Like Fields of Grass

The morning wept
As fingers swept
Summer from the sky
A moody knell
In torrents fell
As if to quite defy
The hope which waits
Beyond far gates
Through which fair summer slips
Melancholy,
In minor key
Bleeds from dark somber lips
The ache of you
Is wild and blue
So close, then far away
A bitter tide
To coincide
With summer’s parting day
The silence of
Requited love
Sleeps in earth’s darkened fist
A tiny seed
Of hope and need
Still waiting to be kissed
Time’s quadrille turns
The heart still yearns
For dreams vague, undefined
As seasons pass
Like fields of grass
‘Neath heaven’s changeless mind



J~

Victoria looked out at the rain, remarking that the day looks sad…

A Tiny Breeze...

A tiny breeze upon the air
Tugged my hand and teased my hair
Then drew my eager feet along
A trail of multi-layered song
Of corn-field carol and cricket trill
And maple moans in wooded rill
Past gathered gardens’ tangled maze
And echoes of a dreamer’s gaze
Of autumn creeping o’er a field
Where summer bounty spilled its yield
In centuries beneath the sun
A gasp, a wink and it is done
While new dreams plant the trampled sod
Beneath the faithful hand of God
And reverently I kneel upon
The footstool of love’s changeless One
For He ordains in perfect time
Each season’s rhythm and its rhyme
Of painted sky and purple hill
The plaintive cry of whip-poor-will
The tender limb of verdant grace
Before time leaves its tender trace
In kisses wrought by sun and rain
Of joy and laughter, grief and pain
For life cannot remain for aye
In meadows where soft breezes play
…a tiny breeze upon the air
Tugs my hand; teases my hair…

Janet Martin

Parting of Ways

You lay your arm across my shoulder

We are feeling much the same

For we know we’re getting older

And in this there is no shame

As a hint of lambent shadow

Steals across the summer noon

E’en the flower in the meadow

Must relinquish her perfume

You and I are kindred spirits

So, my love, we will not weep

Bravely we resolve to bear it

This last lap before we sleep

No one can escape dictation

Wrought by time’s unbending rule

Youth, ah, grand sprint of elation

Leading to life’s higher school

I lay my head upon the hour

Where I see that we must part

For I do not have the power

To deter love’s finer art

Parting, truly is sweet sorrow

We have loved, but not in vain

Ah my love, in some tomorrow

I know we will meet again

Janet Martin

Dedicated to the Summer of 2011

They were saying on the radio that this is the last day of summer,

so I took a picture of one last summer morning sun-rise...I just checked the calendar!

We get one more!!! Lord willing:)

Chill of an Early Fall

If you had been here last night, my love
A blanket of stars
Would have been enough
To bar the chill of autumn
From our skin
As summer’s night
Begins to thin
Beneath the cricket’s dying lay
For there is no need to say
A word, when wrapped in dark blue song
Of willow, wind and summer gone
...but you are not here, my dear
As languid thoughts of you
Spread across my pillow
Like the midnight dew

J~

I know I broke every law of rhyme here
but one cannot control
the mind of a poem...

They Say...

They tell me that I should not choose
This word in poetry
It’s over-done and over-used…
…but it’s a part of me…

…in victory or in defeat
In sorrow or in love
It is the fruit of bitter-sweetest
Stirrings from above

‘They’ say that we must find new ways
In which to verbalize
Love’s ultimate expression
Flowing from our eyes

Oh, I dare not use the word
For it’s been used to much
But what else proves that we’ve been stirred
And utter-mostly touched

The wise, the fool, the old or young
Without a purposed choice
Share this universal tongue
Of passion’s purest voice

Words are only things we say
Syllables we hear
I’ve felt the earth beneath me sway
In the silence of… a tear

To me, above all other words
I have yet to hear
One spoken more profoundly
Than the utterance of a tear

Janet Martin

This is merely my response to experts who say they do not want to hear the word ‘tear’
in a poem for at least a hundred years…but if I read stunning poetry…well, it moves me to…TEARS!!!
Here’s to tears and tears and more tears! Cheers!

...is there not poetry bleeding profusely from every single photo above?

They Say...

They tell me that I should not choose
This word in poetry
It’s over-done and over-used…
…but it’s a part of me…

…in victory or in defeat
In sorrow or in love
It is the fruit of bitter-sweetest
Stirrings from above

‘They’ say that we must find new ways
In which to verbalize
Love’s ultimate expression
Flowing from our eyes

Oh, I dare not use the word
For it’s been used to much
But what else proves that we’ve been stirred
And utter-mostly touched

To me, above all other words
I have yet to hear
One spoken more profoundly
Than the utterance of a tear

Janet Martin

This is merely my response to experts who say they do not want to hear the word ‘tear’
in a poem for at least a hundred years…but if I read stunning poetry…well, it moves me to…TEARS!!!
Here’s to tears and tears and more tears! Cheers!

Sonnets of the Season

Softly you laugh,and vex me with your kiss
Crumbling my quest to resent your bold fire
As I relent to whispers of desire
Stirred by the hints of heaven-tinted bliss
Riding upon the cool wind’s ruddiness
You strut across my firmly planted ire
And never even pause to once inquire
If I should seek a lover such as this
You overthrow my summer-heart’s intent
To disdain your winning works of art
Why is it now, that I cannot resent
The lavishness your fingertips impart?
As you prey on my sighs of discontent
And thus seduce my true-blue summer heart

***

Methinks the earth reserves its utter-best
To soothe the summer-heart’s acquiescent sigh
For bluer still is autumn’s azure dye
Than summer’s ever-pleasing sapphire crest
Fulfilling expectation’s blind request
Before the moodiness of lowered sky
Steals the stoic gaze of grief's devoted eye
Rendering her quite speechless and impressed
As gently she relinquishes her will
Advancing slowly ‘cross a rustling floor
Caressed with weightless teardrops as they spill
From walnut, maple, birch and countless more
Strange comfort bleeds from autumn’s purple chill
Painting its sorrow on earth’s umber shore

***

No longer do I seek to quell its glance
Long, heavy lashes spark the two-toned breeze
Rousing the laughter of the scarlet trees
And suddenly this summer-heart must dance
Kiss sorrow from the lips of circumstance
Heaven designs rare moments such as these
Of musty grapes and lumb’ring honey-bees
Mesmerizing grievance in its trance
Fall’s sonnet trickles from the russet vine
Pure tendrils of a reminiscent croon
As love and loss and longing intertwine
The scent of dusk scatters the afternoon
How full the draught of summer’s darker wine
Earth’s pining slumbers ‘neath the harvest moon

Janet Martin

At our local thrift store I picked up a book entitled
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese and other Poems

I was intrigued by this rhyming pattern…a-bb-aa-bb-a-c-d-c-d-cd



I. The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet:

The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter (basic information on iambic pentameter), although there have been a few tetrameter and even hexameter sonnets, as well.

The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:

a b b a a b b a

The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c

from Basic Sonnet Forms- by Nelson Miller

The Essence of Life

Wring out each moment in your grip
Experience every drop of it
Savor its nectar on your tongue
It tarries not, for old or young
But pauses for a breath or two
Before it drifts into the blue

Relish its kiss upon your face
A soft caress from Hands of grace
Oh, do not blindly stumble past
The moment that is fading fast
For whether wrought by joy or strife
It is the essence of a life

Wee drops combine to shape the sea
Moments design eternity
Then handle well this gem you hold
And squander not this drop of gold
For it will not revert its glance
To offer us a second dance

How wise the sojourner of earth
Who values every moment’s worth
Instead of gazing longingly
At what once was or yet will be
But knows that living must begin
In whispered moments we are in

Janet Martin

This morning the alarm clock drew me from one of those rare dreams
that I really did not want to wake from...
but as it was fading these words remained 'wring out each moment fully
and savor its nectar on your tongue'...
WELL!!! When waking with words like this as my first comprehension of day
I simply could not let the thought go to waste!

Elusive River

Far away it seems to me
An ocean must exist
Of moments floating to a sea
In rivers full of mist
And if I should by some strange lead
Find its elusive thread
Then I could watch moments recede
As Time flows on ahead

And in this gathering place of sighs
And smiles and hugs and tears
We would never say good-bye
Nor count the days and years
Until at last we meet again
For moments would not slip
Like whispers on an autumn wind
From longing fingertips

If I, by some strange twist of rhyme
Found its reclusive track
Would I first rush ahead of time
Before I could turn back?
For what of all those moments lost
In heartbeats caught between?
Do moments slip into the past
Or shape the unforeseen?

Far away it seems to me
An ocean must exist
Of moments drifting to a sea
On endless shores of mist
But time is a mysterious tide
Relentlessly it goes
I simply cannot quite decide
Which way its river flows

Janet Martin