In March...

I've been muddling away at this poem, 

originally begun to celebrate the first day of spring,

but life and love made this a slightly 

more drawn out inspiration/celebration

of moody March!

We've had a bit of everything weather can throw our way

on these first few days of spring!

Below, first day of spring

fourth day of spring...

(sorry for the 15-beat lines, a bit more awkward to find

a rhythm while reading it, but sometimes no matter how I try to change it

a poem has a will/spill of its own!)

A medley of photos that helped inspire some of the lines...

In March cocky robins return, dressing lips and souls in smiles

In the sky a yellow lantern mellows weather-beaten isles

In the dell the brook is swirling, overflowing matted bonds

Every south-faced nook uncurling spring’s first frilly, chilly fronds

Hark! within the heart of farmers hymns of hope begin to hail

Ho, the Zephyr is a charmer flirting with quick-tempered gale

While on lawns with burlap patches brittle Leaf turns somersaults

Winter yawns, then sharply catches his breath; snowflakes whirl and waltz

In March, woodlands draw attraction as temperatures start to climb

Sugar shacks bustle with action like a mall at Christmas time

Where visions of maple syrup on pancakes lure young and old

Winter-worn hearts start to cheer up as tongues lap up maple-gold

Laundry-lines, long stiffly laden, lilt with linen acrobats

Afternoon is like a maiden with arms full of purring cats

Outdoor chairs, bereft of power start to beckon books and tea

Where the air is like a bower hosting birdsong symphony

…as a surge of holy hunger for the smell and feel of earth

Makes the gardener feel younger in worlds on the verge of birth

Plots are vicariously planted at the first sun-tickled breeze

Thoughts are eagerly enchanted with flowery fantasies

In March, iron-colored coppice blushes as bud-bands are loosed

The crow raises raucous praises as he coasts from roost to roost

The sky is a blue decanter pouring sunbeams, warm and sweet

Whilst the ire of Old Man Winter rallies troops bound for defeat

In March, delight is smitten, oft, with refurbished fortitude

One day the wind is kitten-soft, the next, a brute, gruff and rude

But, in March joy is undeterred, whatever forecasts may bring

Because in March the calendar carries winter into spring

© Janet Martin

For lo, the winter is past, 

The rain (snow?) is over and gone.

Song of Solomon. 2:11

(maybe not quite over and gone in Ontario, but soon!)

March Lion Adios

Jim didn't realize he provided the inspiration for the last line in today's poem

when he told me that he carried out a wee, newborn lamb 

from his truck this morning, as he unloaded sheep

 at a New Jersey meat-processing plant...

'Aw! what happens to a baby lamb in a place like that?!' I asked.

 Jim said the person he met said 'we may be a rough environment 

but we take care of these little guys. 

If we are able, we find the mother and put them in a pen

 until they are taken to a new home!'

March is no lamb today, but rather, a lion!

Let's give him a hearty slap on the rump and send him on his welcome way! 

(after a week where he seemed intent on one last hefty hurrah!)

He has switched today's tune/roar from freezing rain to snow...

The other day there was no denying it; the aftermath of a blizzardy bluster

was still very beautiful...

March Lion rakes the tress of trees. Ah, let him roar

And lunge and claw and fret the firmament that waits to pour

In warmer, gentler breeze o-er violet-dappled hills

Ah, let him rage and growl and sneeze, and waken daffodils

And chimes in lily bells, and climes, blush, gold and green

And perches/porches, where we pause a bit with picnic lunch between

…as nature’s orchestra of bird and brook and bee

And wind wafting through woodlands swathed in mint-frothed filigree

Entertains and delights, as budded bowers brim

As stark silhouettes blur as barren limbs burst into hymn

And 'earth’s fulness thereof' swells with hope’s renewed lays

Where winter is forgotten in worlds besotted with praise

Ah, let him seethe and rage and pelt the windowpane

With frozen tears; ah, let him fiercely shake his mangled mane

And thrash the air with brash retaliation, for

March Lion feels the friendly fervor of spring at his door

Where soon sidewalks will wear new mother’s pushing prams

And verdant meadow fair will host the dash and dance of lambs

© Janet Martin

Ps.24:1

The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; 

the world, and they that dwell therein.

Today Spring has Come True...

*Where nature's hidden hold 

Begins to drip and spill

As sweetest wealth of Maple Gold

Gives young and old a thrill... 

 Find your tasty Maple 'treasures' and treats here!

Winding Road Maple Products

I didn't have the opportunity to post a first day of spring poem yesterday

so let's celebrate its arrival today!

And though we know somewhere

The last snowfall still taunts

With bolder happiness we dare

To dream of flowered haunts...

We revel in the afternoon

Of leafless gold, sun-kissed...

Today spring has come true

The sun climbs a blue hill

Strewing a golden residue

To earth, still stark and chill

And though we know somewhere

The last snowfall still taunts

With bolder happiness we dare

To dream of flowered haunts

The robin sings for rain

Bird-warbling hails the morn

Across the melt-and-mud terrain

The killdeer’s cry is borne

…and though the bud’s cocoon

Is a clenched, maroon fist

We revel in the afternoon

Of leafless gold, sun-kissed

*Where nature's hidden hold 

Begins to drip and spill

As sweetest wealth of Maple Gold

Gives young and old a thrill  

 

A promised land of green

Starts to break winter's spell

Where once a whitewashed world had been

And frigid shadows fell

We sense time’s discipline

That no hand can undo

And smile the smile of youth again

For Today Spring came true

© Janet Martin

March Melody/Medley

This poem began percolating on the first day of March

while I watched the birdies celebrate with unbridled abandon

before the next day turned the bird bath back to a skating rink

They do look a bit shivery though, don't you think?

March kindles in its coming dreamlands of sun-drenched delight

It sparks a sense of celebration to worlds tucked in white

We start to hear an orchestra as tempos ebb and flow

While poetry of petals trembles beneath drifts of snow

March stirs in winter-frazzled hearts spring-hunger’s hope renewed

And reignites the flame that harvest-weariness subdued

As once again thoughts turn toward the flow’r and fruit of seeds

Duets of plant-and-prayer that God would supply our needs

March teases our emotions as temperatures dip and soar

One day it kisses faces that it froze the day before 

While we, of past experience, embrace this yearly spar

Because we hear the songs of spring within its tug-of-war

March matrons pummel pillows heaped on Old Man Winter’s cot

They free a feather-frolic to a world tenderly caught

Between the throes of winter and the crocuses of spring

We smile because we know what time will most assuredly bring

...soft pussy-willow kittens, fragrant violet-starlight, strewn

Farewell to toques and mittens, hello, yellow afternoon

Pretty pink tulip chalice, in a palace fit for queens

As white on white yields to earth's brightest hues of spring's first greens 

March wakes in us a sanguine splurge of soon-emerging thrills

Like brooks bursting with babble, like hills strewn with daffodils

Like gardens ringing with reintroductions of bare feet

Like robins singing in the raindrops dancing on the street

March makes us gently gladder for fine weather yet to come

As Old Man Winter’s numbered days are dwindling one by one

We feel warm welcomes grasp our souls, we glimpse rose-gilded gates

Beneath earth’s blanket full of holes, spring’s world of wonder waits

© Janet Martin

March wakes in us a sanguine splurge of soon-emerging thrills

Like brooks bursting with babble,

We feel warm welcomes grasp our souls, we glimpse rose-gilded gates

Beneath earth’s blanket full of holes, spring’s world of wonder waits

Of Half-way and Beyond

 Happy Already-halfway-through-March?!

...prepare to meet your God.”

He who forms the mountains,

who creates the wind,

and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,

who turns dawn to darkness,

and treads on the heights of the earth—

the Lord God Almighty is his name.

Amos 4:12-13

He who turns dawn to darkness...

Already halfway through what feels like a page we just turned

Moments outpoured and shaken into lessons taught and learned

Wonderment reawakened to the way Time spills its zest

Where east horizon hoists the flare that dims upon the west

Whilst renewing the lease where dreams and circumstance compete

Then easing into archives both the bitter and the sweet

Already at the halfway point of a month just begun

As we marvel at means of ‘nothing new under the sun’

While struggling with the age-old ways of trouble and success

An elemental gauge that tunes and vexes happiness

Hinged to a Higher Power, like a flower that unfolds

To strew its petals on a path that Looking Back beholds

Already halfway through what was new not so long ago

No one can tame the tides (ides) that hide a sacred undertow

As toss of seasons rolls across the moss-glossed mouths of graves

Where none but God can see that halfway point of Numbered Days

And everyone should give more earnest heed to where time flows

Not forward but back to the One by whose kind grace man goes

If we have passed the halfway post of three-score years and ten

Then we know we are halfway through an average life span

And whether halfway through a day or week, a month or year

We ought to be aware and prepare for Death drawing near

And love life’s Giver, God, with all our heart and soul and mind

Before Soul slips through that which leaves all halfway points behind

© Janet Martin

Some Of Them Are Spring

 There is so much to live for when the sun unwraps the earth

But we embrace sere sweeps to start, the heart wild with delight

At prospects of what waits beneath the waning deeps of white

Yes, we are straining at the bridle and chomping at the bit

to remove words like 'almost' and 'soon' inserted in the verses below 

From Song of Solomon 2:11-12

For, lo, the winter is (almost) past,

the rain is (soon) over and gone;

The flowers (will soon) appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds (almost) is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

Yes, in Ontario we know there will still be snow

but this bit of spring-wink the past few days has kindled the fever!

Last week I clipped some lilac and apple-tree branches and put them in a vase

...this week, a bit of indoor spring!

There is so much to live for when the sun unwraps the earth

Like a grand gift of hills and rills and woodlands primed with birth

When birdsong fills yon paling arc as darkness melts like snow

And wonder is a hunter, hungry for floral hello

And nature to put on a show of green in every shade

As bud and bulb begin to flow with posy promenade

But we embrace sere sweeps to start, the heart wild with delight

At prospects of what waits beneath the waning deeps of white

Of garden-getaways and farmers stirring sacred dust

To plant a whole new season’s worth of earth’s ‘in God we trust’

For spring will always find its way, though it may take a bit

To convince Old Man Winter we are weary of his wit

The brook bounces with ballads, bubbling, sparkling melody

After cold bars that swung ajar and set its music free

The corner of the porch where we shivered and hunched last week

Now leaves a kiss of summer on the pallid, up-turned cheek

The hour of first flowers starts to nudge, tickle and tease

Bowers of thought that long did not indulge such fantasies

There is so much to smile and dream and sing for as the world

Waves like a beaming banner beneath God’s goodness unfurled

Where joy and grief will fill the sheaf of days, but not without

The mercy of the One who turns time’s season-wheel about

And threads the lusty loom of life with multi-coloured string

That always first runs through His fingers; some of them are Spring

© Janet Martin

Of Gray and Gold

 

At day break gold put on quite a glow 

before gray lowered/glowered to extinguished its show

Soon, should we live to see it through

Dusk will obscure dawn’s virgin view

Soon time will gather gray and gold

As chimes of tick and tock are tolled

To bygone’s immutable mold

In words we say and deeds we do

As we look back then on today

At scenes that none can brush away

Will echo-fray we leave behind

Be patient, true, gentle and kind

With fellow-trave’lers first in mind

Where gold and gray tones interplay

We cannot see what waits to be

Where gates fling wide to set it free

On teeming tides of come-what-may

We sail toward the close of day

In ebbs and flows, now gold, now gray

While making history

© Janet Martin

After a gray shower passed through

the sun has returned,

 working its golden wonders once more!

Looks like cross-country skiing is running to an end for this season...hopefully!

As much as I enjoy it I would never choose it over an early spring!

Ecccles. 3:1-8

There is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

Me, with a basket of laundry to hang out

am glad for 'a time for gold'...

Little girl with a new, polka-dot umbrella, 

was wishing for 'a time for more gray plip-plop of raindrops'!

(it kinda looks like she might get her wish😊)

...looks like a true March gray-gold kaleidoscope kind of day today!