For Seasoned Love…

Sometimes there's too many thoughts for one poem!

 Anniversary Poem #2

Autumn fell around you

Now winter has found you

And Wisdom has crowned you

With silver-white sheen

The seasons pass quicker

Where sorrows bloom thicker

Than in summer’s flicker

Or spring’s virgin green

Love’s vows still unbroken

So long ago spoken

Worn, joined hands, the token

Of love’s youthful ‘yes’

How precious the measure

Of Beauty’s best treasure

Through both pain and pleasure

Remained faithfulness

Beneath heaven's spillage

And earth's common tillage

And childhood's brief village

We watched as we grew

Where what seemed so natural

We learned, was a humble

And hard-fought example

Of love kind and true

Thank-you, father, mother

For living your Honor

With love for each other

And God; may He bless

You now and forever

May each day together

No matter the weather

Bring true happiness

© Janet Martin

Age-old Hallelujah

It never fails...a bowl-lot 'o work means a whole lotta poem that's gotta get out😆!

Working at a poem I can use for a 55th Anniversary Celebration for my parents!

(Each family needs to bring something to share/read/perform)

I wasn't going to 'bore' them with a poem until one of my sister hinted

 'they're hoping for/counting on one, no pressure'

...that's all the permission I needed to pray for a poem! Thank-you, dear sis!

I really hope God gives me a special one for two of the most loved people in my life!

Oh, now that we are older how we cherish ever more

Life’s kind gift of each other like we never have before

And now that we are older we revere love’s sacred gift

Of circles still unbroken by death’s unrelenting rift

Yes, now that we are older we learn what we thought we knew

And shoulder loads a lot like our parents shouldered too

For now that we are older we feel time’s insistent tug

And sense the holy fellowship in a handshake or hug

We take far less for granted when it comes to love and life

Time grants no guarantee how long we’ll be husband or wife

And when we look behind us Time remind us of our place

So many people so much younger than us giving chase

Sometimes we feel a jig; dance young and frisky in our thought

But then a crick in neck-back-knees reminds us we are not

So we thank God instead for strength and grace to face today

For ‘spirit and truth worship’ to speak what words cannot say

We thank Him for each other and especially Mom and Dad

How He saw fit to bless you/us with these many years you’ve/we've had

For now that we are older we have come to realize

How love that stands the test of time is life’s most treasured prize

How everything we have and had is nothing we possessed

How mercy from a loving God makes possible the rest

Makes possible the un-tethering of olden heartstrings

And weathering the letting go that holding always brings

Yes, now that we are older and our age begins to show

We join the coin of ‘the older we get the less we know…

…and see and hear, my dear, but oh the more we think and pray

And find more to be thankful for with every passing day

And now that we are older how we cherish ever more

Our father and mother like we never have before

© Janet Martin

Sweet Madness

 It seems it's always been like this; when life's must-do Marching Orders goes into over-drive 

so does the pl-e-ease-poem-me machine😝

 I snagged the draft of this one yesterday morning on the shoulder of the road while running errands!

One might think it sweet and easy

To endure a Poet’s heart

But the world can drive Her crazy

With its showcase full of art

One might think it pure procedure

To bleed words that others read

Or to buckle beneath whispers

Begging for ink-jot to breathe

Time weaves footprints hard to follow

Silence can be such a flirt

Hunger, like a heart-shaped hollow

Needing more than fine dessert

Fields may seem bean-leaf a-flutter

She sees yellow butterflies

Brooks never stream with just water

Beware of the night wind's sighs

Far more poetry than paper

Far more touch-and taste than Time

Far-off stares don’t show the caper

Of a Thought tangled in rhyme

One might think it mere mechanics

To arrange plain ABC’s

These semantics by romantics

Simply verse-formalities

One might think it nothing special

To be half-a-poem clad

But a world of poem-petals

Can drive poets sweetly mad

© Janet Martin

Tug of Caught-Between...September

Only five days in but already September starts to spill its spicy hues...

September; marmalade-hued morn

And cinnamon-bronze noon

And sleepy slopes of soybean, corn

And hopes of harvest soon

September; silk of spider’s art

And apple-dappled trees

And tender frames that fill the heart

With fresh-squeezed memories

September; sumac tinged with red

Wild-flowers singed with gold

Earth’s gates unhinged where summer bled

Its hours through our hold

September; garden’s farewell tour

Of gourd and tater heaps

The days are shorter than they were

The cricket never sleeps

September; tug of caught-between

Not fall, yet summer spent

A musky-dusky euphony

Have laughter, half lament

September; doorway to a world

Of pumpkin pie and tart

And gossamer of bud unfurled

Into a work of heart

September; Summer's embers glow

On almost-autumn's eaves

Futile to try to quell the flow

That spins the clock of leaves

Mother Earth kissed by Father Time

Startled by hints of sage

September tastes a bit like lime

A lot like middle-age

© Janet Martin

Gone, Another Sweet-Summer Day

Gone, each low-blow and each highlight

That composes this day’s hymn

Where the gong that tolls the twilight

Slips beneath the westward brim

Gone, another day of summer

Where darkness rolled from the deep

Like a tide of misty murmur

Kissing earth’s eyelids with sleep

Gone, the glory-gift of morning

Gone, the honeyed afternoon

Nothing but echoes adorning

What is pinned with slip of moon

© Janet Martin