Bracing For Fall or Of Summer Spent

 Is there any emptier feeling in the home than when a child moves out for school?

Hugs all around to parents who suddenly find their arms aching for a Summer that is no more...

What pangs do autumn’s hearts torment

With love’s demands when hands are stripped

And trees are lamp-posts, yellow-dipped

And primed for summer-less lament

Ah, life is cursed with discontent

And hollow hurt of letting go

While mouths make promises we know

Will not reimburse summer spent

…so we stand tall and say hello

To newcomers in this Fall place

Of arms still aching to embrace

What time insists on weaning…oh,

The air is like a map we trace

Back to That Shangri-La before

We staggered beneath the loud roar

Of empty room and packed suitcase

What pangs do autumn’s hearts torment

With love’s demands when hands are stripped

And lands are unkempt, yellow-dipped

And primed for Time's timeless lament

© Janet Martin

Brand New Behoovement

Morning rolled over the eastern skyline like a gold hallelujah-song! 

When morning comes a-beaming like a bride with her true love

And gold grace comes a-streaming from the vault of mercy’s trove

When night falls prey to Day, and day is like a tray heaped high

With second chances, oh it makes us glad to be alive

When dawn is like a beacon where we spar with yup and nope

Yet ever over eastern berm returns a hymn of hope

And when we pause to listen where Time glistens with Brand New

Oh, surely it behooves us to join in its gladness too

When darkness sheds its somber veil and weds the night with Day

When from love’s Holy Grail God pours The More that sustains clay

When what is said and done is not the end if we awake

To sands refurbished with demands of yawn, stretch, give and take

…then surely we are stirred to urge from heaven’s splurge, our best

For surly gods of fear cannot love’s sacred footing wrest

Or hamper the renewal where Time like a jewel gleams

With hallelujah choruses and hope’s victorious streams

© Janet Martin

Each morning hope’s footing is restored with light. Hallelujah!

The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men

to see if there are any who understand,

any who seek God.

Ps.14:2 

A Good Night's Sleep

Nothing else we do is quite as good without it; a good night's sleep!

Did you have a long or a short night? 

I hope it was something like eight instant hours;-)

How is it we close our eyes and already the alarm clock is beeping?!!

Happy September Day Two!

If the morning is any indication it looks like a beaut!!

When from slumber’s oblivion

And from thought’s full respite

We wake; we shake our heads and say

‘How little was the night’

…but when we lie and cannot keep

Thought’s busy street at bay

Or lull into sweet, gentle sleep

‘How long the night’, we say

Life’s ‘fairest of them all’ must be

Not charm or fame or wealth

But simply this; a good night’s sleep

To better our health

© Janet Martin

Called September Day

September Day One broke through the dark in fine, fine form!

 

Paint me a picture, love, September-blue

Rain-dappled dust on musk-dusk avenue

Purple dawn’s pasture with mist-filigree

Dapple noon’s meadow with wild aster spree

Pin back the night with white crescent of moon

Brush over river-rock soft, silver swoon

Highlight with golden rod, earth’s tousled hall

Tease maple tresses with traces of fall

Wring from the roses, summer’s last hurray

Paint me a picture called September Day

Darling, the hour is a flower, oh

Soon, soon its bloom will be covered with snow

© Janet Martin

Off to see what the rest of September Day One holds in store!

Once We Were Young

 It's that 'back-to-school-away-at-school' heart tug and hug setting in...

then I read today's YDP and let thought's hunger lead.

Didn't I just say Happy Augu...oh, never mind!
Happy September, all!;-)

In Time we all become part of a cast

Wrapping our arms around pictures of Past

Wondering at the sheer pace of life’s grind

Pondering whispers of days left behind

Time’s temperament leaves no room for repeat

Nor ever ushers same noon to its street

Dreams once prized dearly are lost or exchanged

Minds that saw clearly must be rearranged

Slowly, those pieces we thought ought to fit

Need to be revised or jiggled a bit

Strange, what the middle of night can recall

Maybe our parents were right after all

With a start, hearts realize time is small

Echoes resound where its new children call

Soft on the twilight, with yesterday’s year

Trembles the black-white of Back When and Here

Silk-soft, each rise and set of dust and dew

Begets a vista, oh my, what a view

Who knew that Time drew its shadows so fast?

Ah yes, they who found themselves part of This Cast

Once we were young, full of song, free of care

Certain that life was a long-strung affair

Now we fill doorways and wave from afar

To dreamland-foragers reaching for stars

© Janet Martin