I Stopped by the Garden Today

I stopped by the garden today

Her summer-chatter spent

Save for a tattered, scattered fray

To prove she came and went

I stopped by the walnut tree

Her lacy crooning swoon

Weeps in bronze leaf-note rhapsody

Beneath October’s noon

In spite of greedy clocks, I stopped

To sail the leaf-lorn sea

Before another season locks

Its vault and keeps the key

I stopped where the flowers fell

I stopped where hours flew

I stopped beside the blue bloom-bell

To hear its knell, adieu 

Yes, I stopped by the garden today

There wasn’t much to do

But wonder at Time’s tender way

And plant a tear or two

© Janet Martin

Mercy-Passage

If you’ve tasted His grace, if you’ve adored His face, if you’ve felt His embrace  then you can’t help but find yourself living in a giving place. 
Ann Voskamp

New morning pours through ancient doors

God’s grace kindles Hope’s way

The Giver of agape love

Implores through gift of Day

...and all we have and all we brave

Upon this reach of sod

Of broken bread and moment-thread

Are mercy-gifts from God

Hope’s paradise is not a prize

Obtained by flesh and blood

Time’s offering is the off-spring

Of mercy-granted flood

…then grant that we may ever see

Beyond our own touch-quest

Lest we pretend at love and then

Miss out on mercy’s Best

© Janet Martin

Auf Wiedersehen...September

(to September; the plan was to post this last night but the internet didn't work)

You leave by way of west-gate splendor

Poet-peasants all are we

What are words where heaven renders

Exit-frames of majesty

No drum-roll to part the pastures

No auf wiedersehen, good-bye

Naught but sigh of ruddy waters

As your swansong fills the sky

Kommen mien leibling, bleiben bis zum Morgen

Yet, when morning comes I know

I would beg for one day stronger’

Before I could let you go…

So the Maestro of moments

Breathes your cue upon the air

No kisses, no backward glances

As you climb dusk’s coral stair

Yet, the hill blushes with pleasure

Where your train brushes his brow

And your tears of crimson measure

Fall beneath our feet like snow

© Janet Martin

Breath-stealing Motion-picture

Breath-stealing motion-picture

Back-drops no one can keep

Melting before our wide-eyed gaze

Deep passes over deep

Sketched on a screen of summers

Voices like thinning gold

Fade into back-stage shadows

…another scene unfolds

We watch with dumb-struck hunger

Weep salt-wet smiles of joy

Tasting echoes long emptied of

Its little girl or boy

Riveting, its re-play  

Four-season silver screen

Slips today’s here and now into

A new breath-stealing scene

God, pray we do not blindly breathe
Time; whether old or young
But bless the moments that soon spill
In echoes on our tongue

© Janet Martin

Like Pipe Smoke...

Time reaches into its pockets then flings into the sky

Its leaf, like soldered lockets filled with hello and goodbye

Man grapples with thought-pieces; squints at his enlightenment

While ignorance still reasons with Time’s season-indictment

The clock is like a shepherd where its tick-tock flowers spill

Like sheep into a pasture swiftly stripped of summer-twill

He herds his flock of hours into days, then months and years

Beyond a Gate; futile to wait; Past never re-appears

Yet, ever easy-going Time sprawls on empyrean slope

To watch his newborn offspring spin a tiralee of hope

Where earthlings scramble, he ambles, knowing though we take-take

His pockets never empty and his lockets never break

The pull of seasons never wanes; September shuts her eye

Its lullaby of leaf-song rains and drains the sighing sky

It weeps beneath the wanderer, whimpers where sense beguiles

In echoes of a simpler time; Time tamps his pipe and smiles

© Janet Martin