Showing posts with label duty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label duty. Show all posts

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Sweet Saturday-morning Skirmish (between Poet and Prudence)



This daily/weekly Saturday morning tango is blissfully
unfamiliar to some, yet, I wouldn't trade it for a world of shiny
'ballroom' floors, as much as I dearly admire and strive to acquire
  brief glossy-floor bliss once in a while!
I try to balance ballads, oops I mean battles
with a bit of both poem and prudence. πŸ˜‚πŸ˜…πŸ’–

This beautiful battleground is composed of longing to linger on pages 
of past poets/artists



or tackling present responsibilities like prepping for Christmas!
Today's task; homemade chocolate bars



In the above recipe to clarify amounts;
 approx. 8-9 cups rice krispies, 2 cups peanuts and 11/2 cups coconut.)

Sometimes the battle is a toss-up between
pausing without pressure to percolate in the pure pleasure
of God's poetry in every season...

Whether gray...


...or gold!



...or vacuuming and fussing over delightful details
because Victoria is having friends 
over for a Christmas party this weekend!


Sweet Saturday SkirmishπŸ’“πŸ’“πŸ’“

Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready/drained with of extra refills



Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready with extra refills
Duty and Dream dance, a skippety-do; Poet and Prudence clash wills
Wonder is waiting with gifts still unfurled, often where we least suppose
Dawn is deflating night’s slumbering world with a sky full of hellos

Tuning spent ages with notes rearranged in compositions brand new
Learning’s lent pages divinely exchanged by He who loves me and you
Fueling reason with thankful reply for mercy’s replenished fount
Every season chock-full of surprises, too prolific to count

…thus, in the matter of work-to-do lists versus perhaps-poetry
Always a Saturday morning untwists two worlds that cannot agree
One (but a guess) a shining specimen of domestic excellence
One, happiness, pressed like wine from a pen never drained of Imminence

….coffee-pot beams with Columbian prose; ready with refills galore
Poet and Prudence tango, nose to nose ‘cross Saturday’s ballroom-floor
Weathering whispers that spar between ink and plain practicality
Untethering silver rivers that wink into….oh, which will it be

© Janet Martin


And hopefully this is my/our daily prayer;
'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,
do it all for the glory of God.
1 Cor.10;31

Monday, April 4, 2022

Catch Me If You Can

For today's prompt, write a catch up poem.

I'm playing poem-challenge catch up today after a busy weekend!πŸ’–
Always so much to do/love/write...

This morning was no exception...
Beauty dangled its poetic lure for all the world to see!
Morning to morning, night's mantle is rent
With the renewal of love's covenant 



So between Beauty and Duty...




Poetry

So much to cherish in so little Time
Moment-mementos to capture in rhyme
Duty's staid summons to tend and disperse 
Beauty (never common) to secure in verse
Love-lassoed lyrics so when day is done
Though the dust settles the music plays on

So much to whisper to He who resides
Over the glister of dawn-to-dusk-tides
Morning to morning, night's mantle is rent
With the renewal of love's covenant 
So many sins to repent of, oh my
 Praise God, redemption's fount never runs dry

I know, no poet can ever deplete
Ink-wells refurbished with bitter and sweet
Still, the bard blissfully pledges to try/dare
Desire dredges its deeps with a sigh/prayer 
So many syllables to twist and tease
Into haiku, ballads, odes, elegies

Darling, I do believe poets are kissed
With the loveliest unmet to-do-list 
Forbid that ever I should live to see
The consummation of all poetry
For the fulfillment of poet's delight
Is the instilled bent to write and to write

Garden and galley, brook-creased countryside  
Hilltop and valley, fleece-cloud, blushing bride
Babies and butterflies, loved-one-come-home
Forming the font that turns into a poem
Turning what might be a most mundane day
Into a breath-stealing hip-hip-hooray

The alphabet fills an infinite pen
Spilling and thrilling, again and again
Thoughts become children we hold then let go
 Page after page falls like epical snow
Where want and wonder grapple and set free 
Life-sparkles canonized in poetry 

Blue, twilight shadow falls, troubadour's bliss
Snaring a madrigal from farewell's kiss
Only to be wakened by dawn's hellos 
Morn, noon and night; ink-delight ebbs and flows 
Where, no matter how many poems span
One more is calling 'catch me if you can'

© Janet Martin
  


Thursday, January 23, 2020

Daily Duel of Dreamer and Duty...What Will It Be?!



Duty and Dreamer seem to clash on a regular basis, as soon as feet hit the floor...
What will it be she sighs as she eyes an empty page 
then turns to heed cries of Master Laundry, Major Lunch-box, Sergeant Fire-starting etc...
Before Sweetest of all Sweet Little Girl arrives...



When the day gleams like a page poem-heady
Star-studded tarp falls from tresses, blue-pink
Unveiling worlds slumber revived and ready
Propped like a bottomless well filled with ink
Fueling duels twixt Dreamer and Duty
Teasing the rivals of prudence and art
Blurring intention where unhurried beauty
Tangles the tether twixt hands, head and heart

What will it be, Duty cries, demand-driven
Seizing the tool that fits her for the fight
What will it be, sighs the Dreamer, star-smitten
Grasping at shimmers of shadow and light
What will become the sum of today’s tally
Will it be to-do lists tackled and checked
Will it be sparkles that glimmer and sally
Snared from the air where whispers intersect

What will be left when dusk gathers its plunder
Who will be victor of soon-to-be spoils
Will page be filled with the thrill of sheer wonder
Or smudged with tokens of love’s urgent toils
What will remain to retain strains of beauty
Felled by the faithful fellow, Father Time
Will the souvenirs of both Dreamer and Duty
Tenderly tangle in keepsakes of rhyme

© Janet Martin


 ...on that note it's off to the races graces!

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, 
do it all for the glory of God.
1 Cor.10:13

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Life's Simple, Sweetest Gifts...




No, this is not sheer drudgery
Though Duty replenishes lists
With chore-galore monotony
These are life’s simple, sweetest gifts

For health and strength supplies the grace
To care for home and families
Then pray we thankfully embrace
Tangible blessings such as these

For should the gift of strength and health
Withdraw its beauty for a while
My, how we would pine for the wealth
Of common tasks to make us smile

© Janet Martin


Monday, January 14, 2019

On Cherishing the Beauty of Duty


No time at all to 'wax poetic', ever, these days,
I commented to Victoria on a full-of-Duty's-Beauty-and-interruption-Saturday,
(not as a complaint but merely as a conscious choice to remember
to treasure the measure of Now!)
...before the house turns quiet save for the tiptoe of echoes!


One of the moment-gold nuggets is 'summer-goodness' mid-winter!

These are not the days
When moments run
Like jazz through veins
Or Time is plush
Soft, like a brush
Of unrushed summer rains

These are days
Of Duty’s Beauty
Full of giving’s common call
Authoring the
Precious echoes
Of love’s finest days of all

These are the days
Of have and hold
And moment-gold's copious heaps
Before the quiet
Aftermath
Where busy-mess of living sleeps

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Of Climbing and Canvasses



We each have our own range of mountains to climb
Spilling the art of our attitudes where
Accountability sobers our prayer
Urging us upward in reverence of Time

Clandestine cravings and comforts compete
No one but God can behold our hearts
And no one but God perfect pardon imparts
Thus making bearable life’s bittersweet

Over the canvas of daylight our thought
Paints into pictures life’s moiling chagrin
Reaching, ah reaching for something within
Straining to touch it but cannot tell what

We all are pilgrims and artists; oh God
Called and commissioned by Your love and grace
Our spills and stumbles fall to Your embrace
Pictures of pardon and hope brushed on sod

© Janet Martin

Guilt assaults me the instant those words left my mouth, ‘nothing ever stays clean around here’.
Victoria continues stirring her hot chocolate completely un-alarmed offering words of amused sympathy and suddenly I know I am not ready for a quiet, sterile house.
After she leaves for school I wander through messy rooms capturing ‘blessing in disguise’.
Even so, I believe a little organizing of ‘blessing’ is in order!

 Victoria is painting a house-warming gift to give to Emily when she returns from her honey-moon in a few days.

Breakfast Remains...

*Mount Wash-more waiting to be conquered! (*a name I read somewhere else:)

And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. 2 Thess.3:13



Friday, November 2, 2012

Blue-collar Braveheart





Blue-collar brave-heart
He’s got no medals
No badges on his
Coat-sleeve or lapel
Working class warrior
Seeking no glory
Fighting life’s battle
And doing it well

Obscure battalion
Work-force deployment
Picks up the armor
Of shovel or cart
Low-dollar hero
Invisible valor
Witnessed by He
Who sees into the heart

Courageous convoy
Gallant and glorious
Punching the clock
While nobody applauds
Silently sacrificing
Over and over
And over again because
This is love


Blue-collar brave-heart
He’s got no medals
No badges on his
Shirt-sleeve or lapel
Working class warrior
Seeking no glory
Fighting life’s battle
And doing it well


© Janet Martin

Thank-you to all you blue-collar brave-hearts, wherever in the world you are. 

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Of Blessing Overlooked





Dictation of duty, though modest its mien
Of dishes and laundry and rooms to keep clean
Of clutter to tidy and meals to prepare
Remind us of love’s blessing abundant and fair

How sterile and still a mother’s life would be
Should duty and daily demand suddenly
Vanish with the menial tasks we mistook
As tedious toil; they are life’s blessings we too oft over-look

© Janet Martin

...but having said that, this morning reminds me how badly I need to 'train up my child or teenager' to clean up after themselves!
'M' stands for mother, not maid!