A Blip of Blue and Gold...

('Mom calls these sparkles five o' clock diamonds' I heard Victoria explain to Emily yesterday as they looked through our vacation photos)

July always seems like a blip of blue and gold...

These daily deaths, shrouded in season-song

Clothes our imagination first and then a sigh

Ever the imminence of time’s good-bye

Trembles. We hear it where the cricket-throng

Heralds the gloaming; creek-beds flow with bloom

Of chicory, chamomile, Queen Ann’s lace

Our walk-ways to farewell wend where fern plume

And wisteria frames fortune’s resting place

But we are on the path, not at its end

This is the time to laugh, live, love, my friend

The wood-length weeps; we hear it where the wind

Washes through knee-deep green or bends the bough

Of apple-orchards; suddenly the mind

Is keened with affection and letting go

Did not but yesterday, the violet burst

In starlet-purple waves across the mud?

Yet we dashed hunger-shod and dream-immersed

Where soldiers baptized gardens with their blood

Nature is not detained by our wars

See how the night is overcome with stars

The doorway to a new day swings ajar

And we do not remain glued to its gate

For this is where life’s fullest wonders are

…not in the things of thought while hours abate

But in the here and now, the bleeding bud

And barefoot bliss, sweet summer’s crown of days

Unfolds its fathoms while mute mem’ries flood

Our eyes with happiness; ah, nothing stays

But daily deaths; life’s laureate enthrones

With echoed breath Time’s virgin stepping-stones

© Janet Martin

The Flowers, the Sunset, the Trees- Jim Reeves

A Good Place to Be (edited repost)

Media's forecast is doleful

Their predictions fearsome, bleak

I don’t really like to think about

The Tomorrows of which they speak

They say darker days are coming

But regardless of what they say

We do not live in tomorrow

We live in Today

'Do not worry about tomorrow'
Its fears are as ancient as dust
Greater than all our tomorrows
Is the God in whom we trust
The unknown lies before us
Who knows its 'what if' or 'what may'?
Only One; He watches o'er us
  But always in 'Today

© Janet Martin

 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isa. 41:10

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Deut. 31:6

Of All Our Other Days...

…and all our other days

Have slipped into the trance

Of bygone; still, the ways

Of time dare us to dance

This is our mortal must

Not merely to exist

But to wring from Time’s dust

The uttermost of it

For soon this bitty bloom

Will falter ‘neath our gaze

And slip into That Room

Of all our other days

That Room, for all its boast

Of highs and lows and such

Claims every uttermost

And seals it from our touch

 We embark once again

Upon dawn’s newborn ways

To face what yet remains

Of all our other days

© Janet Martin

Forever's Mold

Let’s just enjoy today

Tomorrow’s come what may

Is still so far away

Who knows its untried wake?

But here, the loveliness

Of new moments impress

With eager emptiness

Its memories to make

So let’s enjoy this gift

Of sun-rain streams that sift

Ere ageless echoes drift

Where we cannot return

Then, let us touch and taste

With reverence its haste

Lest we its wonders waste

And thus futilely yearn

Oh, let’s enjoy today

The gold mingles with gray

Before it melts away

In vapor madrigals

Let’s hug our have-and-hold

Before its flickers fold

Into Forever's mold

As twilight’s curtain falls

© Janet Martin

It Rains

It rains. Not gentle laugh-lines like a chuckle from the sky

But earnest, pelting staccato against the willow-sigh

Where mini-runnels race and chase in senseless rivalry

Their predecessors, rushing like great rivers to a sea

It rains, and home is sweeter in the splashing serenade

And dashing doggerel of silver-slipping promenade

Where daydreams wink in sudden reborn possibility

As summer’s great outdoors implores with rain-ripe urgency

It rains. A strange, sweet sorrow tugs and hugs fond memories

And gardens bow beneath the weight of heaven’s sweeping seas

Where little, stippled lakes dapple the driveway. God unchains

A troupe of lilting legions to parched avenues. It rains

© Janet Martin

Ethereal Inevitable

The sun crawls from its hiding place

To ether ladders scrawled in space

Where vapor-thin politeness graces,

Chases morning-tide

…and where dusk-velvet vesper dealt

Blue shadows, motionless they melt

Into nothing, seamless and svelte

As night and day’s divide

How is it, in the gathering

Of moments we are emptying

Yet all the while replenishing

With future-font, the past?

…your eyes tell me what words cannot

Propriety mutes un-spelled thought

We know only what Time has taught

Its friendship unabashed

The hierarchy of tick and tock

Scatters sweet summer to the walk

In petals, though we beg and balk

Days fill thought-gaze with years

…something akin to grief, I guess

Defends hope’s sudden helplessness

Where laughter yields to loneliness

As daylight disappears

© Janet Martin