Bare-foot in the Garden...

When the leaves fall

They take with them another summer

Cast

While we stoke echoes and recall

Fragments of pictures

Past

Time is green now

Kissed by sun and strummed by summer’s

Breeze

Then we almost forget how

Soon its whisper strips the

Trees

The undertow that seals the ebb

And flow of flower-

Tides

Scatters petals, pink, yellow, red

Like when we were a

Child

Then almost we forget the number

Of summers

Estranged

And for the briefest glance it seems

Like nothing much has

Changed

© Janet Martin

When I am bare foot in the garden it is easy to forget the years

that spread twixt childhood and Now:)

Poetic Bloomings Prompt:

Tell us about a summer moment when you embraced your youth in a good way. 

“Every summer, like the roses, childhood returns.”
~Marty Rubin

Of Time Flies and Skies

I missed the Poetic Bloomings prompts on the week-end due to busy Summer-ness

Saturdays prompt was Summer Clouds

We had a spectacular cloud show on Friday evening!

The air had an ominous feel beneath colors somewhat surreal...

But all we got was wind with a bit of rain. Still very dry here.

Time flies, we say and bend that old cliché into a sigh

The paradise of yesterday is like a summer sky

So far away; yet close enough to steal our restless gaze

With gold and gray as hold and letting go numbers our days

Darling, our dreams are lofty like a fleet of clouds and stars

Trial and error teems and often melds triumph with scars

Present-day pain and pleasure fray; tomorrow bides its time

Like clouds above a summer day, always too far to climb

Time holds out trays laden with Days; its age-old ways compete

What we should do with what we do; each off’ring bitter-sweet

They waft up to the clouds that sail so soft on summer blue

To regale us with echoes on some yonder avenue

© Janet Martin

Thank-you Cyndy, for reminding me how time flies and reviving an oldie on your blog today!
I like the word 'Garnet'!

Language of *Summer-ies (*some summer memories:)

Today's Poetic Bloomings prompt: Language of summer

Use at least four of these ten phrases in a poem...

Here are your ten:

"dog days of summer..."                    

"children running through a water sprinkler..."

"enjoy a chilled glass of___________"                    

"catch a wave..."

"kissed by the sun..."                                                        

"listen to the waves at the seashore..."

"I wish we never have to leave the beach..."                                                      

"summer nights under the stars..."

"lazy (or hazy, crazy) days of summer..."                            

"crank up theA/C (air conditioning)..."

A Summer Evening Thunderstorm 

These photos were taken the other night.
The 'photos' in this poem taken many summers ago.

With Mother’s ‘you may go out in bare feet’

Summer's soft advent was complete

Farm-life heaven with its

Hard working ways

Made a little girl wonder

Who came up with the phrase

‘Those lazy summer days’

We never did  

'listen to waves at the seashore'

Only story-book families went to the beach

We preserved summer in jars galore

Of plum, pear, apple, tomato and peach

But we did spend  

summer nights under the stars

Waking damp and dew-kissed by the sunrise

To a new days chores

While pine trees whispered

And willow-winds sighed

And maple-manes flaunted

The symbol of Canadian pride

Slap of screen-door,

Kool-Aid moustache

Children running through the water sprinkler

Catch-a-rainbow

Splish-splash

Enjoy a chilled glass of 

Iced mint-leaf tea

The air flushed with 

Threshing dust,

And wanderlust

As I catch a wave, 

Salt-engraved

With summer-memory

© Janet Martin

Life on a farm for a child was a healthy intermingling of work and play...play all the sweeter after the 'first-comes-work'!

Those Summer Years of Youth

 Today’s Poetic Bloomings prompt? Write a “That Summer in ________” poem about a place that brings a fond (or otherwise) memory from summers past.

 I like prompts that crack open rusty, dusty vaults!
(for those who wonder...left to right: Carolyn, Marlene, Lewis, Gerald, Calvin, Lucy and Lisa(neighbor-'sister')

Leaf Mountain from Autumn years of youth

Our family was sort of divided into sections... 'the four oldest'(born in under four years:) 

then 'the three little girls and 'the three little boys'. This photo is 'the three little girls and the three little boys' plus a neighbour who was sort of an 'adopted sister' during those summer years of youth, because she was the youngest in a large family...

We thought Time was bondage

Those summer years of youth

It wasn’t until they were gone

We realized the truth

…those miles of corn we hoed

Those whiles we whiled away

Beneath the sprawling canopy

Of maple-willow sway

That swing in the hay-loft

Strung from the highest truss

Daring timid riders to brave

Its burlap Pegasus

…those childish tears we shed

Those chores that seemed so dull

Those chatter-jolly supper-times

When every plate was full

The monotone of clocks

The drone of heat-waved haze

Where boredom conceived building-blocks

And Mom, another babe

Those years before the years

That drew us from home’s doors

And we left without looking back

Oblivious to shores

Those brother-sister days

Of farm-life laugh-love-learn

They slipped through us, one-way freeways

To ports of no-return

We thought it was bondage

Those years before we flew

Away from the safe haven of

The only life we knew

© Janet Martin

I use the word 'bondage' lightly...the bonds of a loving childhood and a child full of dreams:)

Those were the years when we always had a baby in the family or had one on the way. 

Even after ten of us I remember we begged mom to 'please have some twins to round our numbers off to a nice dozen!' 

(as if mom was in charge of these thing:)

Plus, our wild imaginations envisioned a cheaper-by-the-dozen bookish romance of family.

Little did we realize the sacrifices our parents made on our behalf!

Sometimes, as I shake my head over how little youth realizes what it has…then I'm reminded of what once I didn't know!

Tomorrow we have a family reunion. 

Dad, Mom all ten of us 'children', 

our children and a few children's children...

I was going to post a 'guess which is me' pic.
The girls and I laughed as I posted it because, well...
That lunch pail lasted until well through elementary school!(I think I got new one in Gr. 7)  Mom drew then cut mac-tac letters for my name.
I don't have many 'me' pics...those must be home in mom's albums.
This is the 5 oldest Martin kids ready for school...
Cheryl Gr. 6, David Gr. 5, Janet Gr. 4, Stuart Gr. 3, Lucille Gr. 1.

Thursday Thoughts on Life's Pain, Rain and What-nots...

Do not begrudge the hour, love

That tests us with its pain

Methinks oft-times the best of songs

Are written in life’s rain

***

We cannot be the same again

When Death its sting imparts

For sorrow has no talisman

To heal our heart of hearts

Though time may render what it will

Death leaves a sacred hole

That no one else can ever fill

And tears alone console

(That’s the way it was last night as tears mingled in sympathy for parents who are laying to rest son # two. The first one died in a car-crash due to a heart-attack fourteen years ago, the second died instantly in the middle of a conversation, from an aneurysm)One son/brother remains.

***

Do not blame God for this world’s hurt

The consequence of sin

We are the ones who mar this dirt

And scar its perfection

Do not blame God,

Again, again, He fills the morning sky

His wellspring of mercy and love

Still, still has not run dry

Do not blame God for the payoff

Of mankind’s selfishness

Instead, fall on your knees, my love

And all thy sins confess

Do not blame God, humanity

Is Need, long as he lives

Yet need grants opportunity

To seek the Hand that gives

Do not blame God; for it is He

Who holds our Hope in place

And offers for each mortal plea

His kind, unfailing grace

***

We are modern-day pioneers

Time tenders to this broken sod

Unbrokenness of a new day

In mercy-autographs from God

***

We pass this way but once

And then, when this way ends

We come to understand the Why

Of all that His way sends

We pass this way but once

Not to, but through the grave

Pity the one, then ignorant

Of God, mighty to save

We pass this way but once

Oh pray, while grace remains

That we prepare for the Beyond

That only soul attains

© Janet Martin

 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion
and the God of all comfort,
 who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.…
2 Cor.1:3-4