Now from earth’s hearth of dust and ash Hope’s phoenix spreads its wings
Where berth of Trust becomes a sash of bright and blooming
things
It tucks to Past’s eternal ken a tune among its bricks
And clucks like Mother Nature’s hen over Her brood of
chicks
And rouses from a crumb of seed, an orchestra of praise
And sutures wounds of want and need with summer’s
flower-days
Now ink can quench its thirst for pink from fount of
flower-bell
And Wanderlust can pause, immersed in mauve and golden
swell
As days that long we longed for ripple like a stippled
sweep
Of silver sun-kissed corn-leaf seas July-high and
knee-deep
And Hunger is an ocean where the shoreline is the sky
That swallows up emotion like a twinkle in Time’s eye
Now work becomes a pleasant task on canvases of bloom
Where Eden, though we didn’t ask, is mirrored in each
plume
And we no longer mourn as much for The Sweet By and By
Because now touch and such is easier to satisfy
Where everywhere we look we see a glimpse of Better Place
As bare toes wiggle in the dirt that bursts with summer-grace
Now, just a word of caution; for this forge of
flower-cheer
Is soon blurred like the action of the hand that wipes
the tear
So, lest the Best of Days (July) slip by midst much to-do
Let’s chase the butterfly and stop to smell the roses too
And do Such Beauty justice with a second and third look
Where soon this loom of dust is drained to pages in a
book
© Janet Martin
