Showing posts with label Autumn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Autumn. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Love's Purest Harvest

Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12


Thank-you, God, for the toil of rakes,
of pruning shears and petal-tears
and garden tours where farewell aches
with every tug and turn. As years
accumulate with searing ease;
sheaf upon sheaf
of memories


Thank you, God, for beggarly bliss
where happiness and hunger meld
where no morrow can cool the kiss
that weeps with joy at having held
and borne the sting of thorns to smell
the rose before
its petals fell


Thank-you, God, for the tender task
of tending graves; no cruel grief
is this; to linger thus, to bask
in the fullness of fallen leaf
and listen to the eulogy
that weans the whisper
from the tree


Thank-you God, for each little slice
of Heaven on earth’s dust-to-dust
season-altars of sacrifice
-es kindling utter wonder-lust
And humbler gratitude, to crown
Love’s tender teardrops
slipping down

© Janet Martin

A few more 'slices' 
of Heaven on earth’s dust-to-dust...













Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Winnowed World



Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, 
 that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90:14

Without More to live for than This
life would be a leap of lack! 
But by the grace of God
we may sing for joy
and be glad all our days!

Time's season-circuit seems to spin faster and faster
as the years fly by...
I feel like I just planned and planted this year's gardens
and already we are gathering its final fare
and 'tucking' flower-haunts in for a nap!






Season-circuits sweep the surface
Of the earth and disappear
Before-after, sorrow-laughter
Meld in mementos of Here
Soft and subtle, brusque rebuttal
Grinds the gears of live-and-learn
Bitter-sweeter, dusk-defeater
Fuels flues of No Return

Buds and flowers, barren bowers
Season-circuit spins and spills
Giving, taking, sleeping, waking
Want and wonder taunts and thrills
One door opens while one closes
Rearranging points of view
Rush of roses soon exposes
Dust to dust’s inherent due

Tend to duty bent with beauty
Dazzling dreamlands laid to waste
Working, playing, hoping, praying
Lingering while hours haste
Sacred splendor, mean and tender
Keens the crux of have and hold
Kind and cruel binding duel
Weans Time’s tux of autumn-gold

Where the embers of September’s
Mellow, yellow flickers fade
Where the mettle of the petal
Falls like music-notes soft-played
Where the flurry of our hurry
Stirs a blur of Must-to-mist
Unfurled, winnowed world of windows
Full of faces farewell-kissed

© Janet Martin












Thursday, September 22, 2022

Of Spent Summer or Of Summer Spent

 Happy First Day of Fall 







The hour is upon us
Where bower, fen and dell
Are laden with the onus
Of flowering farewell

The season of Spent Summer
Like an ocean of stars
Hangs soft upon the tremor
Of autumn’s kindled bars

In thrum of shadow-dapples
In rum-colored remains
In sums of plums and apples
And wild aster-fringed lanes

In diamond studded fretwork
Of gossamer design
Where spider’s artful network
Dazzles shrubs, gates and vines

In countless ways and wonders
Of teeming crook and crease
Earth’s quiet canvas thunders
With many a masterpiece

In Cana lily taper
Brandishing scarlet flares
In leaves, like gilt-edged paper
A Fine Author prepares

In 'toxicating scents of
Ginger, cinnamon, cloves
In foraged storage boxes
For sweaters, scarves, hats, gloves

In zinnia pomp and splendor
In bossy blue jay shriek
In contemplative candor
Of truths time cannot tweak

In hunts for garden treasure
Of Yukon gold and such
In savoring the measure
Of moments meeting/meting touch

In revamped whims and wishes
In sun-glossed tassels tossed
With Jack Frost's first soft kisses
And roses summer lost

The hour is upon us
Where the gleam in Time’s gaze
Stokes a sacred awareness
Of man’s flower-like days

© Janet Martin

...and what a stunning debut to the first day of fall!









Friday, October 9, 2020

Sometimes I Think I Feel The Chill of Winter Closing In...(or, To Autumn-agers)

 

Life is a frost-kissed autumn mist that drapes dawn’s countryside



Where even the most common frond, yielded to seasoned lease 
Beneath the brush of Mercy’s bond, becomes a masterpiece 








Sometimes I think I feel the chill of winter closing in
I sense its restless presence pressing underneath my skin 
And in my bones its somber tones with aches and pains confirms 
Though we may balk no one can sweettalk time out of its terms 

The composition of a year gathers up days to weeks 
Where moment-storms appear then melt like snowflakes on our cheeks 
Thus, soon four season’s worth of mirth-and-misery-veneer 
Rush through our reach like waves that wash the beach and disappear 

Sometimes the mind can run wild with what-ifs army of fear 
But just as it has always been, worry wastes now and here 
Better to trust the Hand that grants Today’s clock-salary 
Rather than borrow from a morrow that may never be 

Sometimes I sense an intense, soundless changing of the guard 
Youth’s castle of dreams seems like a picture on a postcard 
Where time, with no regard for hearts and swinging season-doors 
Draws springtime’s blushing dancers across star-glossed ballroom floors 

Somehow autumn swept in while I was lost in summer’s charm 
A cooler Casanova gripped my half-reluctant arm 
And drew me into rhythms of a stunning serenade 
That I could not envision while more rousing numbers played 

Ah, I cannot afford to dread, ahead of time, The Thing 
That sometimes looms like winter in my envelope of skin 
Where three-score years and ten (or four) are not a guarantee 
And all I know for sure is Time’s Giver is trustworthy 

Then this assurance is enough to weather and endure 
Whatever love may ask of us, He holds our molds secure 
As numbered days are lent and spent and season-tides cajole 
And dash form’s filament till all is winnowed but the soul 

So then, if I am wise, I fix my eyes past what I see 
The body is a carriage bearing immortality 
And though, sometimes I dread the chill of winter’s willingness 
Tis but the prelude to fulfillment of hope’s happiness 

How dismal to be tangled in a web of fickle pride 
Life is a frost-kissed autumn mist that drapes dawn’s countryside 
Where even the most common frond, yielded to seasoned lease 
Beneath the brush of Mercy’s bond, becomes a masterpiece 

© Janet Martin

Psalm 90:10
Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; 
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, 
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.


New King James Version
The days of our lives are seventy years;
 And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, 
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; 
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.


King James Bible
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.

(to think I used to think being a grandma must be a depressing age😍)

Autumn is beautiful!
Whatever the blessings that compose its beauty, thank-you God!


(I wanted to hold grand-daughter's hand too but there was too much to explore to stand still!)

Somehow autumn swept in while I was lost in summer’s charm 
A cooler Casanova gripped my half-reluctant arm 
And drew me into rhythms of a stunning serenade 
That I could not envision while more rousing numbers played 

Monday, November 11, 2019

It's Been Snowing All Day




No pictures today because I can't find my camera
but I can tell you this...it's beginning to look a lot like winter!




It’s been snowing all day
The world that wallowed, bare and brown
Is tucked beneath a down-duvet
Tossed across countryside and town

It’s been snowing all day
The color-line twixt earth and sky
With white on white is washed away
And definition brushed awry

It’s been snowing all day
The scenery of autumn felled
Beneath a whirl of frosted fray
Where stars with muffled footsteps meld

...and we are torn between
Two melodies that seem to play
The intro to a change of scene
Because it's been snowing all day


© Janet Martin


Saturday, October 26, 2019

Moment In Hand

 What a gorgeous morning!
For one micro-moment Victoria and I were caught wishing 
for freedom to wander autumn's frost-kissed wonderland, 
where the clock dictates so much of love and life's duties and desires.
"if there's one thing I've learned," I said to Victoria,
 "is just to make the most of the moment in hand so we don't
 miss the beauty of it because we were wishing for something else".

We don't live in a world without time-and-toil constraints. That's what Heaven is for! 
So we dash or dally and try to make the most of moments...







Night’s nebulous cocoon unfolds dawn like a butterfly
Time spreads its wings, alights upon earth’s plume and fills the sky
Where frosty kiss of Autumn while the world was still and dark
Has shattered nature’s colourful collage of leaf and bark
And scattered lofty orchestras that crooned all summer long
Beneath our feet, a music sheet of woodland’s remnant song

Come now, come now, my darling, do not weep for whispers spent
See how above our hunger Hope has pitched a seamless tent
And pulls us toward places we have never been before
Dawn’s virginal embraces draw us to a ballroom floor
To teach us how to try new steps in time’s determined dance
Where to sit on the sidelines is to miss life’s sweet romance

Earth’s heaven-glimpse of happiness unfurls its world of choice
Where we, without a word will give our utterances voice
Then pray we do not miss the melody moments compose
Or trample Mercy’s Butterfly perched on earth’s frost-kissed rose
For where so much is taken much remains yet to employ
The worship that when wakened overflows Hope’s cup of joy

Hello, sweet moment within reach, teach me to revel in
The awesome anthem trickling from an ancient violin
Help me to hear the harmonies that waft then softly fade
Into the prelude of arrangements waiting to be played
Where Mercy is the Maestro of most a momentous band
And we all hold an instrument of a moment in hand

© Janet Martin

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
...speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
 singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
Eph.5:17-19