November Appears

November came whooshing in, in torrential down-pours and 90k/hr winds!

Writer's Digest PAD; Day 1, For today’s prompt, write an appearing poem.

After the harvest is gathered

After the tree sheds its tear

After its leaf-song is scattered

Over a landscape dull; drear

November appears

After sweet dog-days are squandered

In lemonade afternoons

And after the poet has wandered

Over its sun-shadow tunes…

After the twilight is hastened

Early toward stilly-deep

After the kissing of children

And stories and prayers ere they sleep

After the Margarets and Johnnys

All have out-grown last year’s shoes

And after the bee has its honey

And asters have crooned farewell blues

…after the spilling of roses

Follows the path of its peers

While ‘neath our feet a door closes

Over a graveyard of years

November appears

© Janet Martin  

Before and After

My thought-life was divided in two for such a long time; ‘before the wedding’ and ‘after the wedding’. Thus, I find myself looking for new before’s and touching softly the long ‘ever-afters’

…and now I wonder; what hidden ‘before’

Lurks in the hours that fall

The ‘after you’ of many a love

Has no ending point at all

But the ‘before’ is a breath-by-breath race

To unknowns that we cannot tell

I have known pinnacles in love’s embrace

And loneliness akin to hell

Thus expectation divides my intent

‘befores’ are an intricate thing

It is the path leading to the advent

Of what ‘ever-after’ will bring

Synchronized free-fall of heart-ache and laughter

Caught in the middle of ‘Before’ and ‘After’

© Janet Martin

I chuckled the other day as I watched my daughter’s impatience; her eagerness to get everything in place, her dreams of ‘their place’ and I wanted to say, oh, my precious, you’re gonna miss this!’

so, I take a slow walk around the house and whisper, 'mom, you're gonna miss this'

  

  

October-mood

Though I tug upon your coat-tail and implore you to remain

You advance toward the exit in the color of the rain

Kindred spirits never sever though the hour may depart

You will be my love forever, sweet October of my heart

 

By the time these words are written you’ll be standing at the gates

Where the leaf is heavy-laden and your time-drawn carriage waits

And I know you will not see me, watching as you slip away

But I know that you will feel me in your wild and lonesome gray

You have spilled your umber palette where first gold and scarlet fell

And the ivy on the lintel weeps its tears in fond farewell

Do not hasten so my darling, grief has no expiry date

If I could I’d bolt Time’s door and softly beckon you to wait…

You have tuned my heart with laughter and with angst of letting go

You have strewn the final splendor of your robe like russet snow

And I cannot find the hem of midnight; darkness fills the air

It is still; I hear the tiptoe of November on the stair

© Janet Martin

Hallowe-en Hug

There are mommy and daddy hugs
And hugs from wee boys and girls
But I think fuzzy, green caterpillar hugs
Are the coziest hugs in the world!

I just got hugged by a fuzzy-wuzzy green caterpillar(aka Nathan;)

Even Now...

Even now while I miss

The sparkle of skylark-song

Tickling the ripple of rye-gold sea

Even now, outside my kitchen window

I delight in

The return of Red Poll and chick-a-Dee

Even now while I miss

Tangled bloom bouquets

Growing wild on the window-sill

Even now, every leaf

Lavishly garnishes

Hedge-row, hollow and hill

Even now, while I miss

The pool of morning-sun

Warming the waking earth

Even now, I am drawn to

The flicker of firelight

And family around home’s hearth

© Janet Martin

one more very personal stanza…

Even now, while I miss

My firstborn; her chatter

Spilling like a flower in full-bloom

Even now, I hear the laughter

Of her two younger sisters

Excited to each have their own bedroom

They quickly purged their room of the dresser which has been called many names (all unflattering). Suddenly my living-room is filled with over-flow;) Every mothering-instinct in me wants to go up and 'help', but they sound like they're having too much fun on their own so I'm making meat-loaf and scalloped potatoes for their supper...and as far as missing Emily goes. I have been at her house or she has been here or she has called every day since they're back:) I won't ask her, but I know she misses us a little...

Rainy Fall Rush-hour

   

Image Source

It is rush-hour

on a rainy afternoon,

the freeway

a hissing

silver-gray

serpent

bedazzled

with red

and gold

Travelers yearn for the bronze

of porch-light broach

gleaming on the lapel

of home

© Janet Martin

It seems the traffic is eager to be home tonight...I hear a continuous hissing as they rush by.

Ode on Autumn...a sonnet

Thou Harbinger of hearth and fireside

Who gifts thee with thy keen expenditure

Of scarlet prelude ere thy flame subsides

And falls; a sweeping, silent overture

And is thy kiss anointed thence with death

Or is it life that falls beneath the tree?

Thy seed returns to slumber in the earth

And man is powerless to set it free

Ah, who directs the geese that graze thy dome

Or bends thy orchard limb with gold and red?

Thou who rousest both dirge and passion’s poem

We touch thy face with eagerness and dread

And long to gather all our loved ones home

Whilst thou unleashest gardens overhead

Oh, strike the lute and raise thy banner high

Thou rebel-rouser with a lover’s kiss

Soon, soon the hour will force on us good-bye

And all that we can do is reminisce

So hold me nearer; let me feel thy tear

And taste the salt upon thy weathered cheek

Time does not cater to young love, my dear

Ah, listen to my thought; I cannot speak

But only feel the tremor on thy lips

Thou wanderer of dark and empty night

Philanderer of leaf; each moment drips

Until the hour is rife with farewell’s plight

Where you torment my mouth and fingertips

Thou troubadour of sorrow and delight

Thou Harbinger of both cradle and grave

Of flower stripped and hour weak with want

Even the boldest and the bravest brave

Cannot withstand a mighty minute’s taunt

And breath by breath, we sense and empathize

With thee; oh little laughter on the tree

The skin of things is such a thin disguise

Oh autumn; wilt thou linger tenderly

And spill thy honeyed candor on my day?

Then I will close my eyes; dance recklessly

Thy absence is too close for me to say

‘What is has been and what must be will be’

But I will revel in thy bluesy sway

For I can feel thy arms slipping from me

© Janet Martin

Ever-present Offering

Oh mournful morn, how dull the corn

Shivers on field and stricken hill

The hour that plucks high-noon then dusk

Has folded back to earth its thrill

The chill wind sobs from morn to night

While we absorb a season’s flight

The weathered trail of wood and dale

Flaunts autumn’s russet pirouette

Feet dash and race or slowly trace

The aftermath of summer-set

And all beneath the lowered sky

The muffled robes of autumn lie

We do not mourn, though Time has torn

Another chapter from its ream

A strange relief, half hope, half grief

Stirs wildly in our untried dream

For Time is not a garnered thing

But ever-present offering

© Janet Martin