Showing posts with label nocturne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nocturne. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

August Nocturne








Over the earth seeps a somnolent sea
Washing the colours of day from the lea
Tucking the hollows and hills out of view
Beneath a blanket of dust-scented dew
Turning bright tincture to deep blue and gray
Brushing the world outside windows away
Snuffing last rays of daylight like a spark
Crescent moon hangs like a smile in the dark

Cricket song wafts; vibrating staccato
The night is soft like a black velvet throw
The heart is torn as dusk oozes away
For every night summer loses a day
Gathered like sheaves into Bygone’s vast bin
Until the harvest of August is in
Weaning the sedge of its sheen, green and blithe
Keening the edge of Has Been like a scythe

Stars froth the night like a grand Mystery
Big dipper held by a Hand we can’t see
All that we know off by heart disappears
Though night's artist is unchanged through the years
Dipping his brush into ebony stream
Painting his pictures while well-wishers dream
Tossing across every meadow and lawn
Diamonds to dazzle the dreamers at dawn


© Janet Martin






Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Nocturne



Soft as thistle-down the hour
Like a bitty butterfly
Like the petal of a flower
Like the tremor of a sigh
Like the flicker of a candle
Like the shiver of a breeze
Tips its teeny hat, unravels
Leaving only memories
 

Soft as silver mist the twilight
Gathers to its phantom fold
Frameworks filled with almost-midnight
Caskets filled with gray and gold
Where the dark is like an ocean
Slowly rolling toward shore
Until intangible motion
Swallows up what is no more



© Janet Martin


Thursday, October 16, 2014

October Lullaby





Hush-a-bye orchard, thy limb is unbent
Harvest is gathered and summer is spent

Hush-a-bye leaf-lay, thy choir is plucked
Beneath the spire of summer-song tucked

Hush-a-bye garden, may slumber be sweet
Soon you will waken to dance of bare feet

Hush-a-bye twilight of sultry repose
Lamplight and wood-smoke replace dewy rose

Hush-a-bye children of moorland and grove
Home is a hearth without seasons, my love

Hush-a-bye shadow, snuffed from the gold hill
Feathering meadows where echoes soft-spill

Hush-a-bye zephyr and hush-a-bye loon
Summer is sleeping beneath hunter’s moon

© Janet Martin