Dear Henry Van Dyke (and a few other rare old writers/poets)

Books that touch me/move me as often and deeply as the one below

are far and few between!

Thank-you Henry!

You are my friend though you were gone long before I was born

And we have never met, save in words penned in days of yorn

You move me still, where once your quill traversed a barren page

To leave behind kind fellowship for folk of future age

To touch us in those places time cannot affect, it seems

No matter how it chases generations through its schemes/dreams

I love you, though to tell you is a joy deferred and weighed

In a balance that tips toward a door none can evade

Till then I'll taste thy turn of phrase with slow and sheer amour

To think that ink can keep alive what death cannot devour

To touch us with affections Time cannot thwart by its toll

As you arouse reflections in rivers poured from your soul

You make me smile and weep and laugh and sigh in sweet surprise

You steal my breath; earth moves beneath its motionless disguise

Oh, how I wish that I could shake the hand that shaped the thought

That gently cheers an afternoon, soon otherwise forgot

You touch me as if we were just a fireside apart

Sharing a glimpse of heaven as we commune, heart to heart

© Janet Martin

Below are a few examples why I love this writer so much!

By Tender Means of Poetry (or, To My Gentle Reader)

So sorry, sweet little birdies, but filling the feeders needs to wait!

A sudden day off due to wild weather has opened the rather rare (ice-embossed)

window of opportunity to 'wax poetic' 😅💓

This book, rescued from the garbage bin by a truly caring friend

 who dropped it off at my door last week, 

Stole my heart with the first page!...

and inspired today's poem 'to my gentle reader'...

Of that which kindly comes to be

By tender means of poetry

To cheer us gently on, dear friend

Upon life’s careworn twist and bend

Where face to face we may not meet

To trace the bond of friendships sweet

I thank God for love’s ink-wrought font

To gently bind the wounds of want

And keep each other company

By tender means of poetry

To know, though we are far apart

The timeless tug of heart to heart

To share the very sacred touch

Of tears and smiles and prayers and such

And help us realize anew

The preciousness of me-and-you

And to gladden regions of thought

With refreshed awareness of God

To make us feel like family

By tender means of poetry

To tune us to the creature cry

Of hope; to hold love’s candle high

Where often dreams do not come true

And carefully laid plans fall through

To teach us to not cling too fast

-ly to what soon augments the past

To remind us, through lilt of rhyme

What does not change, in spite of time

And taste life’s sweet comradery

By tender means of poetry

To catch midst winter’s frigid fling

A sense of everlasting spring

To find a plot where tulips grow

To brighten thought while wild winds blow

To rouse an unexpected thrill

Where pages birth a bloom-tossed hill

And suddenly we bow the head

And thank God for the bit o' bread

Through that which kindly comes to be

By tender means of poetry

© Janet Martin