Snared sea-song spills to green-sheen hills where reaching
corn-rows blow
And chamomile gilds ditches like drained vials of early snow
Queen Ann’s Lace graces fence-lines, streams in lavish white-frothed
swoon
That rushes through lush underbrush and hush of summer-noon
The doorway to For-nevermore is ethereal, yet rife
With flower-gardens; metaphors of ‘what is a man’s life?’
The wind lolls, low and slowly in a languid serenade
Across wheat fields a-ripple like a golden-stippled lake
Those days that long we longed for are unchained; we are
half-scared
To run too fast or walk too slow on this that none have
snared
Of lupine-lay and fresh-mown hay and clover-mead; bare feet
Skimming the sluggish creek that loiters 'mongst pale meadow-sweet
The clock opens the locks that kept a world of dreams on hold
Anticipation yields its fruit in zinnia, marigold
And lest we miss the best that life and summer have to give
We vow to find a slower, sweeter, kinder way to live
© Janet Martin