A Tribute to Coffee...

 Coffee can capture circular art wherever you set it!

Sometimes when I'm grinding coffee beans in the evening

 to set the coffee-maker for the morrow

I almost wish it was morning...it smells SO good!

 Today while kiddos napped I celebrated the last day of February 

with a sunny back-porch siesta/snooze!

I never can articulate

The secret of your brew

But nothing else exhilarates

My inner Me like you

Ah, you are morning’s perfect host

High noon’s hip-hip-hooray

With you I raise a twilight-toast

To salute end of day

A fit-for-all-occasions

Celebration in a cup

And when I go to bed at night

I can’t wait to wake up

© Janet Martin

Dessert Coffee; 1 strong, black fresh-brewed coffee
1 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp maple syrup (or more if you prefer sweeter)

Learning and Learning

 Happy Final Day of February

The speed with which February zipped by is why I never dread winter or hurry along any season!

Months seem to pack up and disappear all too fast on their own.

Something recently reminded me how my own kids will always remember me old-ish,

never in the younger half of my life while Time sends youth packing 

midst laughing and scolding, kiss-hug and holding and all other mother-ish Love

This morning a young mom and I were guessing how her daughter might be tall
when she grows up because of the shape and size if her hands and feet
and it reminded me of those days when I would peer into the guessing-land of Future
visualizing the surreal that takes shape before our very eyes in ever-present plain-clothed surprise...
Sometimes I still find myself peering into that room full of shadows,
 wondering what kind of crinkly old woman I will be...crotchety or kind😀

 (Probably either, depending on the day)

Today's guessing-room bloomed into flower in colours other than gray, for a change!

Thank-you Lord, for the Unfailing Beauty of You!

Into a vague hollow

Of veiled worlds we peer

A room full of shadows,

Part hope and part fear

For morrow’s grownups

We work-fret-pray-fuss

While we evolve into

New versions of us

…joining ranks, older

Than yesterday’s force

Squaring our shoulders

To weather the course

Wondering whether

Hope’s silk-leather glove

Will hold us together

While we live, laugh, love

Taking a meeker

Approach to the hour

Always a seeker

Of buds filled with flow’r

Learning and learning

As Time sheds its fray

How soft the journey

Of life slips away

Learning and leaning

 With visage denied

 How trust is believing

That God will provide

Learning forever

That Life's lone return

Is proving we never

Grow too old to learn

© Janet Martin

If Life Was A Ladder...

We enjoyed climbing this 'ladder' at Montmorency Falls. Que. last fall...

If life was a ladder

Then today would be

One rung-breadth nearer

To eternity

Sometimes while we chatter

It’s so hard to tell

We’re climbing a ladder

To Heaven or hell

This mileage of moments

Is destined to stop

Who knows the distance

From bottom to top

Ethereal pendulum

Swings to and fro

What we hold soon becomes

What we let go

What we take we should break

Like bread, to share

We are all ladder-mates

Just ‘getting there’

Dawn-to-dusk scatters

The rungs as we climb

Shrinking, ah, shrinking

The ladder of Time

© Janet Martin

Like A Poet's Blank Page

 Daybreak-sky fabric was my favorite shade of denim etched in gold...

(photo does not do the real Thing justice)

New day, like a poet’s blank page

Beckons from ether reams

Where bouts of grief and gladness wage

Their wars twixt chores and dreams

To try the warrior of want

With tests to tame the tongue

Where deed alone will prove the font

Of words so aptly flung

Soon Time will tell the total truth

As Choice collects its pay

Where The Unraveler of youth

Takes not one holiday

And not one maestro is immune

And not one bard forgot

The poet’s most passionate tune

Thwarts nothing with ink-jot

…save here and there a sudden storm

For love is bitter-sweet

And sadness can be lithe of form

But heavy with defeat (Du’ feet)

And Hope for all its heaven-sent/scent

Is sometimes hard to feel

Where hunger scores the mortal bent

That poems help to heal

Where new day sets its virgin yen

Before thought’s wondering eye

The fire in The Poet’s Pen

Ignites the ink-well sky

And from the sum that waits to be

Life starts to fill the page

Soft-shaping into poetry

What grief and gladness wage

© Janet Martin

Sense-ations

The roof-tops touch the sky

The sky grazes the street

And in each snowflake skimming by

I sense the dance of feet

The pine-tree minstrel plays

Soft, spectral violins

And in the serenade it splays

I sense a song of grins

Winter’s rowdy rogues brawl

On plush and pulsing seams

Where, even in the thickest squall

I sense the rush of streams

This tantrum none can quell

Or tame the tempest's will

Yet on the wild and frigid fell

I sense a daffodil

White, rolls the countryside

White tolls most ev’rything

Still, even in this white-world wide

I sense the green of spring

© Janet Martin