Making Doughnuts and Memories

I wonder, he says

As he dangles the dough

Heavily in the air

Letting it land ungracefully

Like a selfish prayer,

I wonder if I promised to give him

Pizza for life,

For free

If Dad would allow me to be a baker

Instead of what I was going to be

…and I turn to gaze at this not-quite-a-man child

With a sudden wave of yearning

Life lies before him, a wide-open field

Ripe with lure of learning

Smiling and coaxing the dreamer to dream

Merrily splashing in life’s endless stream

Not yet restrained by the tempered truth

That experience withholds from tender youth

I turn off the doom-and-gloom news story

Saying, ‘son, you can be anything you want to be’

© Janet Martin

I told Emily that I'm trying to see the beauty of dough floating on grease...the pay-off was in the moans and sighs of bliss as they tasted the fruit of their labor...one of them said they didn't know anything could taste this good!:) Victoria reminded me that treats are those things you don't do very often...that's what makes it a treat!

Doughnut Recipe

Irreplacable

 

I tried to find another word

To tell you how I feel

One not so common, often heard

Yet still honest and real

I tried to find a word to spell

The oceans in my heart

And hurricanes within the knell

Of parting’s priceless art

But when I weighed your soft-half grin

The barracks where you let me in

The half-breath longing in your sigh

Wonder that dwarfs time’s little sky

The second look and second mile

Forgiveness uttered in a smile

Something so old yet ever new

Compelling us to remain true

Then, when I tried to compensate

With lesser words something so great

I failed for one cannot improve

The fathoms spelled in this word: Love

© Janet Martin

There is no other way
to properly say,
'I love you'.

Anew...Thoughts of a Mother

 

Stunned anew

By the staggering wonder

And boundless proportions of love

She could not relinquish them

But for the knowing

That Love intercedes from above

Awed anew

By the tenure of heart-strings

Tender, yet potent and strong

Binding the love

Of mother’s and children

Wherever life leads them along

Buoyed anew

By the breath of a whisper

Brushing the ache in her soul

Love reassures

With gentle reminder

That He is in faithful control

© Janet Martin

I cannot imagine the 'letting go' as mother's send their sons/daughters to war...just now as my daughter said, 'bye mom, I'm leaving for work now' the breath went out of me in sudden wonder-rush of love.

Mercy-song...a Rubáiyát

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt  The Rubáiyát

The music of life’s fervent flow

Is bittersweet; now swift, now slow

The rise and fall of centuries

Surging, to melt like streams of snow

Hail, moment-tear, why do you rush

To tune the sphere of midnight’s hush?

I pause to hear your subtle sigh

Sparkle on daybreak’s dew-drenched brush

The virgin gleam of morning-spire

Throbs, a requiem of new desire

Replenishing our flagging vim

In cadences from heaven’s choir

Ah, agony of moment-mirth

Of shadows spilling on dusk’s girth

Where soon the dawn provokes the dark

And splashes grace across the earth

We lift our cups up, brave and high

To taste life’s honey from the sky

For soon its dripping melody

Will sweep in languid lullaby

The music of life’s second chance

Inspires us to dream and dance

Forsaking yesterday’s lament

To revel in hope’s moment-glance

Mercy and grace do not keep score

Kissing our failures through Time’s door

They tune their harps with renewed zest

And beckon us to sing once more

© Janet Martin

Snow Queen

Pastel silk scarves

Dangle somewhere

In dressing-rooms aloft

I wonder,

Does she pine to wear

Its ribbons, smooth and soft?

Her frozen crystal-

Gilded sash

Presses against her skin

It seems that she

Cannot unveil

Her colors sealed within

She cannot choose

A petal-gown

Of lavender and green

For now she bears

The weighted crown

Reserved for her; Snow Queen

© Janet Martin

Buses are cancelled. It looks as though we are going to attempt doughnut-making today. I promised Matthew and Victoria that on the next snow-day we will make home-made donuts. Matthew was astonished one day last week when I told him it is possible to make donuts. He wants to see how it works, so wish us luck. I have not deep-fried dough in years!

Of Hallmarks and Honor

No one but God beholds the field

Where our keen wars are fought

The clash of wrong and right concealed

On battlegrounds of thought

No fellow-soldier cheers us on

Though skirmishes are rough

Our battle is beheld by One

And yet, that is enough

The aftermath of mind-fought wars

Tenders its casualties

Into the crypt of Time before

Immortal victories

No pennants of fair fame applaud

Our fetes fervid and grand

Thought-valor is beheld by God

Our trophy in His hand

For none but He beholds the plain

Where conflicts wage and groan

As demon-enemies are slain

And armies overthrown

The medal of thought-honor gleams

Not from podium or shelf

But as our kind Captain esteems

The battle-ground of self

© Janet Martin

Thank-you Cynthia, for the Old Rugged Cross coaster.

Like Sand-castles

You slip away

Like sand-castles

Beneath my skin

Falling pray

To the surge

Of an ocean

Within

But now and then

In sudden

Ecstasy

I find the place

Where once you

Used to

Be

The rippling rush

Sweeping Time’s

Rampart

Can never wash

Your whisper

From my

Heart

J~

February Night Storm

He is not playful tonight; darkness reels

His venom pelts fiercely, glazing windowpanes

The silver-tipped reed of full-moon appeal

Shudders beneath his tempestuous refrains

No corner is spared of his seething rage

Growling he ravages, savage and grim

Like a hungry beast released from his cage

He lunges, snarling at the stark, naked limb

Spilling his scathing ice-shard repertoire

Enhancing the comfort of kind, kindled fire

Fly, little bird, to your hole in the tree

Hop, little bunny to thickets and brush

We will not challenge his cold mutiny

Stripping the fell of its calm, full-moon hush

Rock-a-bye girlie and sleep little man

This cold scavenger cannot reach your cot

Pull up those covers as snug as you can

Dream of sand-castles and for-get-me-not

For somewhere beneath earth’s frozen facade

Trembles the surge of spring’s bloom-dappled sod

Then let him vent, howling outside the door

Splattering dregs of his fury, snow-spun

Though now they humor his bold, burlesque roar

Soon they will melt in the kiss of the sun

Rattle the sashes and whimpering trees

Spew frozen threats from your blue-puckered mouth

Oh, harbinger of fragrant, buxom breeze

You cannot conquer the streams from the south

Somewhere the bondage of spring’s petal-fray

Will softly unravel and nudge you away

© Janet Martin

The windows are glazed in his temperamental dally between snow and rain.

It will be snow by morning. I can sleep now:) I wrote this while I was waiting for my daughter to get home from work. She arrived, (midnight) very happy to be here, the roads are heavy with the snow that fell before the rain/snow mix. The fire crackles, the wood-pile is replenished, we are warm and have so much to be thankful for. I pray everyone is warm, safe and dry tonight.

Goodnight.

  

Friend or Foe

If you look to pin-point my faults and flaws

You will find quite a few, I fear

But if you are looking my way because

You want a friend, I am here

***

The critical eye is greedy and cruel

Preying on weakness and dirt

He fills his plate with envy and hate

And a scoop of gossip for dessert

***

Love knows we are not perfect

Yet is willing to suffer a bit

To get to the flower, it suffers our thorns

And love’s us in spite of it

***

Life has a myriad of things it will send

But none takes the place of a really good friend

***

A really good friend is life’s most cherished gift   

When burdens grow heavy friends give us a lift

They know without asking what they need to do

Life’s burdens are lighter when carried by two

***

I do not ask for wealth of gold

But simply this, a hand to hold

And when I come to this life’s end

I’d like to know I was a friend

© Janet Martin

Morning Prayer

Lord, let me look

Not into the morrow

Straining to suffer

A shadow of naught

Sufficient this day

Is its joy and sorrow

Life’s benevolence

Tenderly wrought

Lord, let me seek

Not tomorrow’s treasure

Of provision, strength

But oh Lord, I pray

Open my eyes

To love’s moment-measure

And render to me

What I need today

Lord, let me trust

Not buckling beneath

Burdens of worry

Trouble and despair

But Lord, let me journey

One foot then the other

Content in the moment

Because You are there

© Janet Martin

It's a Beautiful Life

The ebbing and flowing of night-morning brings

Mistrals of change wielding Time’s subtle knife

Carving the familiar with new-normal things

But still, it’s a beautiful life

Heart-fringes grow ragged, tenderly tuned

To ripples disguised in life’s surface-borne strife

Keening awareness of moment-drops spooned

Into the cup of a beautiful life

Babies reach, rush to an unformed allure

Soon son or daughter becomes husband, wife

Discovering in time love’s fierce tug-of-war

Shaping this beautiful life

Spring, summer, autumn to winter once more

Moments spill potent and ruthless and rife

Life-song of heart-throbs bleeding on vague shores

Silver-soft echo of a beautiful life

The rising and falling of Time’s gavel brings

Heart-wrenching changes beneath its grim knife

But still in the discourse of its sufferings

Oh, it’s a beautiful life

© Janet Martin

 Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it. Prov. 12:25

Let's cover this day

Layer over layer

With the rarest refrains ever heard

Let's spill on its gray

The tender-sweet showers

Of beautiful, kind, loving words

On some days we need to look a little harder, but its there; The Beauty.

Dreaming of Spring

And now we lean to that invisible scrim

Whispering thoughts of sweet sun-flavored things

Fingering visions of pastel-petal limb

As we begin dreaming of spring

Crocus, hyacinth, tulip, daffodil

Dapple our daydreams with glad offering

Arabesque zephyrs infuse the chilled rill

As we begin dreaming of spring

Wee girls in sun dresses and boys in bare feet

Stir in our smiles tender reminiscing

As swift-surging hours silent circuits repeat

And we begin dreaming of spring

Dawn spills its puddles of pink on the snow

Soon we will hear its music splashing

In rain-drop eight-notes where now grim gales blow

As we begin dreaming of spring

© Janet Martin

We are under another big-storm watch...

On Life, Legacies , Writing and Reckoning

The chapters that by day we write

Are soon over-taken by night

Against the crimson of the west

Its toil and spoil is laid to rest

Yet in the cascade of an hour

We plant the seed of weed or flower

The by and by of which we speak

Brushes its kiss upon our cheek

Perceptions of its distant day

Hover, a soft half-breath away

Where choice and freedom bears its yield

As fruits of our loves are revealed

Beneath the discourse of the sun

Another little day is done

Its ebb and flowing melody

Draws us toward eternity

And we do well to keep in mind

The legacy we leave behind

The fulcrum of this little life

Though riddled now with blood-shed strife

Leads us into unfathomed deeps

Where this ephemeral body sleeps

The soul is not restrained by sod

But journeys on to meet with God

© Janet Martin

While we were admiring the sunset, the traffic suddenly came to an abrupt halt! we realized how swiftly one can be here, then gone through the sunset to the Great Beyond. Thankfully, there were no bent bumpers and everyone was wearing their seat-belts.

Three Sonnets on Love

How nearly, dearly, joy and grief align

Mystic alloy of pain and ecstasy

A synchronized employment, pure, divine

Love; comfort and heart-wrenching agony

The droids of lust will never know its kiss

Infatuation cannot grasp its role

Of fingertips evoking static-bliss

While rending deep the crypts of heart and soul

And oft, we soldiers of languid lament

Are startled by its potent catalyst

Candid compulsion of unrivaled strength

A hurricane born from the purple mist

Gently and graciously patience extols

Love’s miracle of fingertips and souls

***

Love, wherefore art thou free to all and yet

We choose to spurn your pearl for painted dirt?

Self is master of ‘forgive but not forget’

Clinging to shards of misgiving and hurt

Love; nothing exceeds your hierarchy

Though lesser ranks may seek to dethrone you

You never fail; we fail you brazenly

But you remain faultless to see us through

The echelons of mortal-might deflate

Our vengeful scrimmages of trodden dust

Grow weary; the craftsmen of cruel hate

Will never satisfy the lords of lust

But Love, in spite of promises of pain

Inspires us to love and love again

***

Love’s tender truth drifts on Time’s moment-tide

Evoking thoughts of wordless wonderment

The windswept centuries all have relied

On thee, oh Love of God-breathed filament

As tarnished evidences testify

That love and only love will never fail

And yet its quiet witness we defy

To test anew its gracious, Holy Grail

Oh Love, you whisper while the demons scream

And comfort even in your mourning hour

Your song, a soft and bittersweet requiem

Blood-notes of rare, redeeming pow’r

Oh love, how keen the kindness you extol

Redemption’s kiss reaches within the soul

© Janet Martin

 Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?

Kahlil Gibran  on Joy and Sorrow

The Law of Love

Sometimes it’s easy to bear and decipher

Love’s laws perplexing the mind

But sometimes it’s hard, oh, so hard to remember

That love suffers long, and is kind

That nature of mortal is not geared to hunger

Or search for discomforts to find

The nature of love is unlike any other

For love suffers long and is kind

We do not love for selfish indulgence

Such love is sensual and blind

True love forgives and does not keep a record

Yes, love suffers long and is kind

The recompense of its mind-boggling mystery

Is not casually learned or defined

But repeats this truth , as proven through history

Love suffers long and is kind

© Janet Martin

Unbroken (a Wedding Poem)

How long this oath? We do not know

When death this troth shall sever

From this day forth, but this we know

In life it is forever

What God has joined no flesh can part

Or draw its bonds asunder

Husband and wife, joined hand and heart

Pure, immaculate wonder

For better, worse, in sickness, health

To reverence, honor, cherish

To keep these vows above all else

And never let love perish

For love is life’s most sacred trust

Its charge, faithful and tender

To always put the other first

Proving its holy splendor

From this day forth and for all life

This pledge will be a token

Of love forever; husband, wife

Until death parts, unbroken

© Janet Martin

February Fantasies

It would be fine to wander and squander

A dew-drenched, daisy-strewn dazzling new day

And fritter the glitter of freshly-strung moments

Into the nonchalant meadows of May

It would be grand to guilt-freely amble

Through giddy violet-for-get-me-not dell

Heedless of hours wielding a grim gavel

Over the vagrant and fragrant spring swell

It would be splendid to soak in sun-puddles

Teased by the zephyr of sassy-sweet mouth

Splashed with potion wrought by April’s ocean

Dancing with vagabond winds from the south

It would be sweet to languish in bare feet

Appeasing and pleasing thought’s wanderlust

With treasure of pleasure in middle-May measure

Teasing our traipsing through daydreams of dust

It would be thrilling if moments were willing

To pause in the spilling of green-golden-blue flow

To dangle in spangles of spring-ribbon tangles

Or float on the froth of pink-apple-bloom snow

Somewhere the splendor of buds, buxom, tender

Startles the drifter on his footloose way

We cannot hurry winter’s fretting flurry

Every February must have its day

© Janet Martin

Travail of a Poem...a sonnet

 

When your hour comes there’s an ache surreal

Where thought cannot quell the urge you beseech

Grasping at whispers just beyond my reach

I close my eyes, leaning to your appeal

As unformed longing groans, moans for release

Borne on a surge of pleading mystery

Pain, pleasure and purpose blend intimately

Stoking a measure of formless increase

For your invocation of throbbing travail

Rushes in torrents through bulwarks of flesh

Testing heart-levees, boldly you enmesh

Your ethereal murmurs beneath skin’s frail veil

I tremble for, pray, who am I to spell

The poem to shape your relentless swell?

Somewhere within wanton fathoms converge

The startling summons of consonants lash

Nature of mortal and immortal clash

Yet who would rally to stifle the surge

Of word that is willing to be much more

And hope that is yearning to spill in rhyme?

I cannot argue with trifles like Time

Where oceans of unwoven lines implore

Man is not born to appease his own want

Or drift like a bateau without port or goal

Though lackadaisical havens may taunt

We are the vessels that harbor a soul

Earnestly then, we bend into the gale

Trusting the Hand on our helm to prevail

The fruit of our toil is more dear and sweet

When we have endured its labor and fear

What is life’s spoil but a day or a year?

A pulse of moments that never repeat

Humbly we bow, not because we are weak

But because in weakness Love intercedes

Succoring mortal and immortal needs

The pen would fall like a tear on the cheek

Save for the comfort that somewhere, somehow

Far down the age its extolment remains

To smile to the one who thirsts for the rains

Found in the ink-drops that earnestly flow

Shaping the whispers of comfort and Home

Wrapped in the tender-sweet arms of a poem

© Janet Martin

It's no use...one cannot fight the urge of a poem:)

Winter Thaw (an edited re-post)

No gold complexion
warms the table
Only gray
 Its modest pall

cloaks the dawn

 as wind-song

falls away

 and through staid trees
tear- melodies
splatter the face of earth  

as she swallows 

drab snow-flake seas
in her gracious mouth
Gripping winds recoil and ponder
This dashing, splashing
gray array

surging from earth's south-east corner
perplexing winter's 

Stiff foray

Janet~

Planting Miracles

Inspired by the Image Source here; Check it out to see a whole lot of Miracles!

We do not see

The breadth of its reaches

Or witness the fullness

Of immortal sod

But each deed of love

Is a seed in its garden

The bud of a miracle

Tended by God

© Janet Martin

Of Wishes...

 

I wish I could spill on paper

All those thoughts I cannot tell

In one tiny little lifetime

Full of love and longing’s swell

I wish I could gather on it

All those pieces of my heart

Shattered, scattered on lost moments

In fragmented, broken art

I wish I could find the ocean

That has claimed those quiet tears

Of love’s bittersweet emotion

Shed in secret through life’s years

I wish I could show you, darling

Love's rare intangible fray

What a little leap of lifetime

Never tells me how to say

© Janet Martin

Twilight Rhapsody

 

Beneath his moody murmur and caress

Softly she comes surrendering her lilt

Of azure glance and golden sun-flecked dress

To lie where cobalt shadow-song is spilt

All day he waited as her overture

Wove mystery to history; but now

He drapes his crushing longing over her

And smooths life’s ruthless laugh-lines from her brow

Out past the fields where tree-tops touch the sky

The vesper croons its burnished lullaby

The wheel from which her gossamer is spun

Replenishes its thread with somber hues

The filament of moments in the sun

Deepens to shrouds of midnight-tinted blues

Yet, he does not excuse his solemn trance

But softly wraps her in his muted hush

He gathers her into a gentle dance

Kissing her wantonness; horizons blush

As on the fringe of yesterday and dawn

A molten glow erupts; then it is gone

Beneath the vault where love and life unfold

She lays aside her tattered, tear-stained gown

Relinquishing her being to his hold

How tenderly he watches her lie down

The hour of her gallantries subside

Within the candor of his raw embrace

Somewhere the fringe of earth and sky collide

But darkness spills its sigh across her face

And now against his brawny chest she sleeps

He strums the air as star-song fills the deeps

© Janet Martin

Those 'What-if' Bullies

 Image Source

The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet and tender bliss

Unless we stray and tread the path

Of monster-shaped, ruthless ‘what-ifs’

The what-ifs’ lunge and jeer and leer

Leaping from unexpected dips

A bully-whisper in our ear

Quenching the laughter on our lips

Oh, we do well to guard our thought

Forbidding it to wander where

These demons wait to mutilate

Our hope with visions of despair

And in thought’s quiet solitude

When what-ifs threaten their torment

How sweet to know that God is good

We walk in moments He has sent

The what-ifs that will come to be

Must first pass through His hands above

To dwell in ‘what-if’ misery

Is thus to doubt His faithful love

The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet, tranquil retreat

If we surrender what is not

And place our ‘what-ifs’ at Love’s feet

© Janet Martin

 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isa. 41:10

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Deut. 31:6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. Prov. 3: 5-6

The In-betweens

Darling, when I am missing you

And there is nothing I can do

To push the minutes from the hour

Or rush the bud to spill its flow’r

Or pluck from far cloud-studded sea

The wonderment of what will be

Then darling, I embrace the sheen

Of moments in the in-between

Moments and hours disappear

How soon they shape another year

The echo of its memories

Soft ripples on thought’s phantom seas

I kiss your whisper in the air

Climbing time’s ephemeral stair

To what will be from what has been

Riveting these hours in between

And in this in between I know

That soon its transient scene, like snow

Will melt into the distant blue

So darling, when I’m missing you

I do not haste the brooding clock

Or chase life’s moments down the walk

But tenderly embrace the keen

And fleeting space of  'in between'

© Janet Martin