I spelled August 'Awe-gust' because that's what it is;
a gust of awe that leaves us a little
aw-don't leave-us-yet stricken!
a gust of awe that leaves us a little
aw-don't leave-us-yet stricken!
The pulse of Mother Nature thrums
Buds breaks from bloom to burnished crumbs
The torch of golden rod is lit
The cricket minstrel does not quit
Long after day has met its mark
Its tweet-tweet-tweet stipples the dark
The garden groans with dreams come true (or work to do)
The sky, a sweep of satin-blue
The creek-bed overflows its edge
With streams of burdock, milkweed, sedge
The fence flaunts wild-bloom bric-a-brac
Where lands make up for much we lack
Bones ache with wear of honest toil
As we pluck summer from the soil
To snare its fare in jars and bins
Where through the pain of blood-sweat-tears
We gain the battle-wounds of years
The flower spreads its rainbow wings
The hour too; where summer sings
A hymn of farewell-flavored bars
In ditches stunned with petal-stars
In fields still filled or harvest’s sheaf
In butterflies of soybean leaf
The pulse of Mother Nature throbs
In musky, dusty dusk it sobs
In mid-day mid-task quick retreats
To backyard front-row window-seats
Where like forbidden sweets we taste
A second fistful of time’s haste
…and let a tear or two escape
To plop on non-stop echo-scape
As bud to bloom to seed runs rife
And death of days soon makes a life
Where August drapes its cape of sighs
Across earth’s scar-pocked paradise
© Janet Martin
