Monday, April 30, 2018

Prelude to The Heat Wave

PAD Challenge day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Wave,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “Tidal Wave,” “Next Wave,” “Friendly Wave,” “Heat Wave,” and/or “Sound Wave.”
(Playing a little Catch-up with the prompts)


Fixed upon the feet of Time
Daisy-dreams are dancing
We, weary of winter’s clime
Welcome spring’s romancing
Violet and daffodil
Strewed like gems upon the hill
Gone the gray and grating chill
Zephyrs come a-prancing

Strum the strings of green and gold
Bud unfolds the bower
Ring those petal-bells that hold
Beauty born of shower
Sing a simple song of mirth
To the Lord of Heav’n and earth
Death is refurbished with birth
Hope bears fruit and flower

Love and longing ebbs and flows
Lilacs lose their luster
Blush then, peony and rose
Pink as pink can muster
Teach us to be moment-glad
Make the most of what we have
Lest, while lost in what we had
Winds renew their bluster

© Janet Martin


In Full Command

PAD Challenge 29:For today’s prompt, write a response poem.

Hooray! For the first time in ages I don't feel like 'tweaking' the weather-forecaster's nose!



Cannot choose another’s views
Can’t refuse the weather
Cannot force love or belief
Tongue, no one can tether

Cannot order circumstance
That’s beyond our making
But we can control response
What an undertaking!

© Janet Martin



Certain Call of Curtain Fall

PAD Challenge day 30 from Robert: Here we are again: the end of another challenge. Thank you so much for showing up and poeming along with me. It’s always a great deal of fun.
For today’s prompt, write a closing time poem. Or another way of coming at this prompt is to write a poem in which something is coming to an end–like this month’s poetry challenge. Could be the end of a concert, an era, or whatever else must come to a close.

Wow, what a lot of sudden reminders this community has suffered recently... 
of the Uncertainty of Tomorrow! 
and these on the heels of Humboldt Broncos tragedy!

Are you ready today if tomorrow never comes, to meet the Lord?
If not, the Gospel Plowboys explain what needs to happen while there is still time! 
(these guys remind me of singing with my sisters in a new empty silo
or playing the harmonica in an empty grain bin;)
"We are all one heartbeat away from eternity, is what it (this life) amounts to..."
The Gospel Plow-boys




This fevered flight of morn to night
No one can harness tight or hold
Tick-tock’s voracious appetite
Deftly turns everybody old
Unless the curtain falls and calls
Before that ‘Three-score-years and ten
When those we touch and love so much
We cannot touch on earth again

Dusk’s swansong swells and spills to hill
And dell in farewell’s deeper hue
The heart is oft soft-torn between
Green-gold greeting and blue adieu
Where we dash through the door of dawn
Held light and lustrously ajar
Then turn to find the west pinioned
With twilight’s silver Evening Star

Aha, the law of wake and sleep
Keeps dancers on their tippy-toes
A serenade of jade and bronze
And bud burst into ruby rose
Before the subtle roar of seasons
Scores this fragile robe of skin
With tributes of Time’s testament
That death of day-to-day will win

The cry that fills the eye with tears
And hearts with bitter-sweetest ache
Is subject to far more than years
As love pioneers give-and-take
Where farewell is the flipside to
Life’s tide, rife with happy hellos
And where a door swings wide with New
The old must first come to a close

Thank God, earth’s blue-dot does not dangle
Hap hazardously in space
Where fear would surely strangle hope
Without assurance of His grace
For all who believe will receive
Life after Death’s Cold Servant calls
But, none behold That Great Untold
Until Time’s flimsy Curtain falls

© Janet Martin

 The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knoweth the power of thine anger?
even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.
So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Psalm 90:10-12


Saturday, April 28, 2018

Our Glorious Here (by a Child Caregiver:)


PAD Challenge 27: For today’s prompt, write a story poem. ...
or in this case, little stories posted after the poem that helped inspire it.




Once, upon a fond time and place
Which soon swift season-tides erase
They graced her life; her heart and arms
Run through and through with child-sweet charms

A ‘bless this mess’ and ‘my-oh-my’
A ‘share your toys’ and ‘hush, don’t cry’
Days filled with noise from boys and girls
Like oysters filled with precious pearls

…because we know; time proves it oft
With touch so commonplace and soft
How soon we wear love’s tender hurts
In loss of little shoes and shirts

They leave amongst strewed toys and such
The innocence we love so much
That tunes our laughter with life’s best
And makes so worth it all, the rest

Where, though a wee girl’s ‘loudest weep’
Might wake the baby just asleep
Where though ‘it was an accident’
Wears thin the grin of good intent

And though the crumbs that stick to feet
Might make us cringe and groan abit
And though the joys of girls and boys
Might weary us with fuss and noise

...The time will come (oh yes, it will)
When home-sweet-home is clean and still
The cheek kind-kissed with wistful tear
For what is now our Glorious Here

© Janet Martin

"I sure wish we had your house"
 Little Boy sighed as he marveled at a freshly-filled bathroom-tissue holder ...

 Little Boy: (after I noticed he's not eating the mozzarella cheese at lunch)
 "I only like yellow cheese"
Me: but the only 'yellow' cheese I have is old and I'm not sure you'll like it"
"Oh no!" he said, "I only like new cheese"
Me: "my old cheese is new...but my new cheese is old..."
(so we all tried a piece and and they decided Janet's new, old cheese is delicious!:)
Kids, don't you just love 'em!
...and to top it all off:  this morning, this sign at the end of my cousin's driveway!
Can't you just picture the painstaking 'pride' that went into making the letters big and bold enough
for drive-by reading!