Sweet September Thoughts...and Shots

The air is sweet with dust and heat

The rod is golden-crowned

The ditch bewitched with bloom and twitch

On summer’s stomping ground

The creek is parched, heaven blue-starched

Above the flagging trees

And all among the flower-throng  

We hear the drone of bees

The distant ridge is like a bridge

That leads to Never-land

Its trees are blue, the hills are too

Upon its foreign strand

The mist that drapes hazy landscapes

Is kissed with amethyst

The sluggish stream bids us to dream

Before its gleam untwists

The paradise of summer lies

In scattered disrepair

The tattered frond, the tired pond

The garden stripped of fare

Earth is a hall of almost fall

A sweep of sleepy sighs

Where wall to wall its bean fields sprawl

Like golden butterflies

© Janet Martin

When I Look Back

I’d like to live from day to day

And spend its gift in such a way

So that when I look back I’ll say

I had the life I wanted

I’d like to be aware of this;

That Time for all its kick and kiss

Does not veer from the Now that Is

And oft I take for granted

I’d like to see when I look back

Not fantasies these hours lack

But joy on joy on joy; a stack

Reaching to Heaven’s border

Thus I would like the eyes to see

That which is right in front of me

To make it all that it can be

Of tick-tock’s law and order

I’d like think when I am old

And I look back on moment-gold

That I had more than I could hold

Of common taking-giving

Then when I lay me down to rest

And I have filled time’s last request

I’d like to think I did my best

And life was worth the living

© Janet Martin

Good Night...

   

(I had to think of the Waltons tonight as 'goodnights' were exchanged:)

Night always overtakes the day and turns the page of time

It tucks the darkness like a blanket over croft and clime

It softens its appointments, snuffs toil’s menial siren cry

As arms become a cradle and wind-song a lullaby

‘Goodnight, sleep tight, I love you’, and ‘I love you too, my dear’

Then one by one the windows that were yellow disappear

And all is still and silent save the cricket-choir’s tune

As minstrels of September serenade the stars and moon

Night brushes from the calendar another day that was

It dips the sky in diamonds, frees the hour of its cause

And washes in around us like a black and velvet sea

Night overtakes the day and renders it to history

© Janet Martin

Days...

They slip above, beneath and through each barb or fence and wall

No barrier can force or inhibit their rise and fall

Darling, the way of days in all their glory-riddled dust

Is more than pen can splay in phrase or poet’s wanderlust

The fortune of time’s free-fall is not something we can hold

Or hoard in holes and pockets like a heap of miser’s gold

But oft it stirs in whispers, in the twinkle of a grin

Or spills like shadows sprawled on hills of harvest gathered in

The aftermath of hazy days and daisy haze is sweet

Rewarding thought with pictures that grow dearer in defeat

For Time is always Victor in the race from here to there

Days slip above, beneath and through the blue of season-fare   

Because we are unable to impose upon its ways

We ought to travel kindly on Time’s avenue of Days

For who can tell how near or far before the curtain falls

And we hear the Director says, ‘I’m sorry, folks, that’s all’

© Janet Martin

The dad I babysit for lost his Dad today. He was 65.

In his last days (years?) he suffered from Alzheimer’s and ALS.

Always, death makes us re-evaluate how we are spending our Days…

…and where we will be after they are spent.

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  2 Pet.3:8-9

Moment-quest

Not only in the morning Lord, or when I lay me down to rest

Or at a table bent with food, or when your ‘yes’ pleases my quest

Not only when my cup is full of music and the gifts of earth

Or limbs are full of strength and mouths are full of laughter’s mirth

Not only in the harvest Lord, or in the summertime of strife

Or at a pew with pious prayer or at the suppertime of life

But every day in every way no matter how You deem to bless

Lord, let my every moment be an offering of Thankfulness

© Janet Martin