Oh, Days of August

Oh, days of August, sun-sweet summer days

Of mist-haze mantled morn, noon’s sultry sigh

A paradise of cricket-serenade

And pools of shade where barefoot dreamers lie

The aspirations of the heart are torn

Twixt holding close or bravely letting go

Reverie and renewal spar, forlorn

Because of what the head has come to know

…that August days settle like dust and haze

In echoes where yester-year’s summers waft

And all along the shoreline of Thought’s gaze

Its rolling, tolling waves crash whisper-soft

This chariot of fire soon relents

It sweeps across the eventide of years

Lavishing hills and trees with testaments

Siphoned from the well of Nature’s tears

Oh, days of August, sun-sweet golden ride

A sea upon which summer-drifters sail

Surely Mercy’s Goodness captures its tide

To blaze upon the hearth in winter’s gale

© Janet Martin

P-s-s-s-t, 

Don't look too far behind you 

or too far out to sea

But live-laugh-love right where you are

In the middle of what will be

For August waits for no one

A kiss of flower tears

A swish of golden-purple skirts

and then she disappears

  

This Testing Place

This place that we pass through

Is fleeting as the day

This place where Truth and lies compete

This place of come-what-may

This place of birth-to-death-to-God

Of love and hatred’s grief

Of fecklessness where fool’s applaud

A hopeless unbelief

This place where so few seem to seek

Treasures, apart from Self

This place where every word we speak

Is written Somewhere Else

This place of grace, of slip and fall

Of get-up-try-again

This place where anyone can call

To God who understands

This place of dirt, hurt, toil and groan

Is grave as grave can be

For it is but a steppingstone

Into Eternity

© Janet Martin

 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Isa.53:5

August Morning Rain

The rain draws circles on the lane

And mirrors in each dip

And on the south-faced window-pane

A hundred rivers slip

The rain pools in each petal-cup

It cools the limpid leaf

And kisses every face turned up

To savor its relief

Its runnels snake through sun-baked clay

And sings with splashing mirth

A precious heaven-rendered lay

To quench the thirst of earth

The rain threads beads of liquid glass

Like a rare string of pearls

And all along the garden path

Flowers giggle like girls

© Janet Martin

Thunder mumbles in the distance, the cracking apart of elements we had earlier has passed, the driving sheets of rain easing to a comforting song that says s-h-h-h-h beneath traffic and kisses thirsty gardens.

We’ve been elbow-deep into beans among other things but they will have to wait until the rain tapers off to be picked.

So Comes the Night

Soft-rolling like a sea

Across a lea of gold

Dusk snuffs the hillside

And its tree

Into blue fold

The color-world of day

Grows dim then disappears

Upon a stage

Of charcoal gray

The cricket cheers

The pretty afternoon

Dons dewy-kissed twilight

An angel pins

The sky with moon

So comes the night

© Janet Martin