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Wednesday, November 11, 2020

This Is November


"This is November; the month to remember 
All those who fought for ‘true North strong and free’ "


What a blessing to be able to
cherish life's loveliness-es in a country where we are free to do so!
Free (covid-restrictions aside) to come and go as we please!
This freedom comes at a great price!
Lest We Forget




This is the season of silver-silk haloes 
Crowning milkweed in gauzy silhouettes 
Landscapes a-glimmer with stubble and furrows 
Shadows soft-stenciled like penciled vignettes 


This is the season of silence. Leaf-laughter 
Snuffed like a flicker from each woodland wick 
Now our senses are drawn to a rafter 
Now blue, now gray, now Day cut to the quick 



This is the season of tender surrender 
Baring of secrets that full foliage kept 
Doffed of the flower but never the splendor 
Where leaf-confetti is scattered and swept 


This is the season of Nature’s stark beauty 
Before heavens unfurl winter’s oriflamme 
Flinging white featherdown o’er town and country 
Muffling the brittle ballad of Autumn


This is the season of brook song refurbished 
Gone to seed thistle-weed-parachute flight 
Caught on a current of sunbeams, dusk-burnished 
Glint of gold gossamer soon lost to sight 


This is the season of Collected Treasure
Bloom dappled meadow, an echo of Thought
Playing back pictures of picnic-lunch pleasure 
Crooning a postlude of  'forget-me-not'


This is November; the month to remember 
All those who fought for ‘true North strong and free’ 
This is November; the last glowing ember 
On a hearth kindled with Expectancy 

© Janet Martin

An Oldie to remind us there is 

No 'Free' in Freedom

Somber and steady up a tree-lined street
A stream of solemn soldier-ranks are led,
As sun-beams dance to the drummer’s beat
Filtering through the branches overhead
Beyond the tears and past the arc of trees
The music of a small child’s laughter swells
Stark contrast to the mourning infantry
Bowing beneath the tolling of the bells

Then, as the weeping bag-pipe song exalts
The melody of sweet Amazing Grace
Then, as the banner-covered coffin halts
For it has reached its final resting place
Then, as the last note fades the cannon flies
Its echo fills the air from shore to shore
Yet pales in the wake of a mother’s cries
“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Put down your banners, lay down your guns
My sweet baby boy has died
Tributes, salutes, many battles won
Won’t bring him back” she cried
“Take away all the roses for nothing will be
Like it ever was before
The price of freedom is too hard for me
There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

Freedom (part two)

Upon Golgotha’s rocky skull-strewn trail
A teaming, screaming throng of hatred surged
Swarming around a form blood-bathed and pale
Upon a place called Calvary they converged
Wild, wild with rage wages hate’s vicious roar
No one remains to defend Love unbound
Stark contrast to the cheers and praise before
Where palm-tree branches waved and decked the ground

Then as the violent blows of steel on steel
Accentuates the horror on the hill
Then, as they drive in hatred nail by nail
Against Love’s cries of ‘Father, not My will’
Then, as they praised and raised Life’s blood-stained cross
In victory, death’s maddened thousands roar
As Mary, his mother weeps for her loss
“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Take away your hammers, lay down your swords
My dear precious son has died”
As the lightning flashed and the thunder roared
There at His feet she cried
“Take away all your hatred, your jeers and chanting
For you have slain my Lord
Take away all your weapons and cease your ranting
There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, Love pays a price
Where hellish horrors run
There is no ‘free’ in freedom, its sacrifice
Save in Christ, is never done
There is no ‘free’ in freedom, red the river
That flows on its behalf
There is no 'free' in freedom; its signature
A blood-stained autograph

© Janet Martin




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I hope you enjoyed your pause on this porch and thank-you for your visit!