April Anthem

 Celebrating twelve days of April today, in all its vexing beauty...

This is one of those poems begun in the bustle of busyness

about a week ago, as I delighted in the moodiness of April.

And April was still moody, all this week-long no matter

how optimistically we said with every snow-frantic flurry,

'enjoy its beauty because this might be the last one till next winter!' 😅😁

Your world is like a picture book that Mother Nature makes...

In dips and nooks and crooks you cup impromptu ponds and lakes...

Your pages showcase weathered haunts poised on the verge of green...

With here and there the farewell taunts of Old Man Winter’s sheen...

Your brook lures us to listen to lyrics where heaven gleams

Our eyes begin to glisten with the dance of kindled dreams...

While earth lies like a mat beneath a moody, brooding sky...

a few hours later...

While front door sports a flower-wreath to bid stray snows goodbye...

Your tug-of-wars may vex us when we wake to worlds of white...

again and again!!!

Your sudden storm perplexes plots primed with tulip-delight...

But Mr. Goldfinch sports a dapper, yellow splash of cheer

Assuring us no matter what the weather, spring is here...

Your world is like a picture book that Mother Nature makes

In dips and nooks and crooks you cup impromptu ponds and lakes

Your pages showcase weathered haunts poised on the verge of green

With here and there the farewell taunts of Old Man Winter’s sheen

Your brook lures us to listen to lyrics where heaven gleams

Our eyes begin to glisten with the dance of kindled dreams

While earth lies like a mat beneath a moody, brooding sky

While front door sports a flower-wreath to bid stray snows goodbye

Your robin rouses chuckles as he freely entertains

Your brittle honeysuckle vine welcomes reviving rains

Your zephyr, like a flute unfurls a riveting prelude

To warm the whisper that uncurls leaf-laughter, long subdued

Your tug-of-wars may vex us when we wake to worlds of white

Your sudden storm perplexes plots primed with tulip-delight

But Mr. Goldfinch sports a dapper, yellow splash of cheer

Assuring us no matter what the weather, spring is here

Your world is like a flower bud waiting to burst with bloom

But first you must push through the mud we chase with mop and broom

While you run restless fingers through earth's sunshine-hungry isles 

While Old Man Winter lingers, just to melt beneath your smiles

© Janet Martin

Dear April...a Love letter of Relinquishment

Final prompt for April's poem-a-day challenge from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest!

For today's Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

Write a The End poem, and/or...

Write a Beginning poem.

One evening as I listened to this glorious piece of music below...

HAUSER - Tristesse

  

....it seemed as if it played the heart of April

and I began to pen an April love song that was never completed

This April, my joy as been visited by its inevitable counterpart; sorrow💔 

 calling to mind these words of old

from Eccles. 3:1-4

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,...

***

Sorrow makes sweeter every joy.

It makes sacred every opportunity to love

It rouses in the poet a meeker awareness

of the potency of ink endurance

and the voice that spills from a page long after

the breath of said author has ceased

***

This is the Love Song, revamped

because this is the last day of April...

Dear April,

Don't leave me yet,

I didn't get my fill of thrills

that the soul bares

Into sonnets of snared quadrilles

From violet-starry thoroughfares

or driveways dimpled with plip-plop

of raindrops wakening the dell

I didn't spell first swells of green

into an April doggerel 

or waltz enough, across a world

that somersaults with joy's spent grief 

because of little puddles pearled

like jewels on a newborn leaf   

I didn't tame to page the rush

of hope as winter disappears

from the austere, north-facing slope

as the forlorn countryside cheers

beneath sun-kisses, warmer now

where mild zephyrs counter the chill

that sneaks into the winds that blow

but cannot thwart the daffodil

Dear April,

Don't leave me yet, 

Because, it feels like we just met  

now we must part

before I satisfy the thirst

that almost bursts the poet's heart 

with art that you alone bestow;

the calm, that crowns the countryside

like a prelude before the show

before a creaking gate swings wide

to gardens tickling soft, bare feet

to fields mantled in dusty haze

to busyness we gladly greet

yet meet with half-reluctant gaze 

because Time never takes a rest

beneath the yellow willow tree

where the robin has tucked its nest

within its sighing filigree

where April showers spill and splash

to wake flower-worlds held at bay

And I would be too sad to laugh

But for your sweet successor, May

Janet Martin

because of little puddles pearled

like jewels on a newborn leaf 

I love this poem by John Clare

so fitting on this last day of April...

April

Sweet Synchronicity (of endings and beginnings)

Final prompt for April's poem-a-day challenge from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest!

For today's Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

Write a The End poem, and/or...

Write a Beginning poem.

The trees are beginning to don sheer, green chiffon!

A welcome sign that surely now

Old Man Winter has gone 😏😊

A breathless beckoning appeals 

It throbs in barren limb

Until the bud relents its seals

And frees a flower-hymn

As a Baton we cannot see

Conducts a mighty choir

And homage to God's Majesty/fealty

Resounds in every spire

Each lilting gold-green note unfolds

A lacy leaf  'hello'

Earth's eager audience beholds

Glimpses of spring's Maestro 

And hails, with humble gratitude

The Author of the song

That spills from hill and dell and wood

In winter's sweet so-long

In subtle synchronicity

Of hugs and tugs unfurled

On farewell's heels a symphony

Of welcome sweeps the world 

~Janet Martin

I Love a Life of Simple Joys or April Awe

 One of my favorite spring-highlights is unfolding...maple tree buds

I love a life of simple joys

Cup o’ chamomile tea

Laughter of April afternoon

Trickling through lace-graced tree

The tender tug of budded lures

Soft wafting overhead

Starred dark where dreams embark before

We are asleep in bed

I love the color of surprise

The violet stars that fall

To dapple dells and spark swells of

Sheer wonder-of-it-all

The innocence of child and pup

The flower-bowl of earth

Crowned with the perfect hue of blue

The merriment of mirth

Roused by the way the day begins

As heaven overflows

And mercy brims into hymns of

Coral, purple and rose

And as if this was not enough

Bird song that rings and rings

And rouses from awe-humbled hearts

Joy for life’s simple things

I love the way spring makes us glad

From our head to our toes

Like a firm handshake that can make

Us smile in spite of woes

The way that April woos the land

With kisses fit for kings

And wakens us to worlds unfurled

With wealth of simple things

I love a life of simple joys

Dimple in chubby cheek

Of baby boy or girl, a curl

To tease, a chin to tweak

A little plot to teach a tot

Who makes the garden grow

And how the seeds we plant can't hide

And we reap what we sow

I love the way a warm hello

Makes worth the farewell tear

How grief is the brute fruit of love

Yet oh, so very dear

If I could ask for anything

T'would not be stuff or toys

But just a humble plea to see  

Life, rife with simple joys

© Janet Martin

I love a life of simple joys

Dimple in chubby cheek

Of baby boy or girl, a curl

To tease, a chin to tweak...

A Spring Song

This morning's sunbeams

after yesterday's snowfall

sets spring songs a-ringing!

(in bird and bard!)

The sparkle of frost-brickle

The finch in golden plume

*(or the finch-tree in full plume)

The twinkle in Father Time’s grin

As earth trembles with bloom

Good morning’s hearty handshake

The sky, a big blue bowl

Tipped upside down to grandly crown

The laughter of the soul

The giggle of the garden

The robin’s tiralee

Green sheen unfurled across a world

Wild with expectancy

Where we attuned to anthems

Not written in a book

Join in the hymn of throbbing limb

And chuckle of the brook

How long we wished and waited

For daffodils to glow

For violet stars to deck the bars

Long kissed with flecks of snow

Come, let’s dance on the tarmac

No longer brown and gray

And celebrate the welkin gate

Where winter lost its way (hopefully)😑

© Janet Martin

The sparkle of frost-brickle...

*The finch-tree in full plume/bloom

Good morning’s hearty handshake

The sky, a big blue bowl

Tipped upside down to grandly crown

The laughter of the soul...

How long we wished and waited

For daffodils to glow

...in the words from my two-yr.-old little gal in my childcare-

'I saw dappydils!'

For violet stars to deck the bars

Long kissed with flecks of snow...

The giggle of the garden

The robin’s tiralee

Green sheen unfurled across a world

Wild with expectancy...

Earth Always Responds...(to the tender touch of Father Time)

PAD Challenge day 25: For today's prompt, write a response poem.

Song of Solomon 2: 10-13 (BSB)

My beloved calls to me,

“Arise, my darling.

Come away with me, my beautiful one.

For now the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers have appeared in the countryside;

the season of singingc has come,

and the cooing of turtledoves

is heard in our land.

The fig tree ripens its figs;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come away, my darling;

come away with me, my beautiful one.”

Earth starts to shed its dormant hues, where nature’s gaberdine

Of brown and gray is woven through with threads of verdant green...

Upon a loom we cannot see we sense its shuttles hum

To trim the limb of barren tree with hints of more to come...

Earth starts to shed its dormant hues, where nature’s gaberdine

Of brown and gray is woven through with threads of verdant green

Upon a loom we cannot see we sense its shuttles hum

To trim the limb of barren tree with hints of more to come

Soon still bedraggled sweeps will beam, where warmer winds caress

Earth’s weathered countenance will gleam with Mercy’s promises

The canvas where spent generations toiled and tilled remains

(We too must bear the castigation Adam’s curse sustains)

How often we begin to think that springtime is amiss

Only to be rebuffed with pink petal-confetti’s kiss

Only to be awestruck anew by ways we cannot change

On an established avenue that none can rearrange

The Maker of heaven and earth keeps every vow He makes

He tunes time’s tethered tide where birth and death’s season-surf breaks

Across the rise and fall of hill and dell His fervor spills

Merlot bud-beakers pulse and swell with favor He instills

Annual metamorphoses-es always steal the show

An unplumbed vault of happiness-es bound to overflow

Where vistas, still silence-immersed in April’s spartan scrim

Are like an orchestra about to burst into full hymn

Earth always responds to the tender touch of Father Time

She blushes as a rush of splendor rises to her clime

As monotones of brown and gray give way to green and gold

And color-worlds about to play May’s wonders to behold

© Janet Martin

Annual metamorphoses-es always steal the show...

An unplumbed vault of happiness-es bound to overflow...