Encore, Please

Your voice flows through me like the blue of your eyes
I’m caught in a trance, not unlike paradise
The timbre of passion and longing and hope
Drifts over hillside and valley and slope

Seduction in whispers of purple and gold
Emerald and scarlet pour from your hold
As I hear time's agony bleed from your voice
You want to stay with me, but you have no choice

Sweet are the sonnets played on the soft wind
Of sunshine and laughter when living is kind
But purer by far, the haunting melody
Born in the heartache of love’s misery

Over the pattern of wheat field and brush
An ocean of music falls into the hush
Trembling, I spread its yearning 'cross my brow
As hunger and dread spawn the breezes that blow

Tomorrow your music will be dormant and still
I will reach for you to retrieve your thrill
But you will be gone to return nevermore
As dead as the wave that reaches the shore

Today I will let your voice soothe and torment
Perfect communion of love and lament
I plead for an encore as you drift to the sky
And August extinguishes the song of July

Janet~

Carefully

Very carefully and gently
On those nights, heavy with dew
And the air of late summer
And thoughts of you…

Very carefully and tenderly
When I miss you so much
And there’s not enough of you
Left for me to touch…

Very thankfully and carefully
I unwrap with quiet pleasure
The one thing that you left me
To torment me and to treasure…

Very slowly and so carefully
Without any regret
I unwrap within each heartbeat
All your words I can’t forget…

J~

Photograph...

Once upon another day
I held you close, so close to me
And looked into your eyes of baby blue
Those days are long-gone,yes, I know
But sometimes I miss them so
Oh, it’s crazy what a photograph can do

I trace every line and curve
Oh, and you still touch a nerve
Like no one in this world will ever do
Once you held me center stage
Now I pause, and turn the page
Oh, it’s crazy what a photograph can do

Just a little photograph
But I can hear you talk and laugh
Though your paper lips don’t whisper, move or smile
Your skin is soft and warm
I can feel it ‘gainst my arm
Think I’ll just sit here and hold you for a while…

Once upon another day
You were not so far away
But I know now those things I never knew
Time is a silent thief
Love is perfect grief
Oh, it's crazy what a photograph can do…

J~

Silence

Silence is a house once filled with laughter
Silence is you... not next to me
Silence is the lifetime after
Living; because, you see
Silence is everywhere, darling
That we used to be

Silence is the middle of the kitchen
In the middle of a memory
When suddenly without warning
You're right in the middle of me
Silence is a summer morning
Where we used to be

Silence is an echo calling
Out of the clear, blue skies
Silence is the teardrop falling
Silence is a broken heart's cries
Silence is everywhere, darling
When love dies...

J~

See the Sun...

See the sun
And how it bleeds
Its passion ‘cross the sky
See the land
And how it heeds
The whispers from on high
See the night
And how the light
Must solemnly surrender
See the field
Its harvest yield
In autumn’s fervent splendor

See the girl
With pretty curl
Grow up to be a woman
See the lad
Become a dad
A wise and caring human
See the brow
All weathered now
By life and what it’s given
See us climb
The hills of time
One road leads to Heaven

See the seasons
How they fold
Into the other’s bearing
See the youth
Once brash and bold
Grow kind beneath life’s caring
See how years
Of love and tears
Turn knowledge into wisdom
See this life
Of joy and strife
Lead to another Kingdom

Janet~

Last night while I was out for my run
The thoughts of the brevity of seasons…
and life struck me profoundly!
Already the ditches are full of chirping crickets and August.
Then….I met a young family out together
For an evening walk…
Part of me smiled inside from ear to ear…
The other part of me wanted to sit in the middle of the road and CRY!!!
M-O-O-O-O-O-OM-M-M-M-Y-Y-Y-!!!!
No, even Mommy can’t stop time…
I wanted to tell the family to cherish these short, golden years…
They would smile politely of course, and say, yes…
Just like I used to.

Anything at All...

You could never
Disappoint me
Or hurt me
Or grieve me
You could not touch me
With mere spoken word
You could not
Thrill me
Or tease me
Or move me
And when you leave, dear
It would not hurt
You could not
Insult me
Or fulfill
Or affect me
By anything at all
That you could do
I would not remember
Or care or feel
Anything at all
If I did not love you

J~

Heaven...

In a perfect world
We would always say
The things that we should say…

In a perfect world
Loved ones would not hurt us
Or ever go away

In a perfect world
It would rain…
But just enough

And in a perfect world
We would never
Yearn for love

In a perfect world
I would know
What you are feeling

And in a perfect world
Words would never
Leave us reeling

In a perfect world
We would not need
To be forgiven

…but this world is not perfect
If it were…
…it would be Heaven

Janet~

Late July

The sky drips a sultry haze
Of dusty blues and purple-grays
The land succumbs to its caress
With pregnant field and willow-tress

The garden spills forth rampant bloom
A tangled, blissful living room
A haven to which I can flee
When little conflicts torment me

Hands touch the soil and pluck the weed
Fingers brush the fruited seed
Lips part wide to taste its fare
The wealth of earth, so pure and rare

I will not heed the scolding tune
To guilt me of one afternoon
Beneath the sweltering, sensuous sky
And the murmur of July

August hovers in the swell
Of tasseled corn and muffled knell
Where tumbled summer days collide
On a hazy, crazy ride

A blanket folds across the sky
To pull a lid over July
Shafts of dusk and muted day
Brush the swaths of fresh-mown hay

The silver trilling of the eve
Stirs my soul, willing to grieve
The dissonance of summer’s sigh
In the fading of July

Janet~