Showing posts with label winter poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter poem. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Mid-winter Memento



Inspired by today's true story...๐Ÿ˜Š

 






planned to tend to Task-demand
But then a sea of snowflakes fell
It drew me to the hill and dell
To revel in its wonderland

…where nature’s winter-wand unfurled
Masterpiece over masterpiece
Teasels with toques of frosted fleece
And whipped cream snow drifts, swirled and twirled

Each tree, a pencil sketch, I think
Stenciled and traced with white finesse
White whispers of white happiness
Rouse a reverent rush of ink

…as brook-nooks that no chill can snare
Compose somber half-ballads, oh
Its tempo, curtailed by the snow
Evokes a eulogy-like air

Where in the wood I stood, full-awed
Unfazed by Tasks I should attend
To marvel, where earth's pages bend
Beneath the poetry of God  


© Janet Martin















Thursday, January 26, 2023

The Wonderworld of 'Will' or The Best of 'This'

Oh, the wonders of tomorrow...
Little grand-daughter sighed with ecstasy  as she relived
 a euphoric plethora of summer memories
 while peering through winter's window...toward spring!


Tomorrow will soon be today's challenges and joys
Tomorrow will soon steal today's girls and boys
Tomorrow will change (for better or worse) what Today still is
Tomorrow is a world away; let's make the best of This



'Grandma, why did you tape the door shut?', questioned grand-daughter the other day.
"Because it's not very tight", I replied "and we need to keep the shivery wind outside!
But, one warm, wonderful sunny day Gramma will take the tape off!
We will open the door and set the rocking chair and flowers
 back on the deck and have tea out there
and read books and have campfire suppers!
 Won't that be a happy day?!!"
And grand-daughters eyes sparkled with heaven-like anticipation as she sighed,
'ye-e-eth!! and aunty Mel will be here too, right?'
' Oh, I hope so,' was all gramma could promise๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ’–

I've always believed anticipation is one of life's purest pleasures,
but let's not miss what is while we dream, right?!





Someday porch flowerpots will brim with pretty petal-plumes
The wooly-white woodland will ring with reawakened tunes
The meadow will be like a green-spun picnic blanket spread
Beneath a canopy of sun-kissed blue skies overhead

The barren branch will burgeon with hues of replenished shade
The gale will gentle its halloos into a serenade
Raindrop-waltzes will wash the world and rouse earth from its sleep
And windows will not frame counterpanes unfurled, white and deep

New beginnings will flower and blossoms will deck the grass
Dreamland’s barred gate will lower and beckon us to trespass
The quiet interlude between harvest and Planting Must
Will turn into a bustling scene of machine-startled dust

The clock will feast on a buffet of quickened hour-chime
Hearthside evenings borne away until next winter-time
And we will taste spring’s cheeriness that waits within our thought
And we will wear the weariness we had somehow forgot

And we will wonder at the way each season swiftly spills
While hunger scavenges hope’s tray that each new day refills
And we will bow our head in thanks to mortal’s gracious God
Where we will soon join silenced ranks in earth’s grave-stippled sod

The wonderworld of 'will' is filled with what yet waits to be
With tears and laughter not yet spilled into a memory
But, lest we miss the best of This that will fill yesteryears
Let's make the most of what yet is before it disappears 

© Janet Martin


Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, 
until you return to the ground--because out of it were you taken. 
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

Eccles.12:7
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
 And the spirit will return to God who gave it.



Thursday, January 19, 2023

Keeping 'Good Old Days' Alive...

It's another buses-cancelled day so no kiddos for childcare...
Leaving some extra opportunity to practice what I poem ๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ’•


Pour a second cup, dark umber




Because I start and finish with the same stanza
 this poem can be read from the top down 
or bottom up!

Put a kettle on to simmer
Watch flame-dancers twist and jive
Let the simple joys of winter
Keep the good, old days alive

Ease the angst of hurried lunch-breaks
Like a sabbath middle-day
Count the stars that fall in snowflakes
Wake the child that lost its way

Watch the birds without vain fretting
About what we cannot know
He who feeds sparrows is setting
Tomorrow’s ducks in a row

Let prudence and leisure mingle
Home-sweet-domesticity
While chores, books and gales rekindle
Good old days waiting to be

Pour a second cup, dark umber
It is winter. Sit and nod
Sweat and toil of summer slumber
Aching feet rest, slipper-shod

Taste a bit ‘o Brit tradition
Have a biscuit with your tea
Sometimes happiness is hidden
In plain-sight-simplicity

Let nature nourish and gladden
Gather barren branch bouquets
Plant a bowl-sized indoor garden
Let winter thrill and amaze

Make music with moment measure
Shake a fist at sparrow-hawk
Practice culinary pleasure
Do not haste the hungry clock

Crosswords, puzzles, scrabble, kittens
Paint a pic with poem-ink
Don a parka, hat and mittens
Let frost kisses turn cheeks pink

Savor winter’s favors slowly
Let its flavors steep each sense
With thanksgiving, meek and holy
Drink in argent ambience

Put a kettle on to simmer
Watch flame-dancers twist and jive
Let the simple joys of winter
Keep the good, old days alive


© Janet Martin





Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Let's Take a Winter Stroll

 The photos present a condensed version of today's poem๐Ÿ˜Š






(most of the brook is frozen but
here and there its song bursts through! Delightful.)










Let’s stroll beneath the blue-sky wraith that draws us to applaud
And scale hope’s slopes not veiled by faith to touch the hand of God
Let’s consider the lilies clad in winter-white array
And sing as glorious throbs of gladness carry cares away

Let’s linger in a theater of hill and dell and tree
To watch the brook meander on its journey to the sea
Let’s keep a careful distance from the clock’s determined mien
That steals with plum persistence into shadows long and lean

Let’s pay closer attention to masterpiece-laden trays
Where inept comprehension staggers beneath breathless gaze
Let’s weigh the weightless treasure of Now’s equilibrium
Stunned by the mighty measure of Moment’s momentous sum

Let’s wonder at suggestions of what eye has never seen
And ramble through reflections of summer’s unraveled green
Let’s trace gracious caresses that evoke a hymn so pure
From frosted fronds and tresses etched on bottomless azure

Let’s find a sabbath feeling stealing through want’s workaday
Holy, holy, the healing where nature’s orchestras play
Let’s listen to the rise and fall of fallow wind-strummed span
Until we grow so very small and utter ‘what is man’

Let’s look beyond the obstacles that mar our every days
And marvel at the miracles that preach, teach and amaze
Let’s bear love’s yoke of broken hurt with footsteps worship-shod
And scale hope’s frozen slopes of dirt to glimpse the face of God

© Janet Martin

Psalm 8

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have [b]ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
4 What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit[c] him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than [d]the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!



Sunday, November 20, 2022

Winter Happiness

 



In case we still had doubts as to whether winter was really here,
last night and this morning cleared up any lingering confusion๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿ’“!




The crunch of leaves beneath our feet are blanketed with snow
As all along the silent street our muffled footsteps go

Where, fast asleep beneath a starred duvet of eiderdown
Earth looks like a vintage postcard of countryside and town

…where good old days and good old ways suddenly reappear
In tea kettles and hearths ablaze with home-sweet, home-spun cheer

…while every rooftop, post and plume are swaddled in a muff
That tumbles from a lofty loom threaded with frosty fluff

While every nose turns rosy-red while the whole world turns white
And earth becomes a featherbed much to each child’s delight

…where they, as happy as can be with eyes and cheeks aglow
Stir us to recall tenderly, childhoods of long ago

As shouts of joy and starry gaze for winter’s first snow fall
Suddenly make these ‘modern days’ not seem modern at all

Rekindling good, old-fashioned mirth as we walk hand in hand
Through snowflakes transforming the earth to winter’s wonderland

Where the first flurry of the year regardless of its chill
Wakens in us the warmth and cheer of old fashioned good will

...and good, old-fashioned thankfulness for good, old-fashioned joys
Of good old-fashioned happiness of winter's girls and boys  

© Janet Martin



Saturday, February 19, 2022

Till Arbors Drip With Petal Plumes...



So many, in spite of a blizzard
do not have the luxury of being 'snowed in'.
Although a lot of snowplows are temporarily parked 
I did see one go past our house a little while ago...
rephrase-
I heard it. It was so white I couldn't see it!!
Thank-you to all the winter-heroes!

...and here? 
Well, it looks like a day of unrushed ink, 
coffee pot refills
a little oven lovin'...
birdie-watching
fire tending
and counting our blessings!

(don't you just love the word 'unrushed'๐Ÿ’)



When arbors drip with petal-plumes
When flowers frill earth’s living rooms
And gardens bob with breeze-kissed blooms
And bird trill fills the dawn
When landscapes white and silver-blue
Dazzle with diamonds made of dew
And green in every sheen and hue
We’ll know winter is gone

When woodlands shed their hoary locks
And robins strut in yellow socks
And brooks curl around glossy rocks
And dandelions beam
When hearths are dark and cold and bare
When days are bright and warm and fair
And we feel younger than we were
In winter’s summer-dream

Then we will look back and recall
The sweet-spent pieces of it all
The way intricate shadows fall
From The Painter’s brush
How chubby juncos thrill us so
How chickadees flit to and fro
The hieroglyphics carved in snow
Plush, pillow-billowed hush

Cheeks glowing with wind-kissed remains
The lure of fluffy fields and lanes
White-stucco woods and windowpanes
Snow-angels on the lawn
A slower-savored cup of tea
With old poets for company
And as far as the eye can see
Time tucked in featherdown

Landscape scenes framed in frosted matte
Snowman, suave in a black top hat
Bird-feeder drama tit-for-tat
Nature’s pure innocence
Beneath our feet the creak of cold
Above us, vaults of snowflake-gold
And all around the boundless mold
Of ageless resplendence

The creek asleep beneath a quilt
Of sequins, stars and glitter-gilt
The way the wind chases the silk
Of a lost bridal veil
The spartan art of barren tree
Naked, yet cloaked in modesty
The way the Artist helps us see
Each beautiful detail

…a paradise of unrushed ink
Where poets dare to sit and think
Perched on an intangible brink
Of Poem not get penned
Rousing rush of adrenaline
*When blizzards snow us snugly in
With our beloved kith and kin
And ink and paper friend

Let’s try to not want what is not
Where time grants treasures soon forgot
Beneath tick-tock’s tittle and jot
Each little day is drawn
Till arbors drip with petal-plumes
Till flowers frill earth’s living rooms
And gardens bob with breeze-kissed blooms
Because winter is gone

© Janet Martin

*Jim is just leaving the yard and hoping to make it home safely
then that line in the poem will be complete
๐Ÿ™๐Ÿ’–
(He just pulled in!)



Psalm 147:15-18

He sends his command to the earth;

his word runs swiftly.

16He spreads the snow like wool

and scatters the frost like ashes.

17He hurls down his hail like pebbles.

Who can withstand his icy blast?

18He sends his word and melts them;

he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.

๐Ÿ’“





Thursday, February 3, 2022

A Someday Song


I didn't get a picture of Victoria's car stuck. So stuck.
because we were busy shoveling, shoving, etc to no avail till
my brother came to help!
The bright side...
I simply could not come up with a third-last line for this poem
till then๐Ÿ˜…


On a regular basis tot asks for 'window up?'

...remembering the good old days of no snow

Sometimes they ask for picnics outside and I say someday...

Someday we’ll fling our windows wide
And let the glorious outdoors in
The wind will warm the countryside
Where we will all be starry-eyed
To see another spring begin

Someday we’ll take our tea outdoors
And set a table in the yard
Neath leaf-laced limb, on green grass floors
While robins sing and sunshine pours
Like scenes on a vintage postcard

Someday without a second thought
We will not need the time it takes
To bundle up each toppling tot
No missing mitten to be sought
No floor dotted with snow-melt lakes

Someday no knee-deep white on white
No breath-clouds on the chill-sharp air
No field and garden tucked in tight
Beneath a blanket of starlight
No icy walkways to beware

Someday we’ll lie with eyes half-shut
On banks beside the brimming brook
No more shov’ling ‘cause car-is-stuck
For winter will be nothing but
A picture in a storybook

© Janet Martin