Thursday, February 28, 2019

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



Wednesday, February 27, 2019

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

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

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

Monday, February 25, 2019

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