If It's Not Love

They tell me you can take a trip around the world
By looking deep into your sparkling eyes
But I am no longer just a girl
And there’s one thing I’ve come to realize….

There’s something called temptation
There is lust, infatuation
There is romance and a dreamy fantasy
There is fire and there is passion
There is fond and warm affection
But if it’s not love
It will never be
Enough for me

It’s easy to love in a stirring melody
Dancing on a dream of silver-grey
But love is not fleeting intimacy
Dying when the music fades away

There is longing, there’s desire
There is instant raging fire
There is yearning for a rapturous ecstasy
There is sentimental feeling
There’s the urge that leaves you reeling
But if it’s not love
It will never be
Enough for me

Love keeps giving even through the hurting
Love keeps dancing even through the pain
Love is faithful, love is not deserting
Love endures the sunshine and the rain

There is honor, there is treasure
Past the momentary pleasure
There’s determination and there’s loyalty
There is kind, tender compassion
Even when it’s not in fashion
But if it’s love
It will always be
Enough for me

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Song of the Night

It drifts down the hill-side
A melancholy tune
Sung by the stars
And the man in the moon
It ripples the fields of silver grass
Nature’s piano and it’s first-class
I hear its soft strain
In the breeze that sighs
A soulful refrain
Trickling ‘cross the skies
It moans in the alley
And the deserted street
Weeps in the valley
Aching in each heart-beat
A silent symphony
Permeating the air
Resonating deeply
In the heart of despair
The music fades
Like a sigh in the wind
And I beg of the night
Won’t you play it again?

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

You Still Do

I wasn’t expecting you
To sweep me off my feet
I didn’t know the color blue
Could melt flesh and blood
But when you looked at me that way
The earth trembled, and I knew
You could light a fire in me
And darling, you still do

I wasn’t expecting you
To move across the floor
And wrap me in your gaze so blue
As we danced through love’s door
But before our fingers met
Deep inside I knew
In your hand you held my heart
And darling, you still do

I wasn’t expecting you
As laughter turned to tears
And sorrow breathed upon the hearth
Of tender, fleeting years
I wasn’t expecting you to be
The one who still would move
The trembling earth beneath my feet
But darling, you still do

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

It Is What It Is......

It cannot be altered, or ever returned to
We cannot retrace a single foot-print
Nor can we erase one jot or one brush-stroke
Written forever in eternal ink
An invisible gallery of unchangeable memories
An echo down a long darkened corridor
Where only our thoughts will ever gain entrance
To view all the paintings on the walls and the floor

It is a teacher and it is a preacher
It is the hand with an iron fist
It is the voice of the fruit of our choice
It is the room where first we were kissed
It is a dungeon and it is a meadow
The floor where our tears and our laughter are cast
It is a mirror through which we see clearer
It is what it is, it is the past

All rights reserved
Janet Martin

Heartbreak

As silent and stunningly splendid
As lightning in the sky
Soundless, it’s surrender
As a falling butter-fly
Or the silent breath of midnight dew
Which crowns each blade of grass
Reflected in a ruby hue
It shatters, like phantom glass
But no one takes a picture
Or stands in wordless awe
To behold in riveting horror
The carnage of a heart in love

All Rights Reserved
Janet Martin

Meet Me There

If the breeze is perfumed with lilac and violet

If the music is an orchestra in the west

If the cushion I sit on is grass soft as velvet

Meet me there, on the porch I love best

My porch may be high on a hill ‘neath a willow

Or down in the valley in a fern-laced berth

It may be a stump in the heart of a forest

Meet me there, tis heaven on earth

The silence is broken perhaps by the whisper

Of a soft breeze sighing in the pines

The filtered sunlight creates mystic shadows

Dancing to the music of nature’s design

Meet me there for a one hour vacation

Where the air is pure as heaven’s breath

Meet me there in the heart of creation

Meet me on this porch, God’s heaven on earth

All Rights Reserved

Janet Martin