November Nocturne

Dusk lowers bluer bars

Prelude to moon and stars

Poured from heaven-held jars

As skylines disappear

The matriarch of fall

Gathers beneath Her shawl

Gentle and gradual

The filament of years

The scraggly apple tree

The weeping willow lea

The sweep of sod and sea

Are folded ‘neath Her wing

And all along the street

Where dark and light compete

The plush rush of glad feet

Turn homeward and hearts sing

Ah, pray that well we tend

This place where at day’s end

Comforts of family-friend

With eager hunger come

And pray the Lord to bless

With hope and happiness

Life’s crowning commonness

Earth’s heaven; home, sweet home

© Janet Martin

Inspired by Brenda's post here:)

Today's Enterprise

Because we share vehicles I often drive Jim to work then pick him up when he returns at the end of the week...this morning is picture-perfect!

 

Tomorrow I hope today will be

A want-to-keep-it memory

A live-learn-love-and-laughter lilt

Soft-etched in thought’s gossamer gilt

After the moments of Today

Have let their course and slipped away

I hope what’s left of it will be

A want-to-save-it memory

© Janet Martin

Yesterday's Memory is a mixture of live-learn-love-laughter.

Lots of laughter and love when we went to visit Mom on her 73rd birthday,

some learning as I dealt with frustrations of an old van

that kept shutting off in the morning and I couldn't 'make it to the church on time';-)

but then hubby called and told me to let it run for a while and come and pick him up at work

so I let it warm up for a while then it ran just fine...g-r-r-r-r!! I know something's wrong with it

but I don't know enough about engines to know what!!!

Nov. PAD Challenge day one; Write a Day After poem.

Surrender's Source

November's PAD Challenge Day 2;  For today’s prompt, write a surrender poem.

Temporal and eternal vie

Everything born is doomed to die

Soon morn surrenders to the air

Its virgin verve; hope, heartache, prayer

Veiled in an invisible tide

That sweeps the sprawling countryside

…in slow surrender to the stars

Where sometimes sudden silence jars

The inept reaches of the mind

Kindness and cruelty entwined

For everything that has a breath

Is on a one-way course to death

…and nothing can evade the clutch

Of Providence’s final touch

Hence, Youth and Truth and Wisdom vie

For everything with life will die

Save that which is not bound by force

The soul; it returns to Life’s source

© Janet Martin

Of Seasons Cast...

Are we ever drawn to contemplate seasons and their passage, quite like we do in Autumn?

Happy first day of November!

Inspired by Bread for The Journey

Inhale, exhale, time’s grail soft-pours dawn into darkened deep

A mist that bears our prayer and care, an ephemeral sweep

Where we keep only memories; each beg-and-brave surpassed

By voices that return across a sea of seasons cast

A ransom note for failure beams upon the gleaming east

God’s mercy lays before our gaze a grace-and glory feast

And we must choose how we will use the hues that pleading ply

Our dues before they sleep in coffins that swallow the sky

How soundless is the slipping of time’s softly-dripping toll

How ethereal the winnowing of that which strips the soul

How very real and certain is the curtain we call Death

How seasons startle reason and Imminence steals our breath

The rah of our aha is fickle as the fretting breeze

The satisfaction of our boast like leaves upon the trees

They flutter for a little while then fall beneath the charge

Of He who orders seasons to this little time-frame barge

Inhale, exhale, love’s grail soft-pours Mercy, a gushing stream

Of valor that dissolves the dark and sparks our humble dream

Where we keep only memories after it is surpassed

by voices that soon skim the brimming sea of seasons cast

© Janet Martin