You are gone; your cloak of mourning
Splayed in colors tumbled soft
'gainst the place where heaven’s yawning
Apathy lingers aloft
You are gone: slipped through a pasture
Where we didn't bar the gate
Like a wisp of love and laughter
On a frond-and-fallow plate
Naught but pictures framed in echoes
To remind us you were here
Skimming, brimming where the meadows
Wear a weather-beaten cheer
Dust, your doggerel of daises
And your lily-limerick
P-f-f-f-t, your afternoon, sweet- hazy
Where cicada sonnets drip
…and the green of virgin blossom
Where we celebrated hope
Lies on the temperate bosom
Of yon season-slathered slope
Once we spilled to dark-soil languor
Dreams rebellious as the wind
Planting in its garden, hunger
We were younger then, and blind
We bemoan Time’s hurry-scurry
Surprised by its changeless law
Meditation is a journey
Of relinquishment and awe
Now we pause where nothing lingers
Long; touch kindly the deluge
Of a free-fall not of fingers
…mist of morrow’s subterfuge
You are gone; mutated montage
That only our thought can see
Softly, once upon a summer
You became a memory
© Janet Martin
...and that is all I have to say about the matter! Happy First Day of Autumn, everyone:)
