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.

Majestic Mystery

We must die

Again, again

To self

It’s hard to explain

but that is love

And each time we die

For Love,

For Him

We become

More alive

Immaculate equilibrium

And each time

we empty ourselves

Gasping and thin

He fills us

Fuller than we’ve ever been

That’s that way it is

With love

The exact opposite of

Normal

And logical

Or practical

The more we give

The more we have

The emptier we become

The fuller we are
Dying so we can truly live;
How can it be?

Oh wonderful, majestic

Mystery

© Janet Martin

A Blissful Madness

The hour is mad with possibility

As summer drools against my window-pane

Strumming the leaf-notes of the maple tree

Its music trickling into life’s mundane

Where duty wields its tried and tireless force

And wander-lust, clad in golden day-dream

Bids me to stray from labor’s staid discourse

To wander by the woodland’s ambling stream

The scent of farewell rushes to me, warm

Like waves to shore before a summer storm

I‘m tethered to the hand pushing the plow

Freedom, a fantastic and foreign ploy

As landscapes burgeon with the after-glow

Of hope and harvest; living’s grief and joy

Dare I to shirk the rod of humble toil

To loiter in the crook of summer’s arm

While others work; will I collect their spoil

Yet languish where her parting kiss is warm?

Temptation urges my heart to rebel

A tug-of war twixt duty and farewell

Oh, tender bliss of love; sweet rivers run

Toward the stream where darker waters move

But shadows only happen in the sun

And grief can only happen if we love

I care not where I spend summer’s last hour

My mouth is full of her wine; bittersweet

For love is a mystic, manifold flow’r

And though I feel her presence wane; retreat

I will embrace the parting tear that flows

Without the thorn we cannot have the rose

© Janet Martin

Autumn's Approach

You are here

Somewhere

Standing on a gate

Slowly closing…

There you wait

Beneath the silver sash

Of dewy lawn

Above the splash 

Of ocher dawn

Within the tawny burnished leaf

And summer's sighing, barren sheaf

You press against reality

In whispers spilling from the tree

And leaning, like a memory

Deep against the heart of me

In mornings I cannot reclaim

Like the echo of a name

Of someone that I used to know

In a summer long ago

I hear you tiptoe through the corn

You will be here

By the morrow's morn...

J~

Imagery

When morning spills a startling chill

From scarlet-satin skies

And we observe a keener verve

Within her restless eyes

When tree-tops blush beneath her brush

Teasing the verdant limb

We recognize the sure demise

Of summer growing dim

But we cannot dissuade or stop

An hour’s velocity

The hand that tugs the bashful bud

Will strip the leafy tree

And those who once dashed unabashed

By life’s rollicking rhyme

Begin to see Mortality

Within each tick of Time

As morning spills a startling chill

On summer’s memory

We recognize within her eyes

More than we plainly see

© Janet Martin

It is downright COLD these past few mornings!

I Want You

…like a baby nuzzling to its mother

And it is enough

Come to me now

Oh, my love

Do not fade away

Into the silver-gray dusk

For I need you

There is no other

Lover

That can warm me

Quite like you

But your waning gaze

Rouses concerns

You are growing distant

Even in your half-grin returns

I sense you

Pulling away

And all I can do is beg you to stay

To lay your head on my shoulder

Just one more hour

Perhaps,

When I am older

I will have the will-power to

Let you go

Already I know

 I will miss you so

Darling,

I will not ask for much

But oh please,

That I may languish ‘neath your touch

A little longer

Only until I am stronger

For I am so much colder

Without your kiss

Upon my shoulder

© Janet Martin

Yes, the sun is

waning a bit…

Suddenly We Remember...

It’s easy to forget

When the afternoon is a golden pool

Of moments unraveling from an azure spool

Into an hour of warm summer-love

As from the pine-spire the woo of a dove

Rides on the argent breeze

And moments become memories

Without a second glance

Because it’s so easy to forget

In the spicy-sweet trance

Of bronze-burnished bloom

How heaven’s lambent broom

Can sweep away

The remnants of a summer day

Without the slightest regard

For the echo of bare feet

Thrumming across the yard

Or the maple tree, weeping scarlet-red tears

Into the portent of silver-crowned years

Then, suddenly we remember
And we feel old

Even before life’s bittersweet
Cold

© Janet Martin

It only dawned on me today that we are three days away from 'officially-fall'! It's so easy to forget when

the afternoon is a golden pool...I'm going back out there.
 

Until We Are Weak

Until we are weak, we cannot be strong

Perfect strength is not reserved for the young

But through One whose promises agelessly speak

We cannot be strong until we are weak

His grace is enough for all mortal despair

Our infirmities never exceed His care

Nothing on this earth over-powers His love

For all mortal despair His grace is enough

The darkness is great, it cannot comprehend

A love that has known no beginning or end

Though the Light shines on it, darkness chooses hate

It cannot comprehend; the darkness is great

Love is so abused; often misunderstood

Thus, we are confused when we hear ‘God is good’

Love appeared weak; He answered not, though accused

Often misunderstood; Love is so abused

Love proved its power as the cross bore His blood

The Lion, a Lamb shedding redemption’s flood

From ancient Calvary to present hour

As the cross bore His blood Love proved its power

Until we are weak, what we cannot truly know

Is His perfected strength; He has promised it so

God, give us courage then, to surrender and seek

What we cannot truly know until we are weak

© Janet Martin

 Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt a Swap Quatrain

The Swap Quatrain was created by Lorraine M. Kanter.

Within the Swap Quatrain each stanza in the poem must be a quatrain (four lines) where the first line is reversed in the fourth line. In addition, line 2 must rhyme with line 1, and line 3 must rhyme with line 4 and so on, BUT not repeat the same rhyming pattern on subsequent stanzas.

Rhyming pattern: AABB, CCDD, and so on.