It's Halloween

Someone requested a Halloween poem and I realized I have never written a single one,

partly because Halloween in rural Ontario is a little quieter than town-Halloween.

We didn't go trick-or-treating as youngsters but sometimes we would sneak up to the attic and take clothes from mother's 'younger days box', stuff pillows into dresses til they fit, find funny hats and shoes, then we would knock at our own door and see if we could trick them into a treat...
or we would dash about the yard scaring siblings because everything seemed so deliciously-spooky!

 There was always a few neighbors who came in their costumes and I think we were almost as excited to see them as they were to 'be' them:)

I still remember staring at a boy who we played with all the time
but he was wearing a sad clown mask and laughing under it oh, how I hated it!!

I have approx. 10 treat bags ready just in case because my kids from daycare sometimes come.

The trees that laughed all afternoon moan, menacing and black

They claw the air where wide-eyed witches venture through the towns

Consorting with strange creatures each sporting a pail or sack

Fairies, black cats and princesses, robots, jail-birds and clowns

Mickey Mouse with a lady-bug, a vampire and a cow

Pumpkins with feet, a skeleton, gorillas, monsters, oh

Their quest for treats makes streets not quite as sinister somehow

While along jack-o-lanterened walks, white ghosts and goblins go

Wild shadows leap and lunge, toss trees, they screech and scratch and wail

Or so it seems; the wind, it screams and gives us good goose-bumps

Where dry leaves rattle like the bones of summer up for sale

The whole world is a haunted house full of hisses and thumps

…and it would be too scary to knock and say ‘trick or treat’  

(But mom or dad stands not too far away with watchful eye)

And soon flat sacks grow fat with loot sticky, salty and sweet

While overhead a host of phantom ghosts and witches fly

© Janet Martin

This Flight of Night and Day...

 

Been growing older...and old-ish with Alan's music,

from Here in the Real World,  Chasin' that Neon Rainbow  etc,to this one, The Older I Get

Interesting how an artist's writing and song choices change with the years:)

The older we get the more, not less, we start thinking about what's ahead

and what's important!!

This flight that leads to heights unfathomed grants another rung

Our senses tuned more meekly to It than when we were young

Thought’s scope of bold imagination turns a keener ken

To hope and soul salvation and mortality of men

It is a holy-fear-riled Thing; this breath-by-breath approach

Toward the Lord, where severing of skin and soul encroach

…and there is no escaping what will come and never pass

Love’s ultimatum shaping so much more than days of grass

No, no, don’t turn your head away and say it isn’t so

Our personal appointment date with God, ah, who can know?!

Don’t turn your heart from Him yet somehow think it will be well

Or slap each other’s backs and laugh and say ‘see you in hell’

Love does not leave us grasping blindly at some shrine engraved

Look at the cross, repent, believe and cursed soul will be saved

How awful is the thought of death and then The Judgement Day

If Unbelief, with final breath let’s heaven slip away

This flight of night and day is like a staircase through the stars

But laid beneath man’s bumbling breach on cradle-to-grave bars

And only by the grace of He who suffered Calvary

Are we prepared to not run scared when Mercy’s face we see

Holy, holy, someday we all will see Him, Love Sublime

The Son of Man enthroned, carried on clouds will shatter Time

The stars will fall and some will call on mountains then to hide

From Righteous Wrath of He who bled on their behalf and died

How is it hope and dread are so intricately entwined

Souls clothed in blips of dust-to-dust will soon leave earth behind

As daily grind, heave-ho, yes-no slips through an Awesome Door

This flight of night and day folded into Forevermore

© Janet Martin

Of Waning Leaf-applause

Sharing a few awesome autumn masterpieces captured

as I shuttle Daughter from music-lesson to driving-lesson to friend's house etc.

It's like driving through an art-gallery! 

Yes, even in the rain:)

The yard, a cardamom leaf-pond

The air a shawl of tears

The heart, awash with here and gone

Like ocean-pummeled piers

The salt of sorrow seasons joy

How bittersweet its taste

Where yester-hour’s girl and boy

Shoulders vectors of haste

The green that sprouted summer’s whoop

Is sere and silent now

Save for the wind that strums the stoop

That missed the mill somehow

The garden is asleep yet leaps

With blooms of yesterday

Where furrows fold but cannot keep

An echo-world at bay

The rawness of fall’s fond caress

Stirs Something stark and sure

Its surge of love and loneliness

Merges loss and allure

…where we are always on the verge

Of what will be, what was

Encapsulated in a splurge

Of waning leaf-applause

© Janet Martin

Feeling Fall

Nature’s nutmeg nuances titillate the naked eye

Cinnamon-ginger splashes scintillate declining leaf

Earth is a buffet laden with squash soup and pumpkin pie

Yum, yum we hum and savour autumn’s sighing stoop and sheaf

Posh pink and purple flowers cease; snuffed like starlight at dawn

Blossoms burn out and strew the ash of wonder’s seraph-hymn

The sash that binds the clash of earth and sky turns red and bronze

Before mulled hue of gray and blue culls color from the limb

The day turns dark at dinner now; the lights of home-sweet-home

Dot dusky streets like welcome beacons to work-weary throngs

The smell of supper mingled with wood-smoke evokes a poem

Stoked by echoes of childhood and time’s very present songs

Change moves its mouth against my ear; it whispers Wild Unknowns

And makes me taste more slowly the haste poured from Here to There

A wine fine-pressed of apples, grapes and pungent undertones

It steals my breath where life and death hang heavy on the air

How is it, farewell tugging hard on heart-strings, throbs and thrills

And drapes around our being a mantle of glorious grief

Want, torn between the weaning wind that veers and sobs, instills

With vexatious arousal, wild hunger and sweet relief

© Janet Martin

Sunrise

The path of the righteous is like the morning sun,

shining ever bright til the full light of day.

Prov.4:18

Glorious 'hellos' from the heavens this week!

Like a whisper in the welkin

Like a bow slid sweet and slow

On a violin of heavens

In a nocturne-crescendo

Like a giggle on the skyline

Like a candle in the dark

Like a light and shadow artist

Painting pictures on the park

Like a bud of rose unfolding

Into flower full of bloom

Like a blazoning of trumpet

Over earth’s mist-mantled room

After distant drum-roll prelude

On a deep, blue brooding stage

Like an opera-singer reaching

For the last note on the page

Like the apron of a matron

With a pocket spilling gold

Like the laughter from a heaven

That should be wrinkled and old

Like a medal for the runner

In the middle of a race

Like a kiss to seal God’s order

To extend love’s day of grace

Like a grand band euphonious

Like a royal wedding march

Like a hallelujah chorus

In a glorious vaulted arch

Like a masterpiece arrangement

On a coral music sheet

Like top-dollar entertainment

To a world-wide front-row seat

Charging nothing for the wonder

Of hope’s color-splendored Prize

Like pink cotton-candy thunder

Is the waking of the skies

© Janet Martin