For Seasoned Love…

Sometimes there's too many thoughts for one poem!

 Anniversary Poem #2

Autumn fell around you

Now winter has found you

And Wisdom has crowned you

With silver-white sheen

The seasons pass quicker

Where sorrows bloom thicker

Than in summer’s flicker

Or spring’s virgin green

Love’s vows still unbroken

So long ago spoken

Worn, joined hands, the token

Of love’s youthful ‘yes’

How precious the measure

Of Beauty’s best treasure

Through both pain and pleasure

Remained faithfulness

Beneath heaven's spillage

And earth's common tillage

And childhood's brief village

We watched as we grew

Where what seemed so natural

We learned, was a humble

And hard-fought example

Of love kind and true

Thank-you, father, mother

For living your Honor

With love for each other

And God; may He bless

You now and forever

May each day together

No matter the weather

Bring true happiness

© Janet Martin

Age-old Hallelujah

It never fails...a bowl-lot 'o work means a whole lotta poem that's gotta get out😆!

Working at a poem I can use for a 55th Anniversary Celebration for my parents!

(Each family needs to bring something to share/read/perform)

I wasn't going to 'bore' them with a poem until one of my sister hinted

 'they're hoping for/counting on one, no pressure'

...that's all the permission I needed to pray for a poem! Thank-you, dear sis!

I really hope God gives me a special one for two of the most loved people in my life!

Oh, now that we are older how we cherish ever more

Life’s kind gift of each other like we never have before

And now that we are older we revere love’s sacred gift

Of circles still unbroken by death’s unrelenting rift

Yes, now that we are older we learn what we thought we knew

And shoulder loads a lot like our parents shouldered too

For now that we are older we feel time’s insistent tug

And sense the holy fellowship in a handshake or hug

We take far less for granted when it comes to love and life

Time grants no guarantee how long we’ll be husband or wife

And when we look behind us Time remind us of our place

So many people so much younger than us giving chase

Sometimes we feel a jig; dance young and frisky in our thought

But then a crick in neck-back-knees reminds us we are not

So we thank God instead for strength and grace to face today

For ‘spirit and truth worship’ to speak what words cannot say

We thank Him for each other and especially Mom and Dad

How He saw fit to bless you/us with these many years you’ve/we've had

For now that we are older we have come to realize

How love that stands the test of time is life’s most treasured prize

How everything we have and had is nothing we possessed

How mercy from a loving God makes possible the rest

Makes possible the un-tethering of olden heartstrings

And weathering the letting go that holding always brings

Yes, now that we are older and our age begins to show

We join the coin of ‘the older we get the less we know…

…and see and hear, my dear, but oh the more we think and pray

And find more to be thankful for with every passing day

And now that we are older how we cherish ever more

Our father and mother like we never have before

© Janet Martin

Humbly Thankful (a love poem)

Hubby's 'Happy 54th Birthday' today!

Happy Birthday Jim!

...and because I know you prefer short, SHORT poems, 

here is a short one for you...

For all the miles you've 'run'

For all the shoveled 'poo'

This is a great big "thank-you hon" 

And a great big "I love you" 

(for all the times I didn't say thank-you)

 Thank-you for the millions of miles you've driven (and scooped)

to keep a roof over our heads, food on the table and shoes on our feet!

Here's another short-ish poem for us...

We celebrate our 30th anniversary on Sunday 

so in case I'm not back til next week this poem is a little tribute to thirty years of us!

Life sometimes leaves us wishing for things we could use more of

But I am humbly thankful for more-than-I-deserve love

Where just-between-the-two-of-us would leave many a lapse

But by kind love and help from God He fills in all the gaps

As through the ups and downs of love and life and try, try, try

The older that we get the more love seems to satisfy

Then come what may from day to day, one thing we know is sure

God’s love entwined with yours and mine makes our love secure

I could spice up this poem hon, with words like ‘sweetie-pie’

But you know me too well so I’ll just wink, (and you know why)

© Janet Martin

 One of 'our songs'💟

From Star-dust on a String

 June 3rd, 1988 Wedding Day

In the Mennonite culture we grew up in the bride wears pale blue.

This past Christmas is the most recent picture I have of the two of us now...

I suppose

None of us are

The same person we were

Twenty-eight years before

Life and love

Left their quiet proof

And reproof

On our brows

And in our hearts

As we grew together

Or apart

While Time drew its art

On our skin

In our eyes

With surprising

Haste

And we realize

We have no Time to waste,

For who knows how far

We have left, my dear

With who we are

From who we were

Where ‘my, how far

We have come’

Above

Those star-struck days

Of

Young,

In love

Where the love we choose

Is a sturdy, weathered Thing

Compared to

Newly-weds

Holding

Star-dust on a string

© Janet Martin

 

 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Matt.19:26

Anniversaries don't happen because keeping vows is easy, but because it is right.

That is what makes anniversaries most special.

Sometimes when I read marriage advice I am filled with great despair at my/our failures rather than remembering the joy of our successes. 

That is why I like this poem here so much!

Here are a few good marriage/family tips from a teeny book I found years ago...

Mastering Marriage (A re-run:)

In the on-going art of learning to co-exist I have learned that hubby will hang his hat where-so-ever he pleases, and he will ever-so-thoroughly enjoy every evil eye I toss his way as I return it to the hooks inside the door intended for...HATS!

Love’s culmination of differences

Must learn to co-exist

Its Mr.’s and its Mrs.’s

Experiments of risk

Back when we knew it all; naive

To all we didn’t know

It was so easy to believe

In what we thought was so

But Time rolls out its welcome mat

Where love cannot pretend

So love becomes an acrobat

Learning to stretch and bend

And love becomes forgetful

For how else can it usurp

With heavy heart and head full

Of its insult and its hurt?

Back on youth’s dream-paved Easy streets

Answers exceeded years

Before we bore selfish defeats

And wore a lover’s tears

Before we understood that we

Will never understand

Each other quite as perfectly

As once, perhaps, we planned

…so love culminates differences

And learns to co-exist

Its Mr.’s and its Mrs.’s

Willing to take its risk

© Janet Martin

Happy 52nd Anniversary to my parents.

Happy Wedding Day to my nephew!

Here comes the bride

All starry-eyed

Oh, pray God spills time's jars

In many

years of happiness

And never snuffs love's stars