On Summer's Lease

We try to find peace in the lease of it

Carpe diem, its flower-hour weeps

As dust claims what it must, August’s rubric

Satisfies hungry eyes with sanguine sweeps

Where summer seeps, sun-steeped into Past’s swoon

Midst serenade of shade and cricket-tune

We try to pacify our sigh with blooms

Earth’s living-room of roses overflows

Her landscape glows; the Bride of patient plumes

Where closing dates approach and nature knows

That it is futile to resist the Hand

That draws Her door ajar then shut again

We try to appease our unwilling will

For *summer’s lease hath all too short a date

A ruddy hint teases Her hazy hill

With Imminence and fences with no gate

As little girl-worlds fall prey to silk streams

For who can dam the day that drinks her dreams?

© Janet Martin

*Summer's lease hath all too short a date~ William Shakespeare

Enough...

If for no call but this

In all we say and do

Though it may dwarf in the abyss

Of the greater world-view

If for no other praise

With names anonymous

We, with firm diligence and faith

Press on without a fuss

If, with humility

We trek time’s speck of sod

Oh, it will be enough if we

Do it to honor God

© Janet Martin

From the Ink of Hours...

Each season has its place

The changing face of Time

Evokes within the soul a rhyme

No pen can seem to trace

The Is becomes the Was

Yet ever Is exists

The tint of Time climbs, chimes and twists

A thread of seamless gauze

How fleet time’s fingers flit

Across a sky that spills

The ink of morn-noon-night to quills

Stunned by the Small of it

Seasons tattoo hurrah

Across and through our skin

Its ordinances vex and grin

And fluster man’s aha

…where a most common strife

Of do and say and pray

Composes in its Everyday

The story of a life

© Janet Martin

How effortlessly another summer fills the past!

Let's enjoy August to the max as we write its

unalterable story...

Yesterday we made applesauce and my daughter smiled as the sweet-tart aroma filled the air with what she called The Smell of August

I'd love to post photos of the little guys I babysit lined up for their turn to 'help' 

as we pressed apples through the colander

BUT!!!

ongoing internet issues;(

August Gold-rush

Cold is the gold in coffers

Of miser, merchant-throng

But gold that nature offers

Fills pauper-bards with song

The gold of sun-flow’r beaming

Of black-eyed Susan’s hair

Of wheat-field oceans gleaming

With farmer’s answered prayer

Of sun-sparkle on water

Of morning waking up 

Of summer’s yellow laughter

Caught in a butter-cup

The gold of early autumn

Soft teases walnut-tress

And scatters to the garden

Gold tatters from her dress

The orchard tree is lowered

Gold-bent with fruit of bloom

Where pear and apple-lovers

Wander from room to room

The glint of noon through arbors

Of maple-canopy

The hint of Soon September

The moon on midnight’s sea

The doorway to dusk meadow

The dust of August heat

Dripping with peach-sweet nectar

And dash of sun-kissed feet

The vault that spills with treasure

Of sky and sea and sod

No human hand can garner

For these belong to God

…ah, cold is the gold in coffers

Of miser, merchant, king

But gold that nature offers

Makes bards and paupers sing

© Janet Martin