October in Ontario

October in Ontario offers photo ops at every turn!

(click on collages to enlarge)

October shimmers

And glimmers and laughs

Scattering love-poems

On worn garden paths

October whooshes

And swooshes and grieves

Winnowing Nature’s

Umbrella of leaves

October dances

And prances, its looms

Weave ballerinas

In rainbow ball-rooms

October shivers

A quiver of frost

Glazes the flowers   

Of sweet summer-lost

October dashes

And splashes and wails

Running its rain-song

Through rose-colored sails

October quiets

A riot of bloom

Leaving a bouquet

Of leaves on earth’s tomb

© Janet Martin

Autumn Aria

 The land is laced in silver mist

And traced with russet scrim

The blue winds vex with brooding hex

That culls the laden limb

The brittle corn stands stiff, forlorn

Its fledgling verdure drained

June’s virgin sheen of knee-deep green

Is bronze and crimson-stained

The goldenrod is weaned of laud

The milkweed pod of silk

The pumpkin lords over all gourds

His jack-o-lantern ilk

Beneath high noon of azure swoon

The molten woodlands blaze

Before day’s husk drifts on swift dusk

And snuffs it from our gaze

Those garden-hikes are ghost-town-like

Through hollow orchards too

Stilled fallow lies beneath chilled skies

In slumber’s umber hue

Soft vesper cries its lullabies

Where nature’s naked tress

Turns whispers to a haunting tune

Of loss and loneliness

The land is kissed then lost in mist

Rain-song raids autumn scrim

The blue winds vex with moody hex

The singer of its hymn

© Janet Martin

Is there any month
quite like October
that tugs the lover of it
with such warring tides
of joy and grief?

Morning Prayer

Lord, help me do the best I can

Each task you ask of me

Nor let me pine for things not mine,

Help me live thankfully

So when this little day is done

In spun eons to drift

I will not mourn these moments shorn

From morning’s newborn gift

Lord, grant me faith-hope-love, ah, love

Your peace within my soul

And remind me, whate’er may be

That You are in control

Make my thought more of others, Lord

So together we bear

The burdens of life’s laugh-weep-love

Secure within Your care

© Janet Martin

Dear Autumn, Be Gentle With Mothers

Others cannot see the colors

Where years have seared priceless art

Nor do they know of the autumn

Of a middle-aged mother’s heart

Beneath her skin seasons linger

Where children slipped from Her care

Caught between summer and winter

She learns new reasons for prayer

These are no common arrangements

Scattered like leaves on lost yards

Meekly she bears the estrangements

That comes with changing of Guards

Longing is a two-edged saber

Gratefulness cushions its thrust

Without it middle-aged mothers

Would not have wherewithal to trust

Dear autumn, be gentle with mothers

She senses a chill in your stare

Help her to shoulder the colors

Leading to snow-silvered hair

© Janet Martin