Ephemeral and Eternal or The Briefness Of It All

May is flying by in a flurry of hellos and farewells

and smiles and tears...

and much to do!! 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence ...

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; 

How gray-gold-greenly moments spill and meld to Nevermore

Today's gush of gossamer twill so briefly held before 

Ephemeral and eternal, are deftly intertwined

Tangible to intangible as echoes strew behind 

Life's dues of give and take weave so much more than meets the eye

Love's hues sparkle and ache and grin and groan with my-oh-my 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence 

How surely choices lilt and swirl, unfurling Consequence 

Ephemeral and eternal, Time's subtle shuttle hums

As both brutal and beautiful to Bygone's cast succumbs

As morn, moment by moment weds with yester-scapes of death 

As God's unfailing purpose threads through every gifted breath

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; while moments spill and meld

Weaving with wisps that flare and dim, a lifetime briefly held 

Ephemeral and eternal, where no two days the same

Tune flurries of hello-farewell no one can curb or tame

Leaving so much to ponder with each season rise and fall 

As smiles and tears grow fonder with the Briefness of it all

Janet Martin

Life's Hold-and-Let-Go Minuet

 

Off on a long anticipated trip to England!

...before moving out for the summer.

Last night the sun set on life-as-I-know-it for a while...

Today marks the beginning of a four-month empty-nester season

...though, thankfully this 'nest' is rarely empty for long!

Eccles.3:1

To every thing there is a season, 

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

...so here's to cherishing every moment

of every fleeting season of life!

Let me let nothing

pass me by

Let me leap for joy,

let me fly

And fall and taste

the salt of tears

Let me smile in the face

of fears

And never shirk

the work it takes

To make love’s

Memory-keepsakes

Like dreams come true

and birthday cakes…

Let me crave love’s pangs,

And the sting

That season change

is bound to bring

Then brave the brunt of

yes and no

To learn a humbler

letting go

Let me linger

but not too long

to catch the lyrics of

love’s song

That, as it fades

Grows sweet and strong

…still tangible

where echoes waft

The noise of boys and girls

grown soft

Upon the air

of night to night

And prayer on prayer,

oft taking flight

As hello hugs

and farewell tears

and tender tugs,

love's souvenirs

Compose tableaus

of yesteryears

...where, in the wake

of noon to noon/June to June

The ache of happiness

is strewn

Like minuets that

ebb and rush

Across shorelines,

blurred by a brush

that leaves no trace

save on my brow

where once-upon

a younger Now

Turned older

And meeker, somehow

...where love now wears

The priceless pain

Of sorrow like

A diamond-chain

I bind  it round

My neck and heart

Like a valuable

Work of art

That I would never

Choose and yet

That I never want

To forget

Life's Hold-and-let-go

Minuet

© Janet Martin

Luigi Boccherini: Minuetto (classical)

Strauss - The Blue Danube Waltz

Content to be Content

Last night, due to fog etc. the older half of our small group

was unable to be present and I was the only oldie,

(because the host home was two minutes from my home...)

I listened to young parents as they shared delights and challenges of

babies and tots.

Sometimes, youth in its 'youthful loveliness' can make more weathered relics

 hanker for days, long spent and much forgotten,

until my 'leveler head' prevails 😅

Sometimes I hunger deeply for life before the loss of loved ones

 altered it eternally.

Sometimes that longing serves as a wake-up call to 

redeem my time wisely rather than in foolish, futile lament. 💔

This was the Lord’s doing;

It is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it

Ps.118:23-24

Don't wait until tomorrow to smell today's roses...

Sometimes, in foolish moments I hanker for days gone by

Where common scenes have softened until only love remains

Where lessons I once rued while youth unfurled its butterfly

Have settled like gold-dust in the wake of love's growing pains

And then I am content; futile, longing's lament because

Want wishes for a star-glossed world that never really was

Sometimes, in foolish  moments I am tempted to appeal

To once upon gone-good-old-days for laughter's freer vim

Until I turn to gaze at faces, kissable and real

Warm with the precious company of darling Her and Him

And then I am content with blessings too profuse to tell

Sensing a sacred cadence tuning hello with farewell

Sometimes in foolish moments I am blinded by a view

Surreal and sentimental, gleaming in yesterday's sun

Where time's redeeming brush has smoothed what once was troubled too

Where, rather than battlefields, a masterpiece has begun

And then I am content to relinquish Want's wanderlust

God keeps the Part that matters; all else is but dust to dust 

Sometimes, in wiser moments I am able to discern

The hues between the views that else would gleam in flawless poise 

I feel the faded sting of lessons we must live to learn

And even if I could I would not resurrect spent joys 

Content to be content though grief seasons the heart with scars

It grounds and guards love's feet from wand'ring lost, among the stars 

 © Janet Martin

I found this poem-gem in a book

I picked up the other day from our local thrift/treasure store  

September-Sentimentality

September always seems to steep my senses with an urgency to

stop more, to savor summer's final fling!,

even while I haste from garden to kitchen with

harvest to gather and preserve!

(rescuing tomatoes from rows ravaged with blight!!)

While collecting ingredients for savoury supper dishes...

I am so thankful for a poetry loving mother,

who first kindled and nurtured my love for poetry;

 for cadence of rhythm and rhyme ...

Seems sometimes I grow homesick for places I’ve never been

For waves that wash a far-off shore of seas I’ve never seen

For sun and shadow play on views that ache in thought’s ‘suppose’

Before they slip away in hues of amber, blue and rose

Seems sometimes I grow lonesome for someone I’ve never known

A kindred-spirit troubadour not made of skin and bone

But of a whisper that ignites a kind of poetry

That kindles roaring appetites for what will never be

Seems sometimes I grow wistful for worlds long-forgotten, oh

For misty sun-kissed vistas or river-rush far below

And I grow sentimental over lyrics still untamed

In melodies still wafting in masterpieces unnamed

Seems sometimes in September I am bitter-sweetly torn

Twixt Summer’s dying ember and beauty’s bliss, Autumn-born/borne

Seems sometimes in the twilight of another summer’s sweep

I sense a tender kinship with past poets, fast asleep

Seems sometimes all the orchards, gardens, crickets, butterflies

The blues, purples and golds that paint a poet’s paradise

Of white heath asters, gleam of goldenrod, of milkweed's blush

Anoints me with a sense of living 'neath an Artist’s brush

Seems sometimes I can almost hear an almost-symphony

A grand medley of solos and unrivaled harmony

As flower-bowers crescendo then fade, as woodlands flare

Seems sometimes I can almost feel nature’s baton, mid-air

© Janet Martin

One evening I commented to my mother how much I love the sound of crickets

and she wondered if I remember the poem about the cricket and the ant...

My organized mom knew where in her scads of clippings to (hopefully) find it!

And she did. a very timely reminder!

“A slack hand causes poverty,

 but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

 (Proverbs 10:4)

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,

 while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”

 (Proverbs 13:4)

Time Never Feels Quite Long Enough

When it comes to love

Time never feels quite long enough

A rare everyone-home evening on the weekend;

when time never feels nearly long enough 

Time never feels quite long enough, it often seems to me

These precious days we dearly love fly by, don’t you agree

How beautiful and terrible the tug of heartstrings ache

Where hello soon bears farewell hugs in Loving’s give and take

Time never feels quite long enough where love and laughter meld

To keepsakes in a treasure-trove of echoes fondly held

Where sometimes, in love’s sentimental joy and sorrow-wake

We grow reluctant to count candles on a birthday cake

Where children seem to hurry so to run sweet childhood through

And we try not to worry oh, while growing older too 

Where dawn is soon dusk's blue tableau where shadow steeples sprawl

And holding turns to letting go while smiles brim and tears fall 

Time never feels quite long enough in the fine company

Of ‘perfectly imperfect’ love of friends and family

Which makes me hunger for Love’s timeless bliss still set before

Up yonder where no parting is, in Love’s Forevermore

Time always only gives and takes today, no more, no less

Its intangible ocean breaks our hearts with happiness

While teaching us through pray-push-shove, when it comes to farewell

Time never feels quite long enough for all love wants to tell

© Janet Martin

How Oft-Soft a Sense of Joy-filled Grief...

...or, is it grief-filled joy?? 

(below, a week ago)

"If the tulips never died

the season for irises and peonies,

columbine and corn flowers,

 would never be born"

was my consolation during

 this morning's flower-garden stroll...

How oft/soft the haste of moments stirs

A bittersweet-ness as it blurs

The very present with the past

Ephemeral, yet iron-cast

How oft a long-awaited day

Of balmy breeze and sunbeam-play

Unfolds its bloom upon a stem

That cannot keep its diadem

…where soon echoes and petals meld

To grace the place where death is held

While overhead life thunders by

Beneath a rising, falling sky

How oft delight is caught off-guard

Where children dash across the yard

Heedless of currents that commence

To bear them from sweet innocence

…where soon they humble love's reply

With gaze that meets gaze, eye to eye

And we begin to revere more

The Hand that draws ajar dawn’s door

And we begin to slow our pace

To drain each precious drop of grace

From breakers as they heave and swell 

To wash dusk's shorelines with farewell

How oft we run with outstretched arms

But cannot hold for long, life’s charms

As love, ever a student, gapes

With groping awe, at spent landscapes

How oft we, like our silenced kin

When in the prime of groan and grin

Begin to sense a glove-like sky  

Taming/claiming an ocean of reply 

How oft then, time's momentum wakes

A bittersweet climax that breaks

Like foaming tides across a shore

Where lust for love and life implore

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3: 1-2

To everything there is a season,

A time for every purpose under heaven:

 A time [a]to be born,

And a time to die;

A time to plant,

And a time to pluck what is planted;...

I Wanna Live...