Showing posts with label mother's love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mother's love. Show all posts

Monday, November 6, 2023

(Love's) Better Poetry

PAD Challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase "Better (blank)," 
replace the blank with a new word or phrase, 
make the new phrase the title of your poem, 
and then, write your poem.

This take on today's poem-prompt 
was inspired by yesterday's photo-session;
the aim being to get a few good ones
(aka everyone looking forward with eyes open!!) 
for a page in a family calendar for my parents for Christmas








You are the laugh-lines that I earn
And collect thankfully
As by the grace of God I learn
Love's Better Poetry

You overflow my cup of joy
Filling love's crooks and curves
With happiness, dear girl and boy
More than one heart deserves 

You are my gentlest lullaby
My tenderest of care
And each, the apple of my eye
And each, my humblest prayer

You are heaven-to-earth's caress 
You are my home-sweet-home
You are more holy thankfulness
Than pen can ever poem

© Janet Martin









Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Agile Acrobat


Today begins a new school year in Canada, 
and though the calendar says its still summer
for a few more weeks, 
summer always feels officially over when school begins!
My prayers are for lots of tots and parents this morning 
as many weather tides of
fears and tears 
of letting go etc...

Sometimes I pinch myself
at how once upon a time 
The Summer of Life seemed to stretch
endlessly ahead!
Now I turn to see its 'eternity'
 as nothing more than a splash of sun-sparkles
on a sea-swept shore...



Time winks and whisks another summer into memory books
As sentimental mothers gaze with fond and lingering looks
At days that sweetly, swiftly swept through outstretched hearts and hands
To join their predecessors kept in bygone’s far-flung lands

Time winks and weeps where wonder thunders beneath our skin
No wish or want can keep at bay the future closing in
Where all the while new day beguiles with new moments released
Like quilt patches in Bygone’s counterpane, each one is pieced

Time winks and weeps and flies and tries to fit us with new shoes
That life insists upon and no one is ready to choose
(How in the whirl of little boys and girls did I become
A strange, yet splitting image of a version of ‘me mum’) (my mom)

Time winks and weeps and flies and leaps, an agile acrobat
That balances on heartstrings and bows as he tips his hat
While we gather our bearings with a trembling chin held high
Bracing Ourselves for love’s next round of hello and good-bye

…while oceanic tempests surge and crash on shores unseen
While we gaze in amazement at where summer’s isle had been
While time winks, weeps, and flies and leaps across echo-glossed bars
While we brush summer from our cheeks in a blur of salt-stars

© Janet Martin


Grand-sonny- 1st day of SK!💖






Monday, May 9, 2022

Of Mother-Heartstrings...


Love bears all things, 
believes all things, 
hopes all things, 
endures all things.
Love never fails

1 Cor.13:7-8

A precious Mother's Day weekend without many photos...only echoes,
while chores, commitments and celebrations were juggled.

(Why a red cleaning pail on a sunny Sunday afternoon deck visit?!
It was filled with soapy water and thrown at the neighbor's dog after
he splashed through a 'manure-pool' then came for some affection 
after he 'helped' us round up some rambunctious cattle that had broken
out of said neighbor's barn while Farmer was away😅)
***
No matter how old or far a mother's children are
love's umbilical cord, aka heartstrings
is never severed...



As she celebrates each step of each child's independence
a mother's heartstrings are tested to new lengths
but never broken💗
In whatever season of motherhood we are
God is faithful! 

The song below seems fitting 
as we begin another week whether we are a mother
or have/had a mother...



So it begins with the first newborn cry
…the tug and tangle of mother-heartstrings
A hold-and-let-go that will never untie
Love’s weathered tethers that motherhood brings

Who knew that someone so tiny and pink
Could completely transform the world she knew
Laughter and tears sparkle, silver, I think
Highlighting places where heartstrings run through

Love is an ocean she carries inside
Wonder and worry and weariness reel
Time is a subtle, determined riptide
Dashing heartstrings, strong as cables of steel

…where she is always relearning love’s art
First steps, first school day, first road trip, first car
Hold-and-let-go, while the strings round her heart
Stretch-stretch to wherever her children are

Labour-pains last until life’s final breath
Bittersweet, happy-sad sorrow and joy
She is a warrior who’ll fight to the death
For the welfare of her dear girl and boy

This is no commonplace love that she bears
This love reflects God, faithful, kind and good
These are no common ribbons that she wears
These are the heartstrings of motherhood

God, grant her courage, strength, wisdom and grace
Bless her and keep her in Thy tender care
For in each hold-and-let-go she will face
 Nothing can sever heartstrings spun with prayer

Motherhood yields to ever-present tugs
Of duty's demands, affairs soon echo-etched
Hold-and-let-go, this is the way of hugs
But not heartstrings, as they are stretched and stretched  

© Janet Martin

Prov.31:25-28
Strength and honor are her clothing,
and she can laugh at the days to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;

Monday, May 2, 2022

How Do I Love Thee, (Once upon Sweet Childhood's Girl or Boy)


(a rather sentimental undoing of a mother's heart
as she contemplates a mother's love for grown children 💝)

Birthdays have a way of doing that...
Happy 24th birthday, Matt!




How do I love thee, once upon sweet childhood’s girl or boy?
I love thee with a brutal grief and with a daring joy
I love thee like a gentle lamb yet with a lion’s roar
It seems like every day I love you like never before

How do I love thee? In a tender tumult borne within
My dear, you cannot guess the world unfurled beneath my skin
Or how a mother holds her babies close in spite of years
How love is like a medley of hugs, tugs, cheers, fears and tears

How do I love thee? With compassion’s firm and fierce regard
Because I know though love is sweet, love is grueling and hard
A holy weathering that cannot be estranged by miles
A prayer-worn tethering through sorrow-storms and sunshine-smiles

How do I love thee? like a dancer still learning the steps
A hold and letting go that Season-change cannot eclipse
With sympathy and hope and honor all rolled into one
I love thee like only a mother loves daughter or son

How do I love thee? with oft stumble-humbled gratitude
With by-the-grace-of-God whose kindness keeps courage renewed
With error-riddled aftermath and laughter’s grand release
With awe, while God is teaching me what makes a masterpiece 

From mom aka
© Janet Martin

Psalm 90:12
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Oh Lord, Please Send an Angel Army (to minister to moms)

 

Sometimes home-sweet-home feels more like a battleground
where soul-diers in training can put up quite a fight
and test the best of any mom's/dad's fortitude!
Dear mother, daddy, do not despair! 
This little charge is worth every hard correction and prayer

Tots depend on mom and dad to do what no one else will;
 train them as they grow!
 It's not easy but it is the most important challenge
you will ever undertake!

 before time tips them out of childhood's 'wheelbarrow'...




Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms (and daddies)
In the thick of a battle with most crucial outcomes
Grant them wisdom and patience as they plant and prune and cull
Without the advantage of an instruction manual

Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms
Theirs is no undertaking of love, soon over-and-done
A mother’s love, a balance of both tough and tender, oh
As they train up a child in the way that they ought to go

Oh Lord, please send an angel down to minister to moms
For they grow weary as they discipline daughters and sons
It isn’t easy working for precious Child’s greater good
Lord, send an angel army to minister to motherhood (parenthood)

© Janet Martin

Prov.22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Prov.3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
 in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Of Mother's Love

 For all of our moms and mom-figures

Mother's Day Blessing


💝

It’s bottomless, no matter what
Though time weathers its trove
And plays havoc with touch and such
Never a mother’s love

Each child is a piece of her heart
While time spins clocks and wheels
And change insists upon the art
That fills echo-kissed reels

A mother’s love withstands the tug
That draws the child elsewhere
She learns to turn the tender hug
Into far-reaching prayer

From babe’s first cry till final sigh
Her labour-pains abound
To keen love’s bottomless supply
Each mother’s common ground

Where much is beyond her control
In this world’s fickle glove
And decays as time take its toll
Never a mother’s love

From fair-faced youth to age-old years
As seasons are exiled
God pours His love through smiles and tears
Of mother’s love for child

Whether a babe of cherub charms
Or marked by wear and tear
A child cannot outgrow the arms
Of mother’s love and care

Then, while you can, Child, treat her kind
For nothing else compares
No matter what treasures we bind
With mother’s love and prayers

© Janet Martin

Numbers 6:24-26 -
 The Lord bless you and keep you;
 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.



Saturday, January 2, 2021

On Invisible Detonations

 


It's only for a few months, he reminds me 
sensing the brave face I was putting up
as I watched him pack to move out for a few months...

Arms never could hold heart-pieces in place 
Bravado buckles in spite of intent 
It is impossible to embrace 
All that we longed for after it is spent 

Love never did promise Easy Street 
Though sometimes I kinda wish that it would 
They say the bitter makes better the sweet 
Later came sooner than I thought it could 

You want a hug? He asks bashfully 
I try to keep a brave smile on my face 
But oh, my old heart gets the best of me 
Arms never could hold heart-pieces in place 

© Janet Martin 



 


Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Echo-graphs...

For young people everywhere
Don't Give Up!



No child can outgrow their mother's prayers...
I really pray for our young people right now
with everything shut down
school online etc. 
Many are bored, restless and lonely!
Today, as I watched one of my childcare tots 
totter across the yard all bundled up
it reminded me of a (sort of) long ago world 
that seemed so permanent at the time;
when our own children were little.
Now they are young men and women,
and all this isolation is very hard,
esp. for young men who tend to perhaps not have
as many indoor hobbies as girls might.
(esp. if they play sports)
Please pray for our young people, 
that they use this as an opportunity to grow in their faith
and to become upstanding examples of man and womanhood.
Moms and dads, I guess we need to set good examples first, right?

This poem formed in my head as I watched the tot with one eye
and the little girl trying to touch the sky with her toes
from the swing I was pushing, with the other!


Photo Echographs...

They scatter on December's yard 
Like tatters of an old postcard 
And decoupage a mother’s heart 
In a collage of mem’ry-art 

They waft like echoes on the air 
A soft impression of Somewhere 
Entangled in a mother’s sigh 
Those whisper-grins of days gone by 

They sparkle in fresh fallen snow 
Footfalls muffled by come and go 
To mirror in a mother’s tear 
Reflections of sweet yester-year 

They tug and hug and ebb and surge 
Where past, present and future merge 
To urge within a mother’s prayer 
A tender plea for daily care 

© Janet Martin

Monday, June 8, 2020

I Love You, (A Birthday Poem)


Happy Birthday Emily!
Wishing you God's blessing today and in the year ahead.
Keep shining for Him!
May He bless you as you bless others!
It's a joy to share mother-to-daughter...
  but also mother-to-mother💗
 I love you!

How does one find new ways to say
Endearment’s oldest sweetest phrase
Or capture in poetic lay
Emotion’s oceanic waves
The affection we try to tout
In lines, original and new
Always seem incomplete without
Three little words, so tried, so true
I love you

How does one spell a heart; the art
Of tenderness is hard to snare
It sparkles in salt stars that smart
And catch in our throats somewhere
Where all the verses we compose
Will never leave us quite content
Without this three syllable rose
To satisfy soul’s sentiment  
I love you

Our first words breathed on newborn’s cheek
As we greet babe so pure and new
Our homage to the frail and weak
When no other wording will do
Three words to summarize the whole
When a thousand are not enough
Three words to capture heart and soul
But perfect, when it comes to love
I love you

How swift the days and seasons blur
Into a panoramic sweep
Autumn, winter, spring and summer
With oh, so little we can keep
Save pictures pressed into a place
Where rough edges are gilt with gold
And all that there is left to trace
Are three words that never grow old
I love you

© Janet Martin

Traditional Birthday verses but that's because 
we never outgrow the need for this reminder...

Prov.3:5-8

 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and turn away from evil.
This will bring healing to your body
and refreshment to your bones.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Oh, Dear Mom, At The Time We Didn't Think Of It

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.”
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord
she shall be praised.
Prov.31:26-30 

Mom, a pic from years ago, in her happy place;
a garden with flowers

An old class-mate of mine shared a tribute on Facebook to his departed,
 much missed and beloved mum...
His comment to a memory I shared was the springboard to this year's mom-poem.
He said, "
At the time, we didn't think of it, but now we know how great she was!"
Oh, that says it all to all of us, doesn't it?!! 



At the time we didn’t think of it
We ate and played and dreamed and grew
And in the little blink of it
Learned more than, at the time, we knew

At the time we didn’t give much thought
To what a mother gives and takes
Or of the love that toiled and taught
While we soiled clothes, devoured cakes

At the time we didn’t see the half
Of what dear mother gave and prayed
Until the heart-shaped autograph
Of echoes and memories made

At the time we didn’t grasp the truth
Of values clad in common threads
We tore the cover off her youth
And benefited from its shreds

At the time we didn’t understand
The double-edge of love, but stood
Upon the labour of her hand
And tender tears of motherhood

At the time we thrived beneath her voice
Rebuked if willful words ran wild
Or cautioned in a world of choice
That starts to shape even a child

At the time we didn't know what we had
Or appreciate this careworn saint
Apron-clad and humming-glad
 Never stooping to complaint

At the time we didn’t realize
How much or often we would gaze
At what we now cherish and prize
And will, for all our living days

So now, as I try to express
My gratitude I hope somehow
You feel the humble thankfulness
For all that I am seeing now

Dear mom, today I/we honor you
As by God’s grace you gave your best
For your example, meek, strong, true
Your children rise and call you blessed

© Janet Martin