So colorful flowers, spring
Many shades of green, summer
Many shades of brown, autumn,
Shades of gray, winter
Three seasons in the making:
patiently knitting, weaving, cultivating.
From light of day through darkest night
I worked away without respite.
I washed it gently with soft spring shower,
then dried it in the summer hour.
When the coat was a perfect fit,
with autumn shades I coloured it.
But when winter chills closer drew
you lost it to the first wind that blew.
Decidedly Deciduous!
You ungrateful child, you.
(7th placement in Rob Carmack's Screwed XXII Contest)
The old Grim Reaper, everlasting gate keeper
Lies waiting like a cannibal ‘round the bend,
For every kind of soul turning this life frigid cold
On the other side of memories, family and friends.
While praying to our gods and hoping against all odds
To feel, touch and smell the scent of rose,
Beyond this life full of wrong and right
Until the cock begins to crow.
While withering away, day by deciduous day
In the glory and beauty of it all,
‘Till ending in wonder of our dreams, triumphs and blunders
New babies cry, birds fly, and tides rise and fall.
Inescapable to the end, dire enemy or best friend
Now seeking for the solace of Divine,
Love, strength and grace to help us dance and face
The bittersweet soulful journey beyond time.
© Terrell Martin, (First poem composed this year: 01/05/2025)
Late autumn winds are quickening the leaves
igniting metamorphosis of fall
where spectral colors burst forth and enthrall
a rapture brief, then vanishes and flees.
With fading eyes, she stares through window's eaves
to view an ancient oak, its heartbeat call
she feels the length of years, a weighty pall
her fleeting life, like leaves, will someday cease.
A bitter cold now grips the ancient oak
as dying leaves fall swiftly like a wave
her years are passed, no more to save
grim destiny does hasten nature’s blows.
She wakens suddenly at midnight’s stroke
the scythe of death arrives, as she well knows
she’ll join the leaves that settle on her grave.
Deciduous 9-9-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Deciduous
Artic flares beat upon my dark cocoon
I come in silence to hide from the dark
To bind my wounds with sunlit afternoons
Wrapping my pain with loneliness, so stark,
In isolation like a sinful moon
Spinning silken petals, a newborn ark
Whiplashed by regret’s compulsive rune
And bear the weight of fear - forever marked.
From a single thread my world hangs upside down,
A maze of anguish, labyrinth of tears,
Fluttering in restless desolation,
When a song of grace like softest eiderdown
Peels away each petal from nascent spheres
To fall away from a new creation.
My springtime blood did flow a river’s rush
in stream bed’s cradle anchored to the land
as dreams rode jet streams to the cirrus strand.
I grew beneath the nimbus, thunder-lush
but autumn’s dry-leaf-drought did bring a hush…
though soul, a snowy owl, not stuck in sand,
as slowly stilled my river came to stand —
my thirst now nursed by rapture of the thrush.
I muse about this skin and skins worn past,
rebirth perhaps… a dolphin of the seas.
This river turned a ripple wanes tonight
surrender of what’s mortal… not the last.
My sigh the sylph that finds the Pleiades —
this breath I shed, a winter’s wisp of white.
Oh how I rue this deciduous time;
relentless in it’s passing year by year
while robbing memories we hold so dear,
and shedding yonker that was once our prime.
Through time we plod this monumental climb;
the cliffs of life we grapple fighting fear
while ever facing time’s relentless jeer
as youth is spent on chasing dreams sublime.
And yet we’ve heard it said that as we age
we gain more wisdom with each passing phase,
endowments mastered as life’s dream pursues.
But still with passing time the battles rage,
and loss of youth we shed as hopes abrase.
Deciduous time this aging poet rues.
September 3, 2024
I ponder, lying pale upon my bed;
my head a 'roaring deep in notions... whys.
My thinking moves to plans for my demise
with comfort from my Lord in what He said -
I go to build your palace overhead;
just keep believing, death will loose the lies
of those who groan with transitory eyes.
Take note: I grant relief to you instead.
This body’s death transports my soul to God
and lets the dread of evanescence flee.
My faith persists, like leaves, although life dims;
God’s evergreening grace is no facade.
My hope is anchored on my Savior’s tree;
His resurrection weakened Satan’s limbs.
A tiny, glowing, wing-ed creature flies
to homes around the world in every land
compelled to take each tooth we lose and then,
to sneak a coin to sleepers whilst they sigh
as wispy whistles whoosh from holes inside
and taking the milk teeth we lose as planned
when growing up from baby boy to man.
What does a tiny tooth for fairies buy?
Perhaps a car or wand or just some bread?
Ten molars for to rent a fairy flat?
I do believe in fairies, Come on, clap!
And some say that they eat the teeth instead!
Do they get more if they battle the cat?
Who takes their teeth when they grin with a gap?
The maple, beech, the willow, ash and oak -
abundant are the trees that shed their leaves,
and in the spring, the goddess Flora weaves
her magic, vanishing cold winter’s cloak.
Sometimes the roots of shade trees need a soak.
A tree in drought most gratefully receives
the summer rains. By autumn it achieves
sheer brilliance. Memories autumn days invoke.
Like trees deciduous are people too.
With warmth we flourish. Also we are green,
not having lived our lives yet for too long.
Through summer more of life we can pursue.
By fall, we’re colored by all that we’ve seen.
Then winter comes, and life we can’t prolong.
Once newly shaped, when buds do open up.
Unfurling sense, one’s eyes of Spring arise.
A mother-oak, her branches grasp bird-cries.
The leaves ring bell, the beaks do come to sup
And sip, foliage turns into a cup.
The soar-uplift of the branches - owls, wise.
The nestled memories, these are the highs.
Autumn wind-verve and ink decree break up.
Down, down into the pile of yellow, reds,
Orange and brown. Up, up, the kids do pop.
Such fun as oaks bluster about and lose
Their trimming sooth, do bend and shake their heads.
Winter with caps seize those so bald on top.
Those frozen trees, seasoned, with diff’rent views.
I have shed the foliage of youth
Grown taller
…sunk my roots
…deeply
…into an everchanging
…now
Autumn leaves, I see your greenery embrace,
Turning into hues of sparkling fire,
In autumn's chill, where winds of change conspire,
A strange loneliness fills this quiet space.
Golden leaves, now departing with such grace,
Remind me of a love that must retire,
To dreamland’s shores, where once burned my desire,
I feel you leaving, gone without a trace.
Why does the world retreat and leave me here?
The flowers fade, the geese are far from near,
Even the caterpillars take to wing,
Departing bird's songs, none can even hear,
As beauty fades, the wind’s cold breath I fear,
My soul, deciduous, sheds love’s last cling.
DECIDUOUS LOVE
I always thought our love was evergreen,
Strong through every season of the year.
We made our marriage vows for all to hear;
We fell in love when you were sweet sixteen,
As strong a love as there had ever been.
Whatever life would throw we had no fear.
I’d be content so long as you were near.
So how did things turn sour in between?
Our summer passion faded all too fast
And autumn promised darker days ahead.
Soon the leaves of our love began to fall
And, though we tried to resurrect the past,
So one-by-one those feelings turned to dread
Until, at last, there was no love at all.
When autumn winds begin their whispered call
The leaves of green turn golden as they slip
Into a cycle ancient, they soon rip
From every branch, and gently start to fall
Deciduous, they shed, graceful and tall
And sleep through winter’s glacial grappling grip
As spring revives them from their frozen trip
But in this rest, new life grows strong for all
Their wisdom lies in knowing when to part
Accepting change, as beauty fades away
The cycle translates the story retold
As every ending yields a brand new start
In their loss, there’s promise of a new day
From deciduous trees that bear the cold
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