Spring Adieu and Summer Hello

Spring wanders from the beaten path

Feet follow, where its aftermath

Is snared in campion bouquets...

Of almost Eden’s verdant sheaf

Of breezes tumbling leaf to leaf...

Of early-morn and late-dusk clock

Of arbors flanked by hollyhock...

Spring wanders from the beaten path

Feet follow, where its aftermath

Is snared in campion bouquets

In daisy chains and rose sachets

Where mint and chamomile are caught

Like artwork in a glass tea-pot

Where buttercups and fleabane stroll

Along the lane, up grassy knoll

To play ‘mongst Canterbury bells

‘neath bottomless blue-sky inkwells

And time is like a poem-book

A rhyme in every nook and crook

Of almost Eden’s verdant sheaf

Of breezes tumbling leaf to leaf

Of early-morn and late-dusk clock

Of arbors flanked by hollyhock

While laughter, like a butterfly

Bobs bloom to bloom with lilt and sigh

While gardens and picnics beguile

While summer-lovers smile and smile

© Janet Martin

a bit of feather-color at the feeders today

(Not quite as clear because I take the pictures through a screen)

Mid-Winter Mid-Summer Stroll

Happy Halfway through January. Already?!!

This poem was first inspired by yesterday's sunshine 

pouring through the flowering maple

at the back door...

Let’s pretend it’s mid-July

Sprawl beneath the sun-stoked sky

Let’s pretend a butterfly

Flitting plume to plume

Let’s pretend a garden path

Warm with winter’s aftermath

Fringed with ardent autograph

Of sunflow’rs in bloom

Let’s pretend pink lemonade

Blankets tossed on pools of shade

Cricket and leaf serenade

Backyard getaway

Book and hammock luxury

Picnic basket poetry

Bare foot banter fancy-free

Winter f-a-a-r away

Let’s pretend end of a dock

Sunsets after nine o’ clock

Nose to nose with hollyhock

Hello, honey-bee

Let’s pretend bright greens and golds

Where the countryside unfolds

Hill and hollow wonder-wolds

Far as eye can see

Let’s pretend a summer stroll

On the beach where sea-songs roll

Over feet and through the soul

Weather forecast, hot

Let’s pretend its mid-July

Lounge beneath its sapphire sky

Kick off shoes and…b-r-r-r! oh my!

On second thought, let’s not!

© Janet Martin

Season of Sweet Discontent

 

Summer pleasures are like flowers
Timed treasures that soon depart
Strewing petal-measured hours
Over gardens of the heart

Summer slips through our defenses
Weaves sheer wonder with its loom
While vexing and soothing senses
Leaf by leaf and plume by plume

Summer is a rush of roses
Rousing sorrow from its joy
As its dance of days composes
Longing’s dissonant alloy

Summer, sweet, ripe and delicious
Season of fulfilled desire
What then are these wayward wishes
In the embers of its fire

Ah yes, these are called September
Season of sweet discontent
As we wonder and remember
Where another summer went

© Janet Martin

I Heard My First Cricket of Summer Today...

 Cricket-stages waiting to be filled with invisible minstrels...

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me a little sad

For these are the minstrels that chirp-chirp away

The beautiful summer we had

I heard the first cricket of summer today

It tugged at my heart with its call

Knowing its rhythmic backdrop will play

Until the frost-chill of the fall

I heard my first cricket of summer today

Plaintive soloist, but not long

For soon a whole hidden cricket choir will play

August and September’s earth-song

Aha, close your eyes; can't you feel the skies lower

Balladeer rousing both teardrop and grin 

 Drawing its bow over heart-strings and clover

Velvet vibrato from a black violin

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me both sad and glad

To know that the crickets did not lose their way

And will play till ‘the summer we had’

© Janet Martin

Oh, Heaven-ness of Sweet July

 Every year the same thing...

July feels like a beloved family member come home

after a long stay away...

Oh, em'rald hill from blue heights hung

Plethora of wildflowers flung

Across your sanguine, wild-grass sweep

A free-for-all for none to keep

Oh river, rambling jewelry

Like rhinestones sparkling to the sea

Where we are lured like fish it seems

Toward the dangling bait of streams/dreams

Oh, garden, in the cool of day

We love to come to you to pray

And sense a glimpse of Eden where

God's Presence walks upon the air

Oh, heaven-ness of sweet July

Cerulean apple of Time’s eye

Where green to gold the wheat fields run

Beneath a bold and blazing sun

Oh summer, like a jar that spills

Its salty stars to dusty sills

Where soft dusk’s dewy ebbs and flows

Clings to our skin like echo-snows

Oh, hollyhock, delphinium 

Oh, clock of petal-pendulum 

How faithfully you flare and fade

An orchestra of pieces played

Oh, heaven-ness of sweet July

A laughing twinkle in time's eye 

A flicker of sun-shadow art

That hangs forever in my heart

© Janet Martin

off to dead-head peonies and hoe onions

in the sweatiness, oops, heaven-ness of July 😎😍😊

Sweet seven-day forecast!!

(nope, we are not going to complain about the heat after May snowstorms!)

 Keep cool, comrades.

Sensational Summer...Thank You, God

Love to lie beneath the branches list’ning to leaf-melodies

Love to catch the scent of roses lobbed upon the buoyant breeze

Love to taste the thrill of morning, mist-enshrouded silver-green

Love to wander where the westward welkin weaves ribbons of e’en

Love to linger where the fingerprint of God is everywhere

Love to feel His Presence whisper anxiety into prayer

Love to watch two-second spangles in the puddles on the lane

Love to listen to the lyrics of a warm, soft summer rain

Love to feel the sweet sensation of youth in a shell, well worn

Love to share the exaltation of a flower freshly born

Love to savour the fine flavour of a lovely summer day

Love to humbly thank the Giver when I bow my head to pray

© Janet Martin

Psalm 104:1

O LORD my God, You are very great;

You are clothed with splendor and majesty...