The Breeze Undresses Trees...

 ...in five days the breeze has almost completely teased the leaf-song from this tree...

The breeze undresses trees

Methinks I hear her laugh

Her whisper sews white-woven clothes

Where grows the silver chaff

The breeze teases the leaves;

Green’s metamorphosis

Of scarlet-gold is hard to hold

Too long upon her kiss

The breeze runs, wild with ease

Baton across the limb

Where strum those mournful melodies

Of summer's dying hymn

The breeze scavenges seas

Of oak, maple and elm

And none can thwart her piracies

Of Hunger at the helm

The breeze, like infantries

Invisible can pull

A battalion of memories

Within her phantom hull

The breeze undresses trees

Shushing plush-red refrains

...soon all that will be left to tease

Are skin and bone remains

© Janet Martin

Summer's Afterglow

How readily a season shapes

The pastures of the dead

Our eyes devour landscapes now

Like beggars seizing bread

September green is fair as June

Save for the ling’ring gaze

Where farewell tunes the Brigadoon

That set our hearts ablaze

And to a crypt soft-petal-lipped

Where summer slipped and fell

The pumpkin-flavored flowers drip

To fence-row, heath and dell

The stream that snakes through cattail brakes

To yonder ponds and seas

Gleams like a seamless sash on lakes

Of bronze frond melodies

Time’s building-blocks are lithe, like flocks

Of feather-citadels

Its touchdown locks and forms the rocks

Where soon the future dwells

A diadem of garnet gem

Graces September’s brow

Where now our sighs ravish the hem

Of summer’s afterglow

 © Janet Martin

Once More...

Once more Thy gracious goodness

Startles the drowsing lea

Thy everlasting witness

Doth comfort what must be  

To crypts of soulful hunger

Once more Thy mercy sends

A measure of new moments

That naught but Love defends

...and we of lesser knowing

Lift up hearts full of praise

Once more to Thee, bestowing

Thy patience to our ways

Ah, Shepherd of kind Essence

Hear this from humble dust

Awake in us Thy Presence

Once more, so we may trust

Janet Martin~

I would like to reply to you
    and to your friends with you.
⁵ Look up at the heavens and see;
    gaze at the clouds so high above you.
⁶ If you sin, how does that affect him?
    If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
    or what does he receive from your hand?
⁸ Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,
    and your righteousness only other people. 

Job 35:4-8

Because We Do or Not

 (but here and there 'tis nice to pause with book, un-chained from Duty's laws, where living bids us do, do, do, to rest beneath God's blue, blue, blue...)

…because we choose to do or not

The one who watches will be taught

For hand, compelling as a sword

Is often mightier than word

Because we do; lines not of speech

Convinces readers as we teach

Not by the flower-seeds of voice

But by the power-deeds of choice

…because we do in every day

And say what tongue will never say

Each script is written by the quill

Of hand and foot; soul- stories spill

…to pages laid upon Time’s stair

Where our do’s and don’ts declare

The truth of whom we serve and love

Pray tell, what will our writing prove?

© Janet Martin

 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. Eccles.9:10

 With God's help we will do mighty things, for he will trample down our foes Ps. 60:12

Ever Feel Like This?...Blessed

If we are blessed we will be

A step-stool,

A leaning-post,

A sounding-board,

A dinner host, 

A handkerchief,

A teddy-bear,

A hope-filled chest

An easy-chair

A launching pad

A broom, a ball

 For to be needed

is a blessing above all

© Janet Martin

The Picnic Will Not Care...

If we did not, did not lie there

To sip the blue breeze-seasoned air

Nor popped its cork at noisy noon

Or paused at work to taste its swoon

The picnic will not care

If we did not sprawl half-reclined

Beneath tracery leaf-song lined

To contemplate nothing all

Save crumbs of cake and nibs of fall

The picnic will not mind

If we did not count soft sky-sheep

Or spread a quilt against a sweep

Of clover-leaf or green-grass sea

To revel in God’s poetry

The picnic will not weep

If we did not, did not lie there

Without intention but to share

A dream or two with he or she

Beneath the reaching reading-tree

The picnic will not care

© Janet Martin

Yesterday, after reading Brenda's post

and after a day of

laundry...

 

Pruning,

chopping trees (or at least trying;)

Doing a bit of fall decorating

I lamented the fact that, though I love picnics it had been a while since the last one...

So I laid out a blanket, a basket, some books...

...and just as I was about to enjoy!! a lady dropped by wondering if she could trade a few of her perennials for a few of mine, so we did, then Emily dropped in, then I needed to take Matt to work,

then 'my li'l guys'I babysit came and we played...

 

...and had supper, then the boys left and Victoria and I went to 'meet the teacher' at school, then we came home, quickly cleaned up supper, went to Matt's hockey game...

...and the picnic didn't care.

it was still there when I returned to put it away for another day...

today?

Who knows?