Of Being a Mother

• April's final PAD challenge; Two-for-two Tuesday
• Write a finished poem.
• Write a never finished poem.

It's the unendingness of it all that is staggering
Burden and beauty tenderly entwine
Soon little hands tug away from our reaching
Tendrils of new bloom twisting from the vine
And often we wander within the heart's pondering
Over the years that flow seamless and brief
Learning that labor-pain is but the dawning
Of love's keen travail in its tender-sweet grief
Vigilant caring and joy like no other
This is the labor of being a mother

First motherhood; virgin unawareness
Eager and ignorant; hope undefiled
Wails, now dependent on this girl-child woman
Laughing and weeping, she cradles her child
And we are forever in our bosom severed
We will never be who we were before
As fear and faith rival where innocence trembles
And motherhood places its wreath on our door
High, holy calling unlike any other
This is the charge of being a mother

Ecstasy, agony, holding, releasing
Heaven's allotment placed into our care
Tenderly teaching within our reaching
And earnest beseeching from hands clasped in prayer
For in the magnitude of love's great vocation
God  will not leave us like sheep in the wild
The Shepherd of mortal is faithful and patient
He holds the mother as she holds her child
Granting His mercy unlike any other
This is the comfort of being a mother

Janet Martin

I could never forgive myself for some of my mothering mistakes, but for the knowing that God forgives.

Of Renewed Aspiration

We touch our feet once more

To Time’s familiar way

Of ticking clocks and charted walks

And living’s scattered fray

The mist of life’s unknowns

May veil the hour’s will

But God beholds its ether folds

The pleasant and the ill

We touch our feet upon

Hope’s path of trampled dirt

For God abides where fear resides

In living’s lonesome hurt

Before the purple dusk

Enshrouds this little day

I pray that we live thankfully

And trust God for its way

© Janet Martin

Unnamed Elements

In onyx oceans of night you impress

Soft on my pillow and deep in my heart

Whispers of something I cannot caress

Murmur of yearning’s intangible art

Spring rends the air with desire and dreaming

Summer exhales to the garden its bloom

Autumn dons tresses of bronze-gilded gleaming

Darling, is winter heaven’s waiting room?

I cannot name this unspoken design

Where having and holding and hoping align

Time is a troubadour, ruthless and keen

Ageless, yet in its allotment of years

It unravels hours from gossamer skein

Kissing our faces with laughter and tears

We cannot see its outstretched fingers clasp

The delicate thread of mortality

Fading to naught; an ephemeral gasp

Before we step into eternity

But deeper than utterance in the heart’s crypt

Love pens its longing in thought’s shadow-script

Darkness cannot veil haunting heart-hunger

Arms cannot hold midnight moments of mist

We chased the wind too, when we were younger

For unnamed tidings that do not exist

Now, though our will in finest apparel

Touts golden wisdom, humbly we concede

Having and holding is the shallow temporal

Before heaven satisfies our last need

Darling, I love you and there is no shame

In bearing love’s longings that we cannot name

© Janet Martin

I am unable to upload photos right now due to technical problems.

Unrivaled Element

Love gives in gentle grace

What things cannot possess

For things are cold and commonplace

Against love’s kind caress

Its armistice endures

Unrivaled element

Of motive, perfect, patient, pure

And self-irrelevant

Love does not lose its nerve

Nor clings to greedy gain

Love gives and shares without reserve

From selfless founts within

Oh Lord, how great You are

Lord, there is none like you

You see the intent of our hearts

Yet love us through and through

© Janet Martin

Life's Bittersweet

So it goes, the river flows

In ripples to the sea

And moments course in half-breath force

Into eternity

Spring’s darling sheen of virgin green

Is nothing but the bud

Of autumn-rust to dormant dust

And leaf-song to the mud

…so it goes; Time will compose

And tenderly descry

With soundless beat Life’s Bittersweet

Of hello and good-bye

© Janet Martin

Perplexing Parallels

  

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New and Old align

The ‘perhaps’ with the done

And all things new are but the vine

With which the old is spun

The Old precedes the New

The new for its fine boast

Cannot replace the tried and true

Of things that matter most

From fancy’s faceless air

Deception weaves its trance

The newness of its untried fare

Entices us to dance

The staidness of the Old

Though lack-luster and bent

Has borne the test where New unfolds

Its shimmering content

Perplexing parallel

Experience and Youth

Yet New with footloose unfledged will

Cannot mutate Old Truth

© Janet Martin

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Eccl. 1:9

Harbinger of May

April rushes in with her mop and broom

Splashing the landscape of starched umber-gray

Washing the bleak world of winter’s foray

Smiling then scolding, she sweeps through each room

Billowy breezes, refurbishing rain

Rinsing and fluffing, industrious mirth

Flinging wide sashes and shutters of earth

Troubadour armed with May’s flower-refrain

April, oh maiden of moody melee

Vexing the tulip with winter’s recoil

Testing, perplexing the planter of soil

Singing and laughing and weeping with glee

April, fair maiden of dexterous touch

Harbinger of lilacs, daisies and such

© Janet Martin

Today we are finally getting a taste of April's warmer side!

The Pleasantness of You Against my Thought

 

The pleasantness of you against my thought

Makes sweet the hours that otherwise are not

Winter’s despair is gentled by the show’r

Bathing the bud and nudging it to flow’r

We could collect life’s failure and its woe

But darling, tell me, what good would it do?

I choose the pleasure of the touch of you

The past is done; none can its threads undo

The future, with its muted mystery

Does not adhere to the heart’s fantasy

The pleasantness of you against my thought

Redeems the sullen void of what is not

Worry and woe align their hopeless schemes

Attempting to dismantle the heart’s dreams

The raw and useless curse of sad regret

Employs its demons, ah, lest I forget

But then, like mercy’s misty morning dew

I reach to touch the gentle thought of you

The imminence of all that yet is not

Cannot compete with you against my thought

© Janet Martin

Everyone Needs to do their Part

 

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For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Everyone (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Everyone Thinks I’m Crazy,” “Everyone Knows the World Is Round,” “Everyone Needs to Leave Me Alone,” or whatever it is that everyone is doing (or not doing).

We should not leave for others to do
What can be done by me and you
What a lovely world this world would be
If we all did our part willingly

If we all gave a little more
Instead of stiffly keeping score
If love was our motive freely unfurled
Oh, this would be a wonderful world

Everyone needs to do their part
We are the painters; love is the art
If each of us would do our best
This world would laugh with loveliness

Janet Martin

The Cast of Consonants and Vowels...

 

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write a casting poem. Casting can take on several meanings, including casting a spell, casting a line (such as in fishing), casting the actors in a play, and I suppose even the act of creating a cast.

How mute they seem
Unadorned, still
Caricatures
Of ink until
They are cajoled
Teased, twirled and then
What pictures fill
A poet's pen

Janet Martin

Giddy with Joy

How grand t’would be to taste again

That simple giddiness of joy

Beaming in anticipation

Like that of carefree girl or boy

How fair and perfect is the glee

Of childish laughter’s innocence

How I covet the purity

Of youth’s unclouded ambiance

The thrill of being young again

Fearless; dancing on dream’s ahoy

Brimming with buoyant rainbow bliss

Of childhood’s sweet, unblemished joy

© Janet Martin

Victoria was absolutely BRIMMING with anticipation this morning. Her class is surprising a student teacher with a farewell party on her last day.

Our Haste or Hour-haste

Come, said the green meadow, all giddy with gold, 

Wage feeds the body but I feed the soul.

Ah, emerald rush beneath the sky

Coaxing, inviting us to lie

Beneath the sweep of aural blue

But we have too much work to do

The pattern of an hour’s haste

Forbids us to be still and taste

Ambrosia of rain-washed breeze

Or spring’s sun-swaddled fantasies

The blue hills taunt from skyline shores

The green field beckons and implores

That we should come, wander awhile

Where gentler things of living smile

Ah, emerald rush of spring’s glad green

Here Mother Nature is a queen

Inviting pilgrim’s, one and all

To feast in her grand banquet hall

We ought to heed her pleasant plea

Climb to her lap of luxury

We ought to take the time to kneel

Beneath the grace of Bezaleel

The head, though it may be so smart

Should heed the whisper of the heart

How pitiful to sadly waste

A lifetime, bound by hour-haste

© Janet Martin

The Way of a Poem

 

…that’s just the way it is

The bending of a wayward breeze

Tugging at spring’s first emptiness

Or where the rains beat down all day

Tonight, a sudden quietness

…and somewhere there within the air

An earnest, umbral undertone

Murmurs against the solitude

Unwilling to be left alone

It dangles, spirals, somersaults

And even when I close my eyes

It reaches deep within the heart

Pulling its strings with tender sighs

Until I follow hungrily

To place my thought within its will

Where it hovers perplexingly

One breath beyond my readied quill

Then, as I turn to walk away

Words spill, like school-children at three

Pushing, rushing, a fevered fray

Of passion and timidity

All in a hurry to get home

You silly, thrilling little Poem

© Janet Martin

...or that's the way it was just now...I turned to go to bed and this silly little thing insisted, 'write me!'

Hallelujah, Amen

Our Journey of Unknowns...a sonnet

The unknown murmurs on the burnished brink

Slipping its gossamer from east to west

We cannot know what shapes its ether-pink

Though to-do lists and duty may suggest

The Weaver of each moment intercedes

Cupping His gracious will beneath our own

We spout our wants while He supplies our needs

Melding in moment-thread, unknown to known

And while the shaft of new day rends the deeps

And skylines re-appear, a circle-scope

Of east, south, west and north; His visage keeps

Vast eons anchored in His steadfast hope

We place our fears within His faithful hand

Trusting the God of sky and sea and land

Gladness, sadness, flow'r and shower merge

The darlings of His never-changing grace

Embark on tides of morning’s mercy-surge

Ignorant of the breadth of His embrace

For we will not escape His tender gaze

The sky, the land and sea are but the shell

Where shadows of His potent wonder splays

In whispered fringes of Heaven and hell

And though the unknown spreads its light-less veil

Across our tarnished visage; Faithful God

Releases this day’s moments from Love’s grail

His fount of Goodness nurtures soul and sod

We stuff out mouths; Hunger is not destroyed

The infant and the aged bear its void

The earth is lathered green in Spring’s caress

Before the sheen of winter binds its girth

Last year's unknowns are known; grief, happiness

Unfold and fold again, four-season's worth

Before another year falls to the crypt

Where Time; the fulcrum twixt unknown and known

Establishes in present; yet has slipped

The filament of centuries to stone

We bow beneath the Hand of Eden’s seal

The constellations also bow to Him

For none transcends the One who moves Time's wheel

The God of ages cups our wish and whim

Where known and unknown subsist, juxtaposed

The rose exists within the bud, still closed

© Janet Martin

Like Phantom Poetry

Tonight the darkness rolls across the day

A wave of cobalt over dismal gray

The twilight keens with tardy April snow

A memory of someone long ago

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost I touch its soulful melody

Up, up, into the frosty moonless dark

The echo drifts, love-song upon a spark

And soon its ballad fades into the air

Where April runs its fingers through my hair

And midnight folds the hour to its embrace

Expanding history’s ethereal space

How large the night of moonless minuet

Strange and remote, the ghostly silhouette

Of ravaged pine, where winter’s tireless gale

Returns in confused, mumbled madrigal

And naked willows weep, hungering for

Night-song to sweep the silver garden-floor

Tonight the quietude of April snow

Muffles the tread of stragglers as they go

Searching, as I for that elusive star

Where past resides and summer wishes are

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost, almost I feel you close to me

J~

On Autopilot

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write an auto poem. Auto could mean automobile, automatic, automaton, or any number of possibilities.

She turns her hands to auto-pilot
Wipes the counters, sweeps the floor
Folds the laundry while she travels
To the bliss of sun-swept shores
Her hands remain upon their chores

She turns her feet to auto-pilot
Sink to fridge to stove; repeat
While she treads the path of duty
Venice and Brazil compete
The greens in Ireland are sweet

When she is in auto-pilot
She has prayed her children home
Designed gardens and surprises
Traversed Austria and Rome
...or perhaps, written a poem

I wave to those on auto-pilot
Shaking mats, watering plants
They smile with envy as I wander
To the pier where sunbeams dance
MOM! DID YOU DO LAUNDRY? I NEED PANTS!

Janet:)

The Constanza Form...Rain-refrain and Seventeen

The Constanza; Poetic Bloomings invites us to try this form. (The error in this poem is my first lines are not an independent poem....the second stanza is the glitch)) The Constanza, created by Connie Marcum Wong, consists of five or more 3-line stanzas. Each line has a set meter of eight syllables. The first lines of all the stanzas can be read successively as an independent poem, with the rest of the poem weaved in to express a deeper meaning. The first lines convey a theme written in monorhyme, while the second and third lines of each stanza rhyme together.

Rain-refrain

She falls, silver; a sweeping sigh

From founts of low-flung pewter cloud

Drenching the winter-weary shroud

She sings; a melody where I

Am seized with a sweet-surging hurt

To bathe my hands in garden dirt

She sparkles; sequin-studded sky

Embellishing each blade of grass

With nature’s froth of liquid glass

She murmurs, ‘farmer, do not cry

God holds spring’s phial in His will

Un-clenching frost-bound ridge and rill’

She laughs; a sassy, splashy high

For in euphoric aftermath

Wild blooms ensconce the muddy path

She croons; a soulful lullaby

Beyond the porch her passion streams

As rain-song rivers kiss our dreams

© Janet Martin

Let's Try Again...

Seventeen...

My love; will you still love me true?

When youth and middle-age fall prey

To ticking clocks and locks of gray?

And will you murmur 'I love you'

As if we were still seventeen

Without a clue what 'love' will mean

When I am old, bent by love's due

Will you still kindly take my hand

And whisper oh, babe, ain't love grand?

Will we gaze down past's avenue

With hearts humble and meekly awed

That we remain, by grace of God?

When we are old, will love imbue

Each day with sweet and sacred truth

Renewing vows made in our youth?

Each step; will we be one or two

When we are old and frail and weak?

Will you still kiss my wrinkled cheek?

And will we whisper 'I love you'

When we are old; will we be mean

Or will we still be seventeen?

Janet~

The Now-factor

 (how can it be? It is always 'now' yet now is a constant transformation!)

You are always in the moment

Yet you probe the pedicle

Breathing buds into full beauty

Tuning autumn’s canticle

You are always in the moment

Not a flicker or a sigh

In the ethereal cohesion

Of a decade passing by

You abide, instant, eternal

Gentle, ruthless half-breath clone

Nudging daughters into women

In your moment-monotone

You are always ever-present

Past and future, what are they

But the gossamery essence

Turning raven locks to gray

You are always in the moment

Tell me then, how can it be

That a moment takes the future

Sealing it in history

What is your secret; century-weaver

Mouthed in muted moment-chime

For I cannot feel you passing

Metamorphosis of Time

© Janet Martin

I Love You, I Hate You (two-for-two-Tues.)

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•  April Pad Challenge; Today's Prompt
• Write a love poem.
• Write an anti-love poem.

I seem to love you so

And easily fall prey

To fickle wishes, wants and whims

That you cajole my way

Yes, I must love you so

These second miles I run

To satisfy your restless eye

Declares my devotion

Though your attention span

Is pathetic at best

I hunger for the nuances

Of pleasures you suggest

But oh, I hate you so

The flesh is hard to please

And never fully satisfied

With my best loyalties

Oh, yes I hate you so

The way I bow to serve

Your flighty notions and desires

Disgust my burst of nerve

Oh, how I hate you so

You war against the One

Who whispers peace, and loves me so

In spite of what I’ve done

© Janet Martin

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:

the spirit indeed is willing,

but the flesh is weak. Matt. 26:41

 

Our 'Oughts'

 

He gave His Best for us

Then how much more ought we

To offer Him our utter-best

In meek humility

He gave His life for us

Then how much more ought we

To return our lives to Him

In service, thankfully

He gives His best to us

Love's grace; ought we not give

The best we have to Him who gave

His best so we may live?

© Janet Martin

This Could Be the Day

This could be the day

We cannot fully know

Who will remain to witness

Twilight’s tranquil binding glow

Or who will pass its gleam

Into forevermore

Where none can see the mystery

Beyond time’s transient door

This could be the day

There are no guarantees

No ranks or hierarchies immune

To this life’s tragedies

And no one can foretell

The unknowns that abide

Or be without uncertain doubt

When life and death divide

See how the morning sun

Spills kindly to the grass

Blushing in whispers on the brink

Of what will come to pass

This gift is from God’s hand

So live, laugh, love and pray

Someday death’s claim will call our name

And this could be the day

© Janet Martin

 For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation. 2 Cor. 6:2

For my Daughter who Likes to Debate

  

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Poetic Bloomings Prompt; Time flies when you’re having fun! We’ve heard that throughout our lives. In the movies, time passing is depicted as a clock or sundial in time-lapse photography in rapid motion. We see hair gray up and other parts sag down. So for this poem, we want you to write a poem that shows the passing of time. The first part will center upon something you enjoyed or did as a child. The second part will focus on your perspective on that activity and how age has changed/enhanced your vision.

Once I was a girl

Young, carefree, like you

Constrained by parents

With a straight, narrow view

Now I am the parent

And I love you

In spite of your scoffing

At my straight, narrow view

Someday I pray

You will have girls too

Loved and constrained

By your straight, narrow view

© Janet Martin

I read this prompt after a  long and heated ‘debate’ with my teen-age daughter, thus, this is what my first thought was.

 

Complexities of Enemies

  

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My greatest enemy

Is quite average in appearance

But what a nuisance she can be

Always pushing to the forefront

In one little word

Me! Me! Me!

© Janet Martin

The Complexities of the Heart

The greatest complexity I know

Is the convenience of your eloquence

Pleasing, tormenting me so

You woo in whispers laced with death

Deception shapes such pleasantness

While disassembling bastions breath by breath 

Janet~ 

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Jer. 17:9

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Prov. 4:23

The Complexities of Love

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For love we suffer to find its comfort

Its beauty runs deepest in rivers of blood

Love is a word best-spoken with action

We cannot love and yet deny God
 

© Janet Martin

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, 

God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:12

The Complexity of Word

 

April's PAD Challenge: Write a Complex poem.  Complex is a complex word that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.

Words are fickle, winsome things

With which to build our boasts of sand

Unless their guise is augmented

With upright action of the hand

The logic of the human heart

Is quick to defend and to blame

We ought to ponder carefully

These rudiments of hope and shame

How smooth these syllables ally

What credence fills their guild with voice

Yet, we do well to recognize

The silence thunders with our choice

© Janet Martin

Beyond the Sparkle of These Eyes...

Beyond the sparkle of these eyes

Beneath the dust-breathed veil of skin

Exists a soul that never dies

That God alone has woven in

Man cannot reach to purge from him

This mystery saved by Love’s grace

The soul is not a dust-formed limb

And only God beholds its face

Janet~

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

 Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 

Matt. 10:28

The Great Beyond

  

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April PAD Challenge:For today’s prompt, write a beyond poem. The poem could be beyond human comprehension. It could be from the great beyond. It could be from beyond–another city, country, planet, solar system, dimension, etc. Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with it.

This world is full of vengeance and hate
and all manner of evil
We reel 'neath the impact of its reach
And love seems the weaker vessel
But this gasp of mortality
Comes with an ultimatum
Beyond this lies eternity
In breadths we cannot fathom
And though we groan beneath the pain
Of hate and its un-reason
Love will not fail, but is the Way
To heaven's glorious kingdom

This life is but the stepping-stone
leading to hell or Heaven's throne
We ought to pay more earnest heed
to the Beyond where these stones lead.

Janet~

Where Streets are Stained With Blood...

 

We live where streets are stained with blood

And even where the grass is green

A soldier’s body paid for us

To breathe the air of freedom’s sheen

Look down, look down; behold your feet

One in the cradle, one the grave

Look up; look up, for only He

Is God and mighty yet to save

The gutters swell with evil’s flood

Where hatred, hurt and hunger wail

A brother spills his brother’s blood

It seems the gates of hell prevail

We stagger low beneath the grief

Of Ramah; here our children die

Before they breathe; their right to live

Decided by a 'mercy-lie'

The roar of guns deploys its noise

The river runs dark and blood-red

Daughter or son is everyone

And love will mourn her precious dead

For love, this universal thread

Will bind and heal hate’s wretched wounds

Look down, look down, there lies our dread

Look up, look up, His love abounds

We live where streets are stained with blood

And gutters surge with filth and fear

We live where our forefathers stood

To face the Foe; love brought us here

And hate can never slay the One

For God is Love; He will prevail

Look up; someday hate will be done

But Love will never, ever fail

© Janet Martin

  

When the Earth is A-wash...

 This was my view from the kitchen window while making supper last night. We kept our eye on that cloud but it dissipated shortly after I took this photo into this...

When the earth is a-wash with blue rivers of spring

And the yard is a splash of verdant rendering

When each ditch is a brook and each stem bronze with bud

When young lads find heaven in meadows of mud

Then our dreams burgeon and hope is renewed

For surely the winter’s last blast is subdued

When robins are saucy in breast-coats of rust

When nooks wooded, mossy stir our wanderlust

When the breeze is imbibed with blush-pink apple-bloom

And trees are like brides all be-decked for the groom

Then we feel the joy of our care-freer hours

As spring comes a-dancing with arms full of flowers

When dark-days of winter expand then grow pale

Twixt autumnal splendor and spring-time’s regale

When we drink the nectar of sunshine and rain

And join in the laughter of violet-fringed lane

When daffodil-radiance beams from umber sod   

Then we sing for Spring and the mercy of God

© Janet Martin

As Long as Long You Can...to Victoria

I will not ask too much from you,

But I must ask enough

 This is the duty kind and true

Of a mother’s love,

So I have one small wish, my dear

Time waits for no man

Then will you just stay twelve, my dear

As long, as long you can?

Your other sisters seemed to rush

The hours through a year

And soon the days when they were twelve

Dissolved, a bubble-sphere

So, if you could, my dearest dear

Elongate this brief span

And just stay twelve in spite of years

As long, as long you can

© Mom aka Janet~

12 year olds are SO carefree!