Sunday, February 3, 2013

Who Can Explain Love...an edited re-post




Who can explain love?
This thing we give and give
Yet can never give too much of
Or get enough…..

It is not a mere emotion
For emotions rise and fall
While love serves with devotion
Standing faithful through it all

Who can explain this four-letter word?
Leaving us weak, making us strong
Soothing life's tempest, yet evoking
Our deepest passion stirred
In life’s greatest pleasure
And deepest pain
Yet, it seems we love without measure
And it is impossible to love in vain
Though we may love and lose….
We love again

There is none so rich that he does not need it
And none so poor that he cannot have it
Love’s stores are never depleted
Yet useless if we try to save it

In love we hold, kiss and embrace
In love we let go as tears cover our face
In love we leap, in love we fly
In love we live yet daily die

Who can explain love?
This many-splendor-ed desire
Mild as a cooing dove
Wild as a raging fire
Solid as a rock in the ocean
Yet soft as the mist on the sea
Is there any who can explain it?
This splendid mystery

Janet~

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Ephemeral Immortality



Photo: Rushing to see what lies beyond the bend...

We were immortal
You and I
The universal equalizer
Was the alibi
Of those who simply
Let it slip
Youth’s effervescent thread
Would never
Languish in our grip
Yes,
That is what we said

But Time is a great Teacher
Its lessons
Keen and hard
Instructing mortal creature
With blatant
Disregard
For illusions of stubborn pride
Or foolish wantonness
It draws us in an ethereal tide
And bittersweet
Caress

We thought we were immortal
We were wrong
The echo of youth’s fancy-free
A jaded song
For we have joined
The meeker ranks
Of middle-age
Where now we turn
With humble thanks
Each
Gifted page

…but when we were immortal
It was bliss
The lure of life’s eternity
A rousing kiss
Spawning the dream
That taught us how
To fly with blind-faith trust
But now we see
Mortality
Life’s little
Dust to dust

For Time is a wise Teacher
She tutors patiently
Each child; we all are children
In lessons
On her knee
And she does not play favorites
Nor spare one from her touch
As we learn to live, laugh and love
And not
Worry
So much


© Janet Martin

I have another photo I took moments before this one with another story attached to it.

The Luxury of Love



 
 

In my peripheral, I know
You are there
Across the room, my darling
The touch of your eyes
Our half-smile embrace
Is a blissful
And virile undoing
We are not over-drawn paupers
The wealthy have nothing on us
For we have a five-star heavenly-suite
As we bask
In the luxury
Of love

Pockets hold jingle and jangle
Hearts hold the warmth of a smile
With you over there
And me over here
Well, I guess that must do
For a while
But then, while they
Empty their pockets
To garner lust’s gold-gilded glove
Our half-smile will meet
In a kiss tender-sweet
As we bask
In the luxury
Of love

The things that all stuff is made of
Is cold, even gold with its guile
Cannot satisfy
Like the light in your eye
Or the hint in
Your little half-smile
The fortune we hold
Exceeds value
The plunder of greed
We disprove
For it cannot compete
With love’s kiss tender-sweet
As we bask
In the luxury
Of love

© Janet Martin



Of Love and its Distractions




  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matt. 6: 26-27


Why do we choose to fret, or fuss and fume?
Each moment is a capsule we must fill
With our response to living’s good or ill
And we cannot its tendered ilk exhume

Where is the nucleus of our hope?
Is it in transient trust of things we see?
Do we clench in our mouths its vanity
Dissolving like the snow on sun-kissed slope?

What do we love with heart and soul and mind?
The treasures that we touch with hungry eyes
May be the gilded snare to our demise
And when we die we leave it all behind

When we profess the love of God in us
Does He become hope’s full Supremacy?
Or do we turn our trust to things we see
Thence choosing still to fret or fume and fuss

© Janet Martin

Friday, February 1, 2013

Our Utmost Need





For all the things that we could ask
Of Thee, Father above
I pray that each one here below
May have someone to love

Oh Lord, to love and to be loved
Is our utmost need
Things cannot fill what true love will
So Lord, for love I plead

Abundant are life’s blessings, Lord
For which we give Thee thanks
But love and the sweet joy it brings
Fills in life’s wanton blanks

For all the things that we could ask
Of Thee Father above
I pray that there will be no one
Without someone to love

© Janet Martin



Light of Love





Love reaches to the earth
And rends night’s deepest hour
From sepulchers of darkest dark
Comes Morning’s radiant power

Love does not snuff the wick
In mercy's vaulted dome
But lights the dawn with hope and grace
And wonder from His throne

Love does not seal our doom
But flings its gates ajar
Its wonder free to one and all
Love loves us as we are

© Janet Martin

Imagine if one day, the Light was gone...
On a more mundane note: this glorious morning light is revealing dust, spills, fingerprints. Off to do some polishing and scrubbing.

Pondering Love



 

Love
Or the lack thereof
Touches everything
We think
Or say
Or do
Or see
To find it
We must give it
Love loves
Voluntarily
And never stops to tally
Its suffering
Or its cost
And only when we
Please ourselves
Is its wonder lost

© Janet Martin

Love is not a season
but each February
for a little while
We seem to find good reason
To ponder its grand wonder
And smile

It’s that time of year; pondering love.
 Each February I attempt to ponder its wonder. This will be the focus of the next few weeks if mind and Muse co-operate. Tell someone you love them today...and why they are special to you! Don't wait. Tomorrow may be too late. I just told Victoria I love her. I love that she NEVER grumbles and I love how her smile lights up the room. So she says 'look, Mom, and flashes a grin, simultaneously hitting the light switch'. :) Yes, I love her silliness too.

May you have a love-ly day.

Mistral-music





Blow then, oh frigid gale of howling song
Sweep over argent landscapes petrified
Across blue tree-limbs splayed upon the lawn
Cajole the winter-stricken countryside
Unleash your silver gusto; evergreen
Bows low beneath the tempo of your tune
And over all the earth a gilded sheen
Rivals the opulence of emerald June
Blow then, for every season has its day
A splash, a dash and then it drifts away

The deluge of your gripping overture
Though startling in it raw, ruthless release
Depletes its stores of winter-white verdure
The world is tranquil in snow-muffled peace
The kiss of Father Time is not reserved
For flesh and blood; seasons succumb beneath
His touch; the remnant of its mien preserved
In memories of alabaster sheath
Thus we do not despise your vulgar thrust
For soon your venom dies; dust unto dust

Tonight your song lunges against the sill
It moans outside the door, a lonesome wail
Oh, I would let you in but for your chill
So you remain, a wild and wandering gale
With renewed passion you employ your wrath
And we are at the mercy of its lay
Beneath your shroud the brook and garden-path
Wait patiently for Spring’s imminent day
Then fling your melody into the air
You are the harbinger of breezes fair

© Janet Martin 

Tonight the song rises and falls, from flurry to calm.

Song for a Winter's Night -Gordon Lightfoot 
 J~