Showing posts with label song. Show all posts
Showing posts with label song. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2019

More Monday-(Everyday) Reasons To Sing...#2


This is a second go-round of reasons to sing
 because when we start focusing on Blessing instead of Burden
it's a song that never ends! 



For a kind word
For the song bird
For spring soft-bursting budded seams
For mastered goals
When twilight tolls
From belfries of unfulfilled dreams
For time’s untried
Where dawn runs wide
For Hope in spite of trouble’s ‘yet’
For time-out ‘joys’
For naughty boys
Who try to be good, but forget

For laughter’s lilt
For nature’s quilt
Of white before bright green-bronze-gold
For a Good Book
For meals to cook
For fond memories to enfold
For dinner-hour
Summer-shower
Autumn-bower’s beauty-tide
For birthday cakes
And turquoise lakes
For friendliness of fireside

For comfy clothes
And freckled nose
Crinkled and begging for a kiss
For innocence
For bloom-lined fence
For the first-dance of this; What Is
For happiness
Of blue-sky tress
For tender tug of letting go
Where what we held
Begins to meld
With Reminiscence' Picture Show

For ripe bananas
Red bandanas
Rocking chairs for lullabies
For baby’s coo
For nature’s woo
-ing ways to vex domestic ties
For motherhood
And God is good
And Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
For little girls
With bouncy curls
For hands to hold and floors to sweep

For strength and health
And simple wealth
Of family we love so much
For living large
And free of charge
When it comes to sunsets and such
For work to do
For hopes come true
And some, still faith’s fodder for prayer
For keeping on
Though seasons pawn
Our youth for Truth’s unyielding stare

For things to learn
And wings to earn
For flying if but to crash-land
To sit and fit
The grit of it
Into a Higher Helping Hand
For friends that cheer
Through smile or tear
For rows to hoe and miles to go
For bloom-filled crocks
For sky-wide clocks
That force our work shod feet to slow

For front rows seats
Where night competes
With the beginning of Today
For poetry
Waiting to be
Before dusk folds its page away
For God’s kind grace
To help us face
What waits within Time’s veiled facade
For roads that twist
Through mud and mist
But ultimately lead to God

© Janet Martin


Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2Sing to the LORD, praise His name;
proclaim His salvation day after day.
3Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonderful deeds among all peoples.
4For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
5For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but it is the LORD who made the heavens.
6Splendor and majesty are before Him;
strength and beauty fill His sanctuary. 

Psalm 96:1-6


Saturday, July 5, 2014

Summer Saturday Song





Oh, let me touch you slowly, thread my fingers through your sigh
There is something softly holy in the way you fill the sky
And I know from past experience how you blithely fall away
And how tiny moments soon become ten-thousand yesterdays

Oh, let me hold you softly but with hunger and delight
Gardens spill flowers, my darling; leaves of summer lose their fight
For we cannot thwart the order of this forward-facing leap
But content ourselves with hours ere they fade into the deep

Oh, let me feel you fully where your colors grandly reach
Purple clover or a sea of gold where sunsets bathe the beach
Then, when it fades to crypts where forefathers have tarried long
We will sigh with pleasure on our lips; ‘oh, how I loved that song’

© Janet Martin

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Gardener's Winter-hope Refrain...





When earth is robed in waves of white
And summer seems a world away
When hearth is warm with firelight
And skies are stoked with icy gray
Above nude tree-copse, stiff, austere
When all the flowers disappear
We do not lose our faith; we know
A garden waits beneath the snow

When dark comes early and stays late
In overtures of moody blue
The heart, a meek and muted slate
Of resolution and review
And when at last the day is born
In cold, colorless winter morn
We do not weep; for each requiem
Dawns nearer to hope’s flower-dream

Beneath the dead of winter; life
And oh, beneath its soldered deep
Faith waits; someday it will be sight
Where summer’s flower-gardens sleep
When winter’s climax grips us; cold
Spilling gray grumbles over gold
We are upheld by hope’s refrain…
Where sun and flower-gardens reign

© Janet Martin


 ...lest we forget:)


Sunday, July 28, 2013

Sabbath Song





 "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest. Ex. 34:21

…and now upon this little earth
The Lord bestowed for mankind’s best
A day of Sabbath from his work
A day of worship, respite, rest

In spirit and in truth, oh God
Accept our offering of praise
’Tis humble thanks; we know You know
The intent of our fumbling ways

…and yet you love us; right and wrong
In spite of our fears and faults
You yearn to hear our grateful song
As tongue Your majesty exalts

And when the morrow fills the lea
Upon Time’s troubled avenue
May our labor ever be
A worship-offering back to You

© Janet Martin

Monday, March 4, 2013

Prelude to Spring-song





Beneath the mute and mirthless shield
Of March-bedraggled cover
Tarries the bliss of daisy field
Of Queen Ann’s lace and clover

Beneath this staid and cheerless scrim
Of hollow quiet ringing
Trembles the touch that probes the limb
Into bloom-petal singing

Beneath the silent, snow-clenched scope
Of winter’s weary gumption
Quivers a season of new hope
And spring-song’s glad redemption

Soon this white space will bear the grace
Of emerald-golden sashes
As winter renders its embrace
To silver spring-song splashes

© Janet Martin

Friday, February 8, 2013

Of Storm-song and Promise





Darkness relents; day’s argent surf rolls mute
Out to the melded fringe of land and sky
Where none its austere anthem can refute
As gales shiver our summer dreams awry
Beyond the window, frigid fathoms seethe
Parting ice lips in cold and cheerless mirth
Yet none restrains the potent pulse beneath
Of life held in the womb of mother earth
Where delicate wild anemone still sleeps
Forget-me-not and violet whisper quenched
Before the fragrant, purple river sweeps
Across the emerald vale of spring unclenched
Earth’s frozen scrim of winter-white is kissed
With visions of frothed pink and amethyst

Beyond the dappled pane we hunch to brace
The tides lashing our pallid skiff of skin
Clinging to promises of golden grace
Clad in a dashing zephyr’s welcome grin
Then, watch the screaming, scowling felon wilt
His rival threatens not with bully roar
But challenges with bits of sunshine spilt
In puddles warm against earth’s south-faced shore
Before it spreads, virile and ravishing
Across the plain, over hollow and hill
Melting beneath its lovely lavishing
Winter’s tenacity and waning will
And soon the still and sterile snowbound lane
Will smell of dust beneath a summer rain

The skeleton of naked apple tree
The maple and the willow, silent, strong
Suffer the span twixt snow and honey-bee
And bud-pods bursting with summer night-song
Outside the wind moans, searching for the choir
Of quivering aspen, poplar, elm and birch
He rakes the stark and unrelenting spire
The woodlot hushed like Monday-morning church
And so he wails across unfettered field
As sleet-tears sting our cheeks, our lips and eyes
His grief exchanged; raw, raging tempests wield
Their utmost in longing’s stormy disguise
A soloist; his passion amplifies
As a cappella storm-song fills the skies

© Janet Martin

Our thoughts are with those on the eastern sea-board once again. Be warm, Be safe.

We are snow-bound in a very broad region in Ontario today.







Friday, January 11, 2013

Winter-brook



 (Sometimes I come here, just to listen...video is a little jerky at first but eventually 'smooths' out)

She tunes the hollow winter hush
In rushing, gushing glee
Laughing beneath thicket and brush
A prisoner set free
Where cattails drained her summer cup
Autumn’s release has filled her up
And now she spills her lullaby
Meandering out to the sky

Winter eases its rigid stance
And from its frozen swell
A lilting cadence of romance
Sweeps through the dormant dell
A surge of passion-perfect pitch
Embellishes the laud-less ditch
Of silenced wood-song’s dismal dirge
She sings with grief-abandoned urge

Now high, now low, hastening, slow
Enchanting melody
As splashing, dashing love-songs flow
In sonnets to the sea
Lest soon the northern gales entice
To seal her lay in shrouds of ice
She finds, somewhere, a lenient nook
To hum the hymn of winter-brook

© Janet Martin



Thursday, January 3, 2013

Sweet, Sweet the Still





Sweet, sweet the still
Of fall’s repose
The dormant season
Of the rose
Where drifting dirge
In memory flows
Across earth’s tempered tides
Of grassy green and vesper-lay
Of clover mien and summer-day
Of sun-kissed scene and willow-sway
Where retrospect resides

Sweet, sweet the still
Of winter hush
The woodland void
Of lark and thrush
Where landscapes bow
Beneath a brush
Dripping with ice and snow
Over the umber aftermath
Of summer’s dusty barefoot path
Where in the quiet echoes laugh
In tender afterglow

Sweet, sweet the still
Of mantled brook
Of winter laden
Summer-nook
Of aspen-song
And bloom forsook
Beneath gust-gilded glaze
Sweet, sweet the still of nature’s surge
The emptiness of autumn’s purge
The wonderment of snowflake splurge
Embellishing our gaze

© Janet Martin 

I love getting out on winter mornings to listen to the quiet.
 And yes, it is finally white!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Wild Wind Song



 

When the night falls down
In a dark velvet gown
Crowning earth’s borders
East, west, north and south
I hear the croon
Of a lost afternoon
I taste the salt
Of its tear in my mouth

When the wind moans blue
On midnight’s avenue
Phantom scavenger
Fearless and bold
I hear the lay
Of a sweet summer day
Warm in my memory
Yet to my touch, cold

When the wee house shutters
‘neath dark threats it utters
And love-stitched blankets
Cannot snuff its bluff
I hear the wail
Of a life growing pale
Heavy with things
Which are never enough

When dark night is deep
And the earth is asleep
Save for stark tree-tops
Tormented and tossed
I hear a moan
Echo sad and alone
A wayfarer searching
For years she has lost

© Janet~

Tonight the house shivers and shakes
as the harsh winter wind
howls and rakes 
its talons of steel across the dark
chill and wroth
shrouding the earth in a silver-white cloth...


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

December's Song





It trickles in snowflake abandon
Hovering on the frost-keen air
Gentle yet urgent its anthem
A minuet; Joy versus Despair

It wafts in white, whimsical cadence
Softening in somnolent strain
Rising rhapsody of romance
A rare, reminiscent refrain

From tree-limb’s threadbare vesture
A tender mantra of farewell
Roams through the cold, barren pasture
And moans in the stricken dell

List to the song of the season
Draped in a dazzling shawl
Over life’s reckoning reason
Sweet let its melody fall

List to the hymn of December
Hope, joy and peace falling down
Ballad of love-blended memories
As another year dons its crown

© Janet Martin

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Where are the Songs of Spring?





Where are the songs of Spring; aye, where are they?
The notes that tune the dawn with jubilee
As shrouds of frigid respite melt away
And hope, a shrine renewed startles the lea
While we of dreams and duty part our lips
To drink the sun-warm nectar from a glass
Spilling its passion where the apple-blossom drips
Its fervor to the fresh, innocent grass
But now its naked arm is cold and stark
As day is swallowed early by the dark

Where are the songs of spring; aye where are they?
Muffled it seems by autumn’s drifting dirge
Or buried where the silent willows sway
As winter fills the air with silver splurge
The maestro of spring’s triumphant choir
Is resting now, a bittersweet repose
As we who seek the broken woodland spire
To warm our frozen fingertips and toes
Where choristers arrayed in virgin-white
Stand petrified against the onyx night

Where are the songs of spring; aye, where are they?
Where is that honey-trickle from a spoon
Where sunshine pools on moments now dull gray;
Sweet, golden luster on the afternoon?
Where are the songs of spring; the waking bloom?
The melody of bird and buxom breeze
To fill the earth, a gaunt and ghostly tomb
Of quiet homage to its memories
Ah yes, we know they wait, a calliope
Of splendor sealed as yet on heaven’s slope

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside asks us to take a question asked by a favorite old poet and answer it in our own words. This question is a in a favorite poem of mine by John Keats entitled Ode to Autumn.

Ode to Autumn by J. Keats


SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,        
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease; 
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
  
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
  
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Don't Let Go...



For every up there is a down
For every high there is a low
For every love there is someone
Hold my hand and don’t let go

For every joy, oh there is grief
With every wonder there is woe
For every bud there is a leaf
Hold my hand and don’t let go

For every smile there is a tear
For every tear there is a crown
For every hope there is a fear
For every up there is a down
For every triumph there’s despair
For every gain, something to lose
For every trouble there is prayer
It’s up to you and me to choose
For every high there is a low
Only, only love secures
Hold my hand and don’t let go
Hold my hand and I’ll hold yours

For every night there is a day
For every day a night to rest
For every doubt there is a way
For every better there is best
For every road there is an end
For every yes there is a no
And for each other, there’s a friend
Hold my hand and don’t let go
Oh darling, hold my hand
And
Don’t let go

J~