Take nothing for granted...hold then let go
and see what sticks!
That's becoming my middle-age mantra!
Sometimes the scenes I turn to touch and tenderly caress
Escape the reaches of thought’s fingers straining to
retrieve
What once upon a time had thrilled the heart with
happiness
Before it followed forerunners where each day takes its
leave
To be tossed in a sieve that sifts both low blows and
high fives
Where only fragments and frayed bits of Afterward
survives
To compose much to our chagrin a sort of silhouette
Of mingled curse and blessing in the things that we
forget
Sometimes the scenes that I would rather not recall at
all
Seem so determined to take up permanent residence
Where I would rather tuck the fringes of a softer shawl
To edge away the lingering effects of consequence
But as wisdom deems fit, the blush and cringe of it persists
As a reminder to be kinder to those felled by fists
Where we are altogether tethered to the rise and fall
That mingles curse and blessing in the things that we recall
Sometimes the scenes that flit across the screen of Now
and Here
Cause me to mull the caliber of Hull’s momentous pyre
Where push and pull is always full of what will disappear
Some lost and gone forever, some salvaged for thought’s
memoir
To set within the frame of retrospect, a strange tableau
Of steppingstones, millstones and milestones, goodbye and
hello
These empower the echoes that can make us laugh and weep
With mingled curse and blessing of what we forget and
keep
© Janet Martin
