Thought's While Lying Beneath Summer's Tree

Too soon your fronds of gold will drift

To far-flung hinterlands

No dirge responds; tides rotate, shift

And strip your out-stretched hands

Sad, farewell words my mouth would form

Are solvent in the air

As July’s fingers, bronze, sun-warm

Seduce my idle tear

The passion of my former thought

Grows pensive now, and still

As parched strands of for-get-me-not

Adorn our favorite hill

Where long we lay beneath the spell

Of heaven-tenured June

The carpet leading to farewell

…a honey-suckle swoon

Beyond the sweep of azure deep

Unfathomed eons ‘mass

Ah, this must be where heaven keeps

Life’s moments as they pass

The bud that forged through wood-clenched limb

With verdant tendril-breath

Will soon adorn the somber scrim

Of life’s four-season hearth

The shadow lengthens on the field

Where harvest hangs its fruit

There is no detour; all must yield

To Nature’s absolute

And soon these fronds of gold will drip

Into that vaulted sphere

I feel the brush of July’s lip

Caress my errant tear

© Janet Martin

Heart-dance

I always liked the way you fit into that special part

of me; curved just for you somewhere deep inside my heart

I never need to wonder if you’re there because I know

I can feel you trembling where love’s tender moments glow

I like the way you never leave, although the past expands

Never us; our symmetry is not the touch of hands

but a dance; as two are one in pure and perfect art

Of un-penned compositions in the dances of the heart

© Janet Martin~

Here in the Little Now

We under-estimate it somehow

For it seems nondescript; alone

But all we have is 'the little now'

In which to get anything done

The filament of centuries

Is not woven by the flow

Of quantum leaps; but history

Is the abyss of ‘little nows’

Here in 'the little now' we shape

A monumental cast

An unalterable landscape

We simply call the past

© Janet Martin

 If you are still talking about what you did yesterday, you haven't done much today. 

 ~Author Unknown

 With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.  

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Watching the Rain

It settles more than dust as we watch it fall

It soothes farmer's thoughts  for a little while

It stills anxious hearts in its tumbled descent

Soothing the restless gardener’s lament

…as it spills over eaves

Rolls from cupped leaves

Trickles and tickles sparse drought-stricken sheaves

See how it pools in each hollow and shallow

See how it cools eager sparrow and swallow

Mystical mirrors scattered on the terrain

Of sidewalk and pasture and long country lane

…as it splatters and spills

As it chatters and thrills

Earth’s stricken meadows; its woodland and hills

Life-giving free-fall from mercy’s embrace

Silver-stringed sonnet of goodness and grace

Nectar of heaven, as God wills and when

Filling parched throats of both fallow and men

…as it waters the corn

And washes the morn

Hope's wilted bloom is revived or reborn

© Janet Martin

This was inspired as I watched two birds refresh themselves in a puddle on the driveway.

It is still extremely dry but we are getting sudden brief showers and we are thankful for them.

Empty and Cold

Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Betrayed!

Tonight you are a cantankerous rapscallion

Elusively haunting the fringe of my thought

You seem to delight in playing the villain

Antagonizing me by your formless naught

Last night a soul-mate, tonight you betray me

Vexing, perplexing aloofness of thine

Come darling, come and lay down against me

Feed me the choicest delights from your vine

I must learn not to trust you; but I am your victim

Ever returning to gobble your crumbs

Always forgiving your mindless betrayal

I’ll drink the wine from your vine till I’m numb

Muse, oh Muse,  crass tormentor of poets

What is this lure, this endowment you hold?

Last night we danced, making beautiful poems

Tonight the dance-floor is empty and cold

© Janet Martin

Only the Temporal Betrays...

Poetic Bloomings  Prompt; betrayal

We may be betrayed by our strongest desires

Our wants may lure us to hellish heartaches

So-called friends may gather like vultures

To feast on the carcass of our mistakes

Oh, tis a wretched and raw, ruthless scalpel

As we moan ‘neath the knife of bitter betrayal

We may be betrayed by the words we have spoken

Or by the vows of a trusted friend

I’ve stood at both points of a promise broken

There is no honor at either end

Betrayal is galling spittle in our face

But oh, we are never betrayed by grace

We are not creatures of casual coincidence

Though faith-leaps may mock us from ash-heaps of trust

We are not bound by cold, calloused consequence

Pain, horror, grief are the torments of dust

Oh, blessed truth we reach to embrace

For we will never be betrayed by grace

By grace we are saved; betrayal’s damnation

Can never reach into the arms of the One

Who gave His Only for our salvation

His One and Only belov-ed Son

Betrayal tests faith as it points to a place

Where we grasp the assurance of His steadfast grace

© Janet Martin

My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by the Colorado shootings (which hopefully is all of us on some level)…as they struggle to cope with the shock of massive betrayal.

Universal Want

Some say they simply cannot tell

The words to spell their wants

From voids within they claw the air

While desperate yearning taunts

And while they scan the mindless sea

Or search the stars above

The hunger in their bosom weeps

For this; we all want love

A hand to hold at eventide

Whilst sunset splendor bleeds

A soul-mate in which to confide

Our tender ‘wants, and needs

There is no man too rich or poor

Or unworthy enough

To be fulfilled without its pow’r

…oh, we all need love

The new-born babe, the little child

The adolescent; youth

Young woman, man, we all desire

The essence of this truth

In middle age or silver-crowned

To ‘be’ is not enough

We are not soulless reeds windblown

Therefore, we all need love

Oh love, essential mystery

Its well-spring not of men

Intangible, this entity

A spurring to the end

Of gold and blood-stained filament

Creator-breathed to us

An innate ‘want’ with which we’re born

Oh, we all need love

© Janet Martin

But For This...

 Image Source: kirtastrophesblahg.blogspot.com

The rushing, pushing moments

Roaring, pouring soundlessly

Plunging over a precipice

Toward eternity

If I should find the fulcrum

Balance on Time’s middle swell

To view the sea from Eden forth

That lies twixt Heav’n and hell

…ah, surely I would tremble

To see these fathoms vast

And know tis but a vapor

In the future of the past

Yes, I know I would tremble

To behold Time’s sweeping space

To realize the microscopic

Breadth of human race

But then, oh blessed assurance

Wondrous hope that I embrace

We all would be eternally

Doomed; but for saving grace

© Janet Martin