Ode To October...

October's Swansong Begins... 

 

OctPoWriMo day 30; sensitivity

Oh, sanguine charmer of the eye

You tease summer from trees and hills

With glades of gold, with scarlet ply

Extravagant, your palette spills

To fill the world with butterflies

A heaven-on-earth-paradise

Persimmon-rose-bronze-blended prize

A sacred dread instills

Oh, bold enticer of the heart

You draw worship from every ‘ah’

And with each brush-stroke you impart

To atheistic-boast, pure awe

At the authority of He

Who paints Earth’s panoramic lea

With autographs of majesty

In nature’s supreme law

Oh, seasoned spender of our sighs

Oh, tender troubadour of trees

Your leaf-and-lonely-limb good-byes

Ignite love’s soul-sweet agonies

In pumpkins, kissed with crumbled mist

In frosted flasks where you untwist

Morning, poured in silk amethyst

You have no enemies

Oh, author of apprenticeship
You gild then strip the supple clime
While in the orchard branches drip
Ruddy swansongs in apple-chime 
The nectar of hope's harvest pressed
And caught in cups of sparkling zest 
Where scholars holy-humbly blessed
Savor sun-flavored Time

Oh, keeper of our sorrow-storms

Love’s holding close and letting go

Is a keen winnowing as arms

Learn the lordship of seasons, oh

And like relinquishment of leaves

Of flowers spent and garnered sheaves

Gratitude swells while thought soft-grieves

October’s golden snow

© Janet Martin

Ode to the Early Dark

It rolls across the land; a tide exhaled

Of soulful blue, hue feeds on deeper hue

Until the fond familiar is veiled

Where folk-at-home windows, pale and wide-eyed

Stare to a world of supper-hour dark

A bivouac of muffled countryside

The scuttle of a brittle leaf is stirred

And chased across the street by phantom feet

Somewhere the barking of a dog is heard

As hooded strangers brace against the chill

With zippers zipped and buttons buttoned tight

Hastening to home’s peace-on-earth good-will

Where day is done before our chores, it seems

And images of easy chairs and books

Become the heroes of our twilight dreams

The heaven shakes its timbrel, spilling stars

Like sparkling eighth-notes gone wildly awry

Deflected from the freeway lined with cars

…and all along the corridor of trees

Bereft of vesper-song the dark reclines

And drips from limbs pining for giggling leaves

The bantering of breezes drops; how still

And smooth the hour slips from day to night

Tucking from sight the near and friendly hill

Now autumn has begun its swan-song trek

Toward that quiet place of white on white

We watch her walking backwards, a mere speck

Yet valiant, she musters a gallant fight

…before his huff and puff snuffs her from sight

© Janet Martin

Until last night I would watch the evening climb the hill out back

now it is dark at suppertime; the window clothed in black

I guess I'll crank up some music while I do supper-dishes 'cause there's nothing to stare at in the window except...me! yikes;-(

Ode to the Year

Farewell; though you were barren but a year ago

You have borne your ordinance of victory and woe

Into the urn of no return I place your memory

There is no future in the past of nevermore will be

Farewell; the passion I perceived when first I touched your gown

Has fallen where the autumn trees have laid their burnished crown

You teased into fruition my clenched dreams of yesterday

While, softly with your other hand you stole its gleam away

Farewell; your fringe is fading, cold, gold pool against the west

Your virgin garment splattered with my crass, clumsy caress

Though fain I still would kiss your feet, you slip into the blue

The pain of love is bittersweet; where is the proof of you?

Farewell; upon the wind you ride, obscure and potent force

While we await with baited hope your forerunners discourse

Within past’s permanence you seal your four-season embrace

And never turn to kiss the farewell teardrops from my face

Farewell; oh tender gift of grace from life's Giver above
Into bygones vast ethereal place is but yesterday's love
And from compassion's bowers hallowed mercy floods the sphere
As He imparts from hope's ramparts, to us, another year

© Janet Martin

Ode to the Muse

The Poetics Aside prompt invites us to use an old poet's poem and write a rebuttal; today I am drawn to Keats. Was it a vision or a waking dream is a line in Ode to the Nightingale

Was it a vision or a waking dream?

Alas, and was it thus my heart you stole

Wrapped as you were; the essence of a stream

When spring has loosed her from winter’s cajole?

And as you played my senses with your lure

And as my pulses surged in begging swoon

Did you intend my lone heart to procure?

Or, were you simply passing like the moon

Far off yet all consuming in your glance

While I, a meek and speechless love-struck girl

Invited you to laugh in reckless dance

As you remained aloof; elusive swirl

Then, well thy word is like a forlorn bell

And if I could I’d cheat my thought of you

But I know now that you know me too well

And to deceive you is the thing I cannot do

The silence tolls your present absence where

The air is filled with expectation’s pause

But still I wait; unwilling to despair

Of your return, and still I wait because

I do not care to breathe without your thought

Or write at last a sorrowful requiem

For thee; who came one night, or did you not?

Tell me;  was it a vision or a waking dream

© Janet Martin  

Ode to December

The grapevine o’er the lintel
Has lost its musky fare
The plot that is my garden
Returns an icy stare
The barefoot boy of summer
Sleeps soundly in his bed
Lulled by a song of winter
Through stark trees overhead

The ship waits in the mooring
For screaming gales to pass
No breeze or warm tide luring
From shores of wind-swept grass
On furrowed field of daisy
December woos her mate
Where once the breeze was lazy
And blooms declared love’s fate

No tiny bud or blossom
To clothe the barren limb
Upon earth’s frigid bosom
The little day grows dim
Night draws its cobalt awning
Before daydreams are through
As deeper shades of evening
Transform white plains to blue

The dusty lanes of summer
The long, slow afternoon
Have fled to kinder pastures
Beneath a warmer moon
The sun-drenched haunts of August
Don winter's testing shawl
While on its gleaming canvas
A thousand memories fall

Dance to the song of snow-flakes
And hold your loved ones near
Three seasons worth of toiling
Have traced another year
Dance to the tune of memories
In winter's frigid bliss
For soon her frosty candor
Will melt in Spring's soft kiss


Janet~

Ode to the Apple

Apple cakes
Apple tarts,
Apple crumble
Apple crisp
Apple muffins
Apple salads
Apple fritter
Apples dipped
Apple jelly
Apple butter
Apple loaf
With apple tea
Apple grunts
And apple goodie
Fit enough
For royalty
Apple strudel
Apple Danish
Apple stuffing
Apple flan
Apple dumpling
Apple stewed
Apple sauce
Poured from a can
Apple wine
Apple cider
Apple roll-ups
Apple pies
Apple cheese-cake
Apple trifle
Apples for a snow-man’s eyes
Apple Brown-betty
Apple pan-dowdy
Apple torte
And apple pared
Apple cobbler
Candy-apple
Apples sliced, or dried
In squares
Apples baked
With cinnamon-sugar
Apples on a Christmas tree
Tell me is there any other
Fruit with such versatility?

Janet!

I’m sure I have missed some juicy dishes, but this is what I could come up with at the moment. The poem-a-day prompt is to write about a fruit or vegetable and since I am immersed in apples today it seemed insensitive to the dear apple not to sing its praises.
I am in the process of peeling and paring these apples for the freezer, then they are ready to use in any of the previously mentioned goodies.