It's Barefoot Days

One snared on the run as I chuckled over

a cute little collection of shoes left behind because

IT'S BAREFOOT DAYS!!

What's your summer happy place?

Mine is anywhere bare feet are allowed😊

It’s barefoot days

A dusty haze

And golden shimmered glance

Before the chill

Of snow-days spill

In diamond-studded dance

We revel in

Bronze-beveled grin

Of summer spent-too-soon

And part our lips

To snare the drips

Of honey-sweet high-noon

It’s barefoot bliss

Shoes strewn amiss

To feel Earth kiss our soles/souls

And taste the truth

Of hasty youth

Slipping through sky-blue holes

…to make the most

Of summer’s toast

To flower-bower joy

To celebrate

The blithesome gait

Of barefoot girl and boy

It’s barefoot days

Where landscapes blaze

Beneath a quickened clime

Where cricket and

Cicada-band

Serenade summer time

© Janet Martin

Almost August...

 'Where harvest fields surrender yields that capture heart and eye'

'In the sheen of sunflowers beaming from sage-bristled stalks'

'Where gardens grin and we begin to gather in toil’s laud'

Its almost August; month of age-old accolades renewed

Where morning, ripe with golden sun highlights sweeps silver-dewed

Where harvest fields surrender yields that capture heart and eye

As crickets start to serenade the ending of July

It’s almost August; beauty-tones delight the commonplace

In purple loosestrife, chicory, yarrow and Queen Ann’s lace

Where gardens grin and we begin to gather in toil’s laud

As fruit and flower melodies spill through our touch to God

It’s almost August; heartstrings get tangled in hollyhocks

In the sheen of sunflowers beaming from sage-bristled stalks

In the keening awareness in each honey-suckle bloom

Of moments weaving echoes from the threads of summer’s loom

It’s almost August; hummingbirds and honey-bees abound

We take off shoes to stir the dust and dew of holy ground

To revel in the bevel of a bowl tipped upside down

To showcase blue, blue eons on a cloud-disheveled crown

It’s almost August; weep not for the parting but give thanks

For bloom-embellished garden paths and lily-laden banks

For arms we cannot see that draw and sweep us off our feet

As wonder and desire meet in tangos, bittersweet

It’s almost August; farewell, farewell, my darling chérie

My sweet July, we cannot keep at bay time’s surging sea

But, come what may, of August’s day, July's memories made

Are gathered in a coffer no hand of time can invade

© Janet Martin

Ah, Summer

 Ah, hands laden with garden-fare...

ah, sand between our toes...

Ah, silver-sequined taper melting moments dearly prized

You strew to past’s cast paper joy and sorrow synchronized

Scents of your passage mingle in incense of dust and dew

As our senses tingle with the awareness of you

Ah, eager expectation meshed with echo-aftermath

Shards of dashed celebration deck impressions of a path

That wends and winds its way from where we were to where we are

Fresh from a world of yesterdays we leap from star to star

Ah, land of lengthened daylight before night draws down its bars

And scatters flowers, silver-white in bowers bent with stars

Ah, grand cathedral brimming with winter’s bloom-dreams come true

While sight is barely skimming the fringe of what God can do

Ah, hands laden with garden-fare, ah, sand between our toes

Arbors flowing with silken, sunny honeysuckle prose

Ah, hill and hollow frilled with skeins and skeins of Queen Ann’s lace

Ah, lily-tallow spilled and willed to life’s last resting place

Ah, petal-tear ellipses, bit o’ salt, a bit o’ sweet

Where auburn soon eclipses gold and green of corn and wheat

Where late-day diamonds dancing on a bit o’ lake-lent hue

Crown points of exclamation with love’s stinging residue

Ah summer; soulful salutation of blooms and bare feet

Of heat-waves rolling over shores where earth and heaven meet

Of longing's gaping canyon overflowing with your hymn

Ah summer, full of reasons to be glad and sing and sing

© Janet Martin

Where late-day diamonds dancing on a bit o’ lake-lent hue

Crown points of exclamation with love’s stinging residue...

Of Summer's Day

Duty's marching orders can be quite relentless,

but hopefully not so much so that we forget

to 'sail away on summer's Day', now and then

Summer serves up its splash of sheaves

On silver platters made of leaves

A bloom-extravagant buffet

On counterpanes of Summer's Day...

Let’s put on smiles and sail away

Through glorious isles of Summer’s day

On seas of green and gold beneath

The gleam of heaven’s cobalt heath

Let's kick off shoes and wade through hues

Of wild-flower and welkin blues

Or we might miss the best there is

Of this old world, with much amiss  

Let’s pause without apology

Because of nature's Majesty

So many wonders to behold

Before the wings of summer fold

Before the songs of summer fade

Like youth, marching in a parade

That steals the vigor from their form

Like winter takes the world by storm

And we cannot return to climb

The hills of Once upon a Time

So, while the world is summer-young

And dew-drop-pearled and grandly flung

Like Creation’s magnum opus

From God to every one of us

Let’s linger where the landscape gleams

With lavender and lily-streams

With golden tides of rippling grain

With blush and rush of sun and rain

Where goldfinch flits and swallow skims

And lyrics lilt from leaf-lush limbs

And gardens burgeon with delight

That kindles healthy appetite

And makes our labor worth its toil

As seed begins to spill its spoil

To we, humbled to do our part

To glean earth’s gifts with thankful heart

Awed by His grace, aware of He

Who still creates with ‘let there be’

And sweetens creature-care with hymns

Where beauty’s ballad broods and brims

From founts of hollyhock and rose

Creation’s color-cadence flows

Through glorious isles of Summer’s Day

So, let’s don smiles and sail away

On seas of green and gold before

This sweep of summer is no more

Summer serves up its splash of sheaves

On silver platters made of leaves

A bloom-extravagant buffet

On counterpanes of Summer's Day

© Janet Martin

Rev.15:3

 “Great and marvelous are Your works, 

Lord God Almighty!

 Just and true are Your ways, 

O King of the saints!

Summer To-do List (lest we miss it!)

Drink in the songs of summer

The sigh of where zephyr blows

The teal cajole of waves that roll

From skylines to our toes

Ah, feast your eyes on flowers

A colourful buffet

That spills its art from earth to heart

In a most perfect way

Linger longer in gardens

Be florally content

For soon Time’s way will have its say

In blooms withered and spent

Harvest a host of echoes

To tenderly retrace

After gold-green has lost its sheen

And silver takes its place

Pour second cups of laughter

Beneath leaf-canopy

Let happiness dissolve our stress

For what must be will be 

Bask in beauty with boldness

And humble gratitude

That God so lent a season bent

With Mother Nature's brood

Absorb gorgeous sun-sparkles

Before it is too late

Get close enough to catch the Love

Climbing trellis and gate

...and feel life's friendly welcome

Greet us like next of kin

Where flowers nod and we sense God

Walking somewhere therein

© Janet Martin  

A Little Like a Wave (that rolls across the land...)

Welcome! Day Three of Summer...

 The first day of summer was almost perfect...

I say 'almost' because it seems in life/love there is ALWAYS

a 'fly in the pudding', right?

Sisters💖

Melissa came home for her first visit this year (because of the pandemic)

then someone's truck broke down and Jim needed to work on Sunday, cutting our visit

a little short because we needed to drive her home on Sunday morning instead of later in the day..

Our whole family was together at last...except Matt; He was at his buddy's wedding...

so we learn to commit to treasuring the moments 

that slip through our fingers like sun-sparkles on water

A little like a wave that rolls across the land and leaves

Behind a wake of wonder spent on petal-wings and sheaves

And echo-sparkles, strewn like diamonds on a dusty path

Where wafts the mist of sun-kissed days in summer’s aftermath

A little like a dream come true but reality-warped

As avenues of green and blue turn bronze and heat-wave scorched

While we are humbly smitten by God’s mercies, new each morn

Where silver gleams the rippling surf of barley-fields and corn

A little like a front porch perch as we lean to behold

A panoramic surge of oceans, purple, pink and gold

Where hills, wild-flower frosted flare and fade and none can tame

The tide that spills across earth’s shoreline; summer is its name

A little like the blur of childhood after it is spent

A mosaic of moments molding bittersweet lament

Where what so long we hungered for is caught upon a swell

Of turquoise-tinted fervor always ending in farewell

Then dawdle in the dreamland that cold, winter nights compose

And give yourself permission to be beguiled by a rose

And loiter by the bank that brims with daisy-hymns and such

Before the hour, like the flower falls prey to time’s touch

Drink deep; the dewy dazzled dawn is like a fount of stars

Walk on the water of front lawns to flower-frothed sand-bars

And wade, waist-deep through afternoons that soon will not exist

Snare summer’s sunshine-wine in flasks for winter to untwist

Dare to be carefree, for a little even while we bear

(Because of love’s Thereof) its steady, sweaty weight of care

Do not wait for a Better Day to treasure now and here

Because with ev’ry cheep and chirp summer will disappear

A little like a pang piercing asunder heart and soul

A little like a bulging pocket with a little hole

A little like a rhapsody half-written and released

A little like a photograph, faded and fondly-creased

The Hand that gifts the sands of time and sifts its ebb and flow

Helps us to hold but not to cling, to love and then let go

So then, when Summer slips beyond the reach of glossy leaf

A hint of peach will linger to sweeten her loss and grief

© Janet Martin

Ere Summer Like a Flower Fades...

Farewell, sweet July!

Ere winter drapes sugary shawls over the stooped shoulders of earth

And Jack Frost leaves his feather-scrawls on parchment void of flower-mirth

Where Queen Ann’s Lace and chicory and columbine and goldenrod

Have tendered their rainbow melee to rest in cold, dark chests of sod

Ere fence-line finery is doffed and orange lily-lanterns snuffed

By winds once green and whisper-soft as silk that pops the milkweed tuft

Ere songbirds launch a southward flight and woodlands shed their shushing tress

And all the land is staunch and white; shrouded in sterling quietness

Ere lap and slap of lake-song stills and surging splurge of surf is spent

And steely surface seals the rills; ere petal from pinion is rent

To moulder in the dust of days beneath a soldered garden path

Ere summer slips into the haze of wind-strummed wild-grass aftermath

Ere summer like a flower fades and Beauty dons more somber hues

Ere farmer wields the harvest-blades and winter-weather fills the news

Let’s love this season’s wonder-storm without wishing for something more

Ere What We Hold loses its form like waves as they are washed ashore

© Janet Martin