October-mood

Though I tug upon your coat-tail and implore you to remain

You advance toward the exit in the color of the rain

Kindred spirits never sever though the hour may depart

You will be my love forever, sweet October of my heart

 

By the time these words are written you’ll be standing at the gates

Where the leaf is heavy-laden and your time-drawn carriage waits

And I know you will not see me, watching as you slip away

But I know that you will feel me in your wild and lonesome gray

You have spilled your umber palette where first gold and scarlet fell

And the ivy on the lintel weeps its tears in fond farewell

Do not hasten so my darling, grief has no expiry date

If I could I’d bolt Time’s door and softly beckon you to wait…

You have tuned my heart with laughter and with angst of letting go

You have strewn the final splendor of your robe like russet snow

And I cannot find the hem of midnight; darkness fills the air

It is still; I hear the tiptoe of November on the stair

© Janet Martin

Hallowe-en Hug

There are mommy and daddy hugs
And hugs from wee boys and girls
But I think fuzzy, green caterpillar hugs
Are the coziest hugs in the world!

I just got hugged by a fuzzy-wuzzy green caterpillar(aka Nathan;)

Even Now...

Even now while I miss

The sparkle of skylark-song

Tickling the ripple of rye-gold sea

Even now, outside my kitchen window

I delight in

The return of Red Poll and chick-a-Dee

Even now while I miss

Tangled bloom bouquets

Growing wild on the window-sill

Even now, every leaf

Lavishly garnishes

Hedge-row, hollow and hill

Even now, while I miss

The pool of morning-sun

Warming the waking earth

Even now, I am drawn to

The flicker of firelight

And family around home’s hearth

© Janet Martin

one more very personal stanza…

Even now, while I miss

My firstborn; her chatter

Spilling like a flower in full-bloom

Even now, I hear the laughter

Of her two younger sisters

Excited to each have their own bedroom

They quickly purged their room of the dresser which has been called many names (all unflattering). Suddenly my living-room is filled with over-flow;) Every mothering-instinct in me wants to go up and 'help', but they sound like they're having too much fun on their own so I'm making meat-loaf and scalloped potatoes for their supper...and as far as missing Emily goes. I have been at her house or she has been here or she has called every day since they're back:) I won't ask her, but I know she misses us a little...

Rainy Fall Rush-hour

   

Image Source

It is rush-hour

on a rainy afternoon,

the freeway

a hissing

silver-gray

serpent

bedazzled

with red

and gold

Travelers yearn for the bronze

of porch-light broach

gleaming on the lapel

of home

© Janet Martin

It seems the traffic is eager to be home tonight...I hear a continuous hissing as they rush by.

Ode on Autumn...a sonnet

Thou Harbinger of hearth and fireside

Who gifts thee with thy keen expenditure

Of scarlet prelude ere thy flame subsides

And falls; a sweeping, silent overture

And is thy kiss anointed thence with death

Or is it life that falls beneath the tree?

Thy seed returns to slumber in the earth

And man is powerless to set it free

Ah, who directs the geese that graze thy dome

Or bends thy orchard limb with gold and red?

Thou who rousest both dirge and passion’s poem

We touch thy face with eagerness and dread

And long to gather all our loved ones home

Whilst thou unleashest gardens overhead

Oh, strike the lute and raise thy banner high

Thou rebel-rouser with a lover’s kiss

Soon, soon the hour will force on us good-bye

And all that we can do is reminisce

So hold me nearer; let me feel thy tear

And taste the salt upon thy weathered cheek

Time does not cater to young love, my dear

Ah, listen to my thought; I cannot speak

But only feel the tremor on thy lips

Thou wanderer of dark and empty night

Philanderer of leaf; each moment drips

Until the hour is rife with farewell’s plight

Where you torment my mouth and fingertips

Thou troubadour of sorrow and delight

Thou Harbinger of both cradle and grave

Of flower stripped and hour weak with want

Even the boldest and the bravest brave

Cannot withstand a mighty minute’s taunt

And breath by breath, we sense and empathize

With thee; oh little laughter on the tree

The skin of things is such a thin disguise

Oh autumn; wilt thou linger tenderly

And spill thy honeyed candor on my day?

Then I will close my eyes; dance recklessly

Thy absence is too close for me to say

‘What is has been and what must be will be’

But I will revel in thy bluesy sway

For I can feel thy arms slipping from me

© Janet Martin

Ever-present Offering

Oh mournful morn, how dull the corn

Shivers on field and stricken hill

The hour that plucks high-noon then dusk

Has folded back to earth its thrill

The chill wind sobs from morn to night

While we absorb a season’s flight

The weathered trail of wood and dale

Flaunts autumn’s russet pirouette

Feet dash and race or slowly trace

The aftermath of summer-set

And all beneath the lowered sky

The muffled robes of autumn lie

We do not mourn, though Time has torn

Another chapter from its ream

A strange relief, half hope, half grief

Stirs wildly in our untried dream

For Time is not a garnered thing

But ever-present offering

© Janet Martin

Silly Lily or Why, Indeed?

"Silly lily", said Victoria. "Why do you pull away from the very thing that gives you life?" Yes, why indeed?
(we are watching with interest, the lily that began as a tall, straight stem. The stem keeps curling. It pulled the flower down to the jar rim then continued to curl up, up...)

Why do we stray and pull away

Within temptation, grief and strife

Choosing to trust the gods of dust

Instead of He who gives us life?

Janet~

John 1:4
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

When This Day is Done...

Oh, when this day is done

Its jargon and its jest

And when the morning sun

Melts bronze beneath the west

Will we, when it is gone

Sealed in past’s soldered chest

Be satisfied because

We offered it our best?

Oh, when this little day

Joins history’s mute cast

To spill its gold and gray

In pictures of the past

And when its echoes splay

In memory’s caress

Will we be glad to say

Today we did our best?

When dusk returns to hide

This ripple in Time’s stream

And claim within its tide

The discourse of its dream

When this day’s stills its stride

To rest where all days rest

Will we be satisfied

Because we did our best?

© Janet Martin


Life is What We Make Of It
by Edgar A. Guest
 

Life is a jest;
Take the delight of it.
Laughter is best;
Sing through the night of it.
Swiftly the tear
And the hurt and the ache of it
Find us down here;
Life must be what we make of it.

 Life is a song;
Dance to the thrill of it.
Grief's hours are long,
And cold is the chill of it.
Joy is man's need;
Let us smile for the sake of it.
This be our creed:
Life must be what we make of it.

Life is a soul;
The virtue and vice of it,
Strife for a goal,
And man's strength is the price of it.
Your life and mine,
The bare bread and the cake of it
End in this line:
Life must be what we make of it.


I think it is safe to say I love every single one of his poems!

October Lullaby

Wood-smoke spiraling; gray curls quickly drenched

Fog pressing weightless; yet like a cloud clenched

‘cross earth’s bleak dolor and colorless hues

November murmurs its imminent dues

Time tiptoes over this waning threshold

Of sweet October and gray stealing gold

Russet minstrels croon a last lullaby

Summer and winter sleep ‘neath the same sky

Coffins and cradles in earth’s womb enmesh

Juxtaposed; gardens of timber and flesh

Relentless rivers of ‘missing you’ rush

Rampant and silent through Time’s underbrush

Foothold of faith rivals festering fear

October shivers in dusk’s deep’ning sphere

Fantasy flounders; for no Brigadoon

Rises to rescue or rift Time’s swift swoon

There are no shadows; for the moon is dark

And there are no lovers tonight in the park

© Janet Martin

Baby Turns One Today!

Today  the little boy I baby-sit turns one! We had a party at his house on Sunday. We marveled again at how quickly a year is done!

Today mom and dad are both happy and sad

How quickly a year slips away

But we smile with joy for our dear little boy

Is turning one year old today

We sing and clap hands; moments trickle like sand

Or water of brook over stone

But bravely we cheer as we kiss baby dear

For today baby boy turns one

Sweet Time disappears in our laughter and tears

In birthdays, in work and in play

Now we celebrate with balloons, hugs and cake

For baby who turns one today

Happy Birthday to sweet, sweet Nathan!

With love, from Janet 

Time's Tango

The marsh is filled with eventide

And nature’s waning will

The grinning bloom betrayed by Time

Slumbers where all is still

The doggerel of august day

And cricket minuet

Midst wind and leaf-song falls away

Etched in thought’s silhouette

A metronome of moments fills

Then steals another hour

A chorus spilling daffodils

Soon strips the autumn bow’r

As dividends of quickened youth

And ageless wanderlust

Declares in nature’s ruthless truth

Life’s journey back to dust

The imminence of what must be

In every half-breath nears

Where nothing marks eternity

Or charts its days and years

Time’s tango teases and torments

It’s touch both kind and cruel

Somewhere its final recompense

Unravels from life’s spool

© Janet Martin

Love's Poetry

   

Nature resides within Love’s poetry

Each season climaxes then fades into

Its successor in splendid filigree

Of bud, leaf-laced or barren limb on blue

As beauty blends with beauty, spring to spring

Stunning anew the spectator of sod

For every season spills its offering

In shameless praise to its Creator God

There is no fairest of them all; each one

In turn unfolds its wonder to our gaze

We bow in awe to touch dawn’s frost-kissed lawn

Then turn to watch the sunset’s dying blaze

And soon another season’s worth is gone

Faint flicker in a soon-forgotten haze

Mortality rests in this Poet too

His hand sustains; to doubt is paltry shame

The Artist of ten-thousand shades of blue

Knows and beckons to each of us by name

We cannot know and understand His thought

But look; to every season He imbues

The colors that by Him alone are wrought

We stand amazed within Love’s hallowed hues

For everywhere the beauty of the Lord

In spite of our ignorance, abounds

Oh Victor, not of violence or of sword

Brings beauty to the broken; He confounds

Our stuttering; we cannot breathe a word

Within His poetry we are restored

© Janet Martin

 …that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.…Acts 17: 27-29

Job 12:10
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

A Little Bit of Heaven

 

 

 

 Yesterday afternoon as the air sparkled with father, mother and child laughter, and the wind nipped our noses and kites pivoted, careened and nose-dived against a canvas of fall sky it almost felt like a little bit of heaven!

 What if we allowed

Love’s blessing to sink in

And what if we accepted it

Above our weight of sin?

And what if we proclaimed

In everything we do

The worthiness of HE who promises

To guide us through?

What if faith became

Our mystic stepping-stone

And sight simply love’s blindness

Where our vision sees a thorn?

What if we believed

And received without fear

Then wouldn’t we glimpse just

A little bit of heaven here?

© Janet Martin

Recompense of Hope

Wanton wind broods hungrily

Where June’s leaf-song used to be

Gone is summer’s sighing tress

None its season can possess

Now the street is lined with hosts

As earth claims Time’s petal-ghosts

Just as every half-breath, slipped

Into past’s eternal crypt

We are chancellors of hope

Blue wind broods on barren slope

Yet the discourse of an hour

Holds within its force, spring’s flow’r

We embrace this wondrous thing

Hope is heaven’s offering

For the brooding wind that blows

Will again kiss summer’s rose

Waiting is a hard-learned hurt

I have watched its seasons flirt

With my darling dreams, and I

Have sad and silently stood by

As they fell, like autumn’s leaf

I have suffered waiting’s grief

But within its grip I’ve learned

Happiness is hope returned

© Janet Martin

Of Regret and Redemption

Every now and then

From some lost yesterday

I feel the haunting tug of things

That I let slip away

But all the could-have-beens

Pounding time’s frozen past

Cannot annul God’s grace that fills

This day soon memory-cast

Regret is but to die

To opportunity

And this new day is mercy’s

Patient gift to you and me

© Janet Martin

 Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord.Ps. 27:14

A New Chapter Begins...

Its script yet unfathomed

Its page yet unmarred

Its stories unwritten

Where dawn bathes the yard

And morning implores us

To rise; grasp our pen

Beckoning gently

To write once again

We taste Time’s free-fall

We sorrow; we laugh

Dawn fills the air

With its first paragraph

Beneath our fingers

And feet we employ

Ink-drops of anguish

And whispers of joy

Over earth’s concave

And crest; beaming bright

Syllables tumble

In morning’s first light

Grace breathes its bounty

And forgives our sins

We trust Time’s Giver

…a new chapter begins

© Janet Martin

Rob and Emily dropped in before heading to their new home last night and I thought to myself, thus a new chapter begins.

Something Sweetly Haunting

There is something sweetly haunting ‘bout a snow that comes too soon

Argent innocence undaunted, slipping from an astral spoon

As it wraps earth’s golden autumn from a silver-broken cloud

Settling on rooftops and gardens in an unexpected shroud

There is something grandly mournful in snow slipping over leaf

Where soft whiteness blends with scarlet in a dazzling, muffled sheaf

And we tread with restless reverence a landscape strangely awed

By mute, majestic masterpieces from the hand of God

There is something keenly comforting in autumn’s early snow

Where hope immortal mingles with the grief of letting go

Life's moments fall like snowflakes on a morning almost noon

Oh, there’s something sweetly haunting ‘bout a snow that comes too soon

© Janet Martin

I looked outside when I woke up and said, ‘You have got to be kidding me!’ The world was white…and then soon we were out of electricity for a while.

 "God thunders with His voice wondrously, Doing great things which we cannot comprehend. "For to the snow He says, 'Fall on the earth,' And to the downpour and the rain, 'Be strong.' "He seals the hand of every man, That all men may know His work. Job 37: 5-7

The Way of Love

When you leave

A little piece of me

Leaves too

For heart-strings

Cannot be untied

Like laces

on a shoe

When you leave

I cannot stay

Altogether here

For part of me

Will follow;

‘Tis the way

Of love, my dear

When you leave

I will not grieve

Forever

But I know

A part of me

Will always be

Wherever

You will go…

© Janet Martin

Rob and Emily have said their good-byes in Nova Scotia and are on their way home…my heart is with Cathy, (Rob’s Mom) and the rest of the family. Good-byes are hard!

The Way of Flowers...

After Emily's wedding we put the mums on the porch.. A few days ago our neighbor passed away. She was 94 and a lifetime lover of flowers! Her son stopped by to ask if they may use the mums in the hall at her funeral and I got to thinking,' that's the way of flowers...

They cheer our happiest
and saddest hours
That seems to be
The way of flowers.

Janet~

To My Cyber-friends...

We are not strangers

You and I, and yet

We’ve never spoken

Or even met

I would not recognize you

Anywhere

Though we’ve laughed and wept

Into the still air

One wields the pen

One holds the page

We are fellowmen

On a common stage

Though we've never met

 It's nice to think

We touch each other

Through the power of ink

© Janet Martin

Though we may never meet

I’d simply like to say

Thank-you to all who have passed by

My little porch today…

Though we may never speak

It is enough to know

That words and prayers reach anywhere

A little thought can go

J~

Thank-you to generations

Past and presently

Who have shared inspiration

So that others may read

Life's Letting Go...

It must be so

Life’s letting go

Torments and teases

Our clutch

I hold you near,

Somehow a year

Is fleeting

As a stranger’s touch

When we were young

Time pleased our tongue

In dreams beyond

Our innocence

We didn’t know

Life’s letting go

Falls in swift,

Keen deliverance

It must be so

The ebb and flow

Of moments yield

Both joy and woe

Gifting our reach

They gently teach

Us to hold on

While letting go…

© Janet Martin

There It Goes...

There they go

Ethereal flow

Expanding archives

Of joy and dismay

Zeniths of

Longing and love

Days of our lives

Falling away

See, from the mud

Spring’s new-born bud

Presses, unfolds

A thorn, a rose

See, how it falls

Time’s madrigals

From hold to hold

Its blooms disclose

Ah, there it goes

And no one knows

How near or far

Its breadth extends

Oh, little day

You slip away

Gold with the gray

The hour bends

It laughs and weeps

Flounders and leaps

This moment-tide

Sweeps us along

We touch and taste

Its eager haste

Then render to

The past, its song

© Janet Martin

Where Only God Can See

Some prayers fall from our lips

Joyful and easily

Others ache within our thought

Where only God can see…

Some prayers  we can shape in word
Free-falls of hope and cheer
Others groan deep in the heart
Where God alone can hear

Some prayers are pleasant to share
As thankful praises flow
Others are so hard to bear
Where only God can know

Janet~

My friend Glynis could use our prayers today! 

 

Autumn Rainbow...

 Image Source

  

 

Autumn, what rainbow of harvest you shape

Red of the apple, gold squash, purple grape

Orange of carrot and plum dusty blue

Ruffled green parsley to season the stew

Into root cellars your plethora spills

Pumpkin, potato and squash-onion hills

Chartreuse of cabbage and remnant melee

Of peppers, tomatoes and mint-leaf for tea

Goodness and mercy in fall-fruits abound

Master-piece miracles spring from the ground

Autumn, what rainbow of harvest you bring

God, we thank Thee for its kind offering

© Janet Martin

I pulled out the last of the fresh peppers for supper. The  tomatoes froze on the deck, (I forgot to bring them in;( Soon, I can no longer skip the veggie department when I grocery shop, but we still have lots of fresh squash, carrots, potatoes, onions. I’m chopping and freezing the parsley today, as well as baking and freezing some of the squash so we can enjoy it until next fall…

right now, the first real snowfall of the season...suddenly I'm humming this song; Fall Softly, Snow