far, the haunting melody
Born in the heartache of love’s misery

Over the pattern of wheat field and brush
An ocean of music falls into the hush
Trembling, I spread its yearning 'cross my brow
As hunger and dread spawn the breezes that blow

Tomorrow your music will be dormant and still
I will reach for you to retrieve your thrill
But you will be gone to return nevermore
As dead as the wave that reaches the shore

Today I will let your voice soothe and torment
Perfect communion of love and lament
I plead for an encore as you drift to the sky
And August extinguishes the song of July

Janet~

The Dance

Time will never stop turning
It’s always been this way
The tress rich and raven
Succumbs to soft gray
The hand smooth and supple
Bears life’s tender scars
We are only people
And time simply years
As the violin plays on…

Slow moving quadrille
Come my love, hold me near
It seems time’s old wheel
Is no respecter of tears
But it plucks from our fingers
Our most treasured things
As its harmony lingers
On effervescent wings
And the violin plays on…

Hold back your sorrow
Until some other day
Yesterday’s tomorrow
Is slipping away
While here in the arms
Of life’s bitter-sweet dance
We move to the charms
Of heaven’s soft glance
And the violin plays on…

Come oh my darling
Life hastens away
I see the soft morning
Become yesterday
Dance with me, darling
Let us not waste one song
For no one will tell us
When the music is done
As the violin plays on…

Janet~

Song of the Night

It drifts from the shore
A melancholy tune
Sung by the stars
and the man in the moon
It ripples the fields
Of silver grass
Nature’s piano
and it’s first-class
I hear its soft strain
In the breezes that sigh
A soulful refrain
Trickling ‘cross the sky
It moans in the alley
And on the dark street
Weeps in the valley
Aches in each heart-beat
A wordless symphony
Permeating the air
Resonating deeply
Like the peace in a prayer
The music fades
A hush descends
Quietly I plead
Won’t you play it again?

Janet~

Music of the Rain

I love the music of the rain
Strumming on my window-pane
The languorous stirring of the pine
Bathed in heaven’s purest wine
I love the moaning of the breeze
Falling through the dripping trees
Teardrops from the moody eye
Of an ever-changing sky

I love the music of the rain
It speaks to me of tender pain
Caught in the eyes of true blue love
It speaks to me of hope above
For just beyond the present cloud
Beyond the weeping, wavering shroud
I know the sun will shine again
I love the music of the rain

Janet~

Another Song....

….but then another song
Wrapped its warmth around my mind
I felt your arms around me
And your lips so soft and kind
I heard you gently whisper
What must be will surely be
As another song came to me
On the dark and rolling sea

J~

Music....

It’s a song that suggests at a moment
With my eyes closed
And sweet warmth teasing my lips
It’s a trickle of sparkling laughter
And a china rose
Between my fingertips
It’s the sound of a brief siesta
And I smile
As I absorb its melody
It’s a beautiful kind of music
Song of chamomile
As I pour a cup of tea

Janet~

The Music of Life...

The music of life is a wonderful song
Sung by the moments that ease us along
I caught an eighth-note when you looked at me
With eyes as blue as the deep rolling sea
And the lilt in your voice and the warmth in your smile
Is a beautiful ballad in life’s lonesome mile

Sweep me into your arms, oh my dear
There’s a song in the stars, and the morning is near
Here in the timbre of midnight’s dark sky
Trembles a love song as soft as your sigh
Warm as the summer, yet wild as the breeze
Strumming the grasses and tossing the trees

The music of life is a rare melody
Oh, how I love when you sing it with me
A ballad of whispers and wild winds and lips
As fleeting as the moment on our fingertips
Written in sonnets of laughter and tears
A love song of wishes and memories and years

Come, oh my darling, may I have this dance?
I feel the longing in your true-blue glance
As we move to the music of love’s symphony
The night falls around us in rich harmony
Come oh my darling, what more can I say
It takes more than the ocean to keep you away

Janet~