The plush sigh of June and July has thinned
To brittle postludes strummed by wilder wind
Autumnal braille stipples earth’s subdued yard
The hollow vale is like a farewell card
Where landscapes bear an air, not of defeat
But dusky, like the lull of busy streets
Day fawns over fragments of golden dross
They fill the chilly rills with nature’s loss
And where the prose of bare feet rose and fell
The land adapts to November’s blue knell
The big bell in the sky lowers, we know
It waits to spill star-flowers made of snow
***
A heart can ache and feel quite broken, yes,
Love’s token is a fragile happiness
November-loneliness-like, yet quite glad
For all the spring-summer-autumn we had
As deft, rough wind-song strips the clapping tree
Soon what is left is only what we see
Before our eyes or in fields of the mind
The yield of lofty dreams soft-strewn behind
And we find out, without a doubt, the touch
That once we dreaded, does not hurt so much
If we, like nature wear it well and true
Yet, surrender to life’s November too
***
The bonny ways of April days must wait
Tomorrow is a silver-soldered gate
The plate Time sets before us overflows
With blessing that This Present Day bestows
(Though, I confess, sometimes I overlook
Its portion; distracted by what Time took)
It’s up to us to use what daybreak frees
And make the best of almost-memories
November is a blip on frost-dipped strings
...of feeling far more slowly, fleeting things
Where plush sighs of June and July have thinned
To stilted serenades caught on the wind
© Janet Martin
This poem began partly while
watching another 'ordinary day' begin,
Pink-dawn seeping through deep, deep blue ...
where work waits...
and winter too.
...and partly after reading this poem and laughing with pure joy
