So Much To Live For!

I've just returned from a few nights in New England 

where I was treated to a year in Tasha Tudor's gardens! 

Oh, the bliss of book-travel! 

This trip was such great inspiration to start those seedling-dreams now!

Here's a sneak-peek to a trip you can take too (if you can find the book!)

I had this unexpected pleasure thanks to a friend 

who lent me a book she borrowed from a friend so

unfortunately you will need to find your own 'ticket' to borrow or buy!😀

A trip like this can remind us of so much to live/love for!

So much to live for where moments soft-wed

Wellsprings of waiting with wishes fulfilled

Morning is breaking, mercy is not dead

Rife runs the river that death has not stilled

Where life is granting so much to love for

Four-season circuits of hold and let go

Leaving us torn between graces of yore

Before the faces we kiss with hello

So much to reach for from dawn’s pulsing prow

Where soon high noon then twilight sweeps the lea

Meteor-showers of right here, right now

Sparkle and fizz into echo-debris

Beckoning us to be all that we can

Before the hour of reckoning comes

Where still so much to learn vexes the plan

Caught in the flux of Bygone’s tallied sums

So much to hope for where seasons soft-shed

Petals of farewell for buds primed with plume

Soon we will transplant the dreams in our head

Into the gardens that leap into bloom

So many poems still waiting to be

So many moments to measure and pour

Turning time into opportunity

Where today wakens so much to live for

© Janet Martin

Daily Duel of Dreamer and Duty...What Will It Be?!

Duty and Dreamer seem to clash on a regular basis, as soon as feet hit the floor...

What will it be she sighs as she eyes an empty page 

then turns to heed cries of Master Laundry, Major Lunch-box, Sergeant Fire-starting etc...

Before Sweetest of all Sweet Little Girl arrives...

When the day gleams like a page poem-heady

Star-studded tarp falls from tresses, blue-pink

Unveiling worlds slumber revived and ready

Propped like a bottomless well filled with ink

Fueling duels twixt Dreamer and Duty

Teasing the rivals of prudence and art

Blurring intention where unhurried beauty

Tangles the tether twixt hands, head and heart

What will it be, Duty cries, demand-driven

Seizing the tool that fits her for the fight

What will it be, sighs the Dreamer, star-smitten

Grasping at shimmers of shadow and light

What will become the sum of today’s tally

Will it be to-do lists tackled and checked

Will it be sparkles that glimmer and sally

Snared from the air where whispers intersect

What will be left when dusk gathers its plunder

Who will be victor of soon-to-be spoils

Will page be filled with the thrill of sheer wonder

Or smudged with tokens of love’s urgent toils

What will remain to retain strains of beauty

Felled by the faithful fellow, Father Time

Will the souvenirs of both Dreamer and Duty

Tenderly tangle in keepsakes of rhyme

© Janet Martin

 ...on that note it's off to the races graces!

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, 

do it all for the glory of God.

1 Cor.10:13

March Gardens

 "Oh my, Mom!" exclaimed my eldest daughter yesterday as I showed her my 'empty canvas'

(thanks to water troubles that began our new year!)

" I have to say a lot of words come to my mind before 'empty canvas' 

but if that's what you see then, great!"

( I use 'water-troubles' carefully because right now 

our hearts/prayers are with those in flooded Nebraska!)

 Don't you just LOVE March gardens? 

They bloom perfectly from books spread on tables and

in dream-lands without dirt!

From the forge of ice and snow

Gorgeous dreams of flowers flow

Gushing like a rainbow brook

Through thought’s every nook and crook

Time has tamed the wilding gale

Coaxed warm raindrop from its wail

Hope unfolds, gold-violet-vined

In grand gardens of the mind

Fantasy finds Brigadoon

Perfect blue-green afternoon

Hillside almost-heaven splays

Apple-blossomed milky ways

Happiness sings like a lark

Spring and morning meet its mark

Laughter is a daffodil

Where winter has lost its will

© Janet Martin

Almost Flowers...

Isn't it exciting?! Standing on the edge of a world of almost-flowers!

 Gardens of the mind begin to become more defined...

This post is a revival of bygone August blooms, partly to remind us of what waits

and partly to retaliate against nature's fresh white scarf 

draping the frozen countryside this morning😏

Facing places filled with traces of fond graces left behind

March is like a threshold leading to a world not of the mind

Hope shaped into almost-flowers flares on furrows, stark and brown

Save for sparkle where night’s artist scattered stars and feather-down

Leaning like a school-girl trying to see mirrors in a stream

March is like a door-half open, teasing us with more than Dream

Where the scenes that long we carried in a cherished world within

Start to break through nature’s barriers of mud and bud-clad skin

Grinning like a boy when summer frees him of work,booked and shoe-ed

March is like a mother teaching patience to Her restless brood

Where the bell that tolls from heavens torn between blue, gold and gray

Wakes within the heart a hunger for the fine feast of today

Teasing coppice with the sloppy kisses of sun, rain and snow

March is Mischief, vexing us with winter’s cold hold letting go

While Want presses Expectation to the windows of the world

Waiting for the salutation of that first flower unfurled

© Janet Martin

We Die A Thousand Deaths, It Seems...

this poem?...when Realization hit a-fresh

how life is filled with daily deaths...

and it is futile to clench the fist 

where what we hold dissolves like mist

and what we cherish will fall prey

to the vast world of yesterday

So, pray the Lord to fix our trust 

Beyond this shadow-land of dust

(or as the case is right now; ice and snow!)

We die a thousand deaths, it seems

In death of days and death of dreams

The glory-tide of morning sweeps

Across time’s shore to phantom deeps

And draws upon its deadly wave

Footsteps that haste toward the grave

Love learns to let go as it clings

To tender ties of frayed heart strings

Where echoes, like coloured balloons

Bob across long-lost afternoons

And wake within this wisp of breath

A tug-of-war-twixt life and death

…where breadwinner and beggar meet

And barter on a common street

Where hunger chimes beneath the skin

Of rich and poor, like next of kin

Where what is will soon fade and lie

Like shadows when dusk dims the sky

…and life, for all its wish and whim

And love for all its verve and vim

Trembles within a fragile frame

That soon returns from whence it came

Where, with the breath of days and dreams

We die a thousand deaths, it seems

© Janet Martin