Showing posts with label holding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holding. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

May-hem or May-break


 Little Girl and I picked flowers yesterday...(tulips and fern-leaf peony)
this morning as I was writing/painting this poem her mom texted me;
' Little girl is thrilled by the flower's sweet smell
but suddenly concerned that they are dying!'
I replied, "aw, sweet little girl is already being introduced to love's bittersweet;
the thrill of holding and the heart-tug of letting go."

Unfortunately these peonies bloom at best, only a few days
but oh so pretty in their passing!




May heals the hearts that winter wounded; wows us with its vim
Where verdant verve of virgin green lavishes land and limb
As Wand of May breaks soldered seams that quarantined the gem
And teases from bud-bondage Bloom's unfettered diadem
To thrill once more, since days of yore, all who pause to applaud
With never-failing wonderment, the handiwork of God

May breaks sod’s seal with eager abandon where Time is chief
And so begins another blur of seasoned joy and grief
A vexing intermingling of love’s laughter and lament
Beauty bound by the law of life’s momentous covenant
Unraveled ‘neath a blue-sky gavel poised above earth’s bars
As buds spill red-pink-purple-gold pillage of petal-stars

Now we take longer looking-breaks to wander where the world
Is like a freshly painted banner gloriously unfurled
With some parts plowed and planted, some nature’s free-hand release
But all together lovely like an Artist’s masterpiece
Where May breaks through the barriers that held blossoms at bay
The leader of a Grand Parade that blooms summer away

© Janet Martin


This past week our world turned green as it burst into bloom (in our area in southern Ontario)
where in this month we have gone from winter to summer in short order
...we are in the midst of a heat-wave with afternoon temps feeling like 34-36C!!





Saturday, November 29, 2014

Autumn-lessons




I’ve learned to love a little slower
Here, in autumn-fingers curled
I have learned to linger. And I
wouldn’t trade it for the world

…wouldn’t trade it for that pocket
Full of dreams not broken yet
Wouldn’t trade my heart-shaped locket
For a love I have not met

Wouldn’t give back what life gave me
Simply to begin again
For it isn’t very likely
I’d do any better then

I admit, though summer charmed me
With its blue-gold chivalry
I believe it warmed and armed me
To withstand what yet must be

And somewhere while hours hurried
Into yesterday the clock
Taught me how to walk more slowly
 in its holy tick and tock

…taught me to revel in nothing
But the moment in my hand
Where in autumn-fingers lingers
But a remnant yet, of sand

© Janet Martin


Inspired while commenting on Sasha’s post tonight; one of a month of poetry too wonderful to miss!

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Of Rivers that Rush Through the Trees




 I don't think my kids heard 'the river rushing through the trees' but I did...still it was a good, corny 'last day' before we help Melissa move tomorrow.



On some days we sip slow and deep
From rivers that run through the air
Sensing this thing we cannot keep
Rushes too fast from here to there

And on those days a reverent awe
Battles with greed of holding on
Because not long ago we saw
How swift a year is here and gone

But even in the clinging fast
We know tis foolish to resist
This filament that weaves the past
In tear and laughter mingled-mist

And so we sip with senses keened
To rivers rushing through the trees
Of moments where we live, love, learn
Before they turn to memories

© Janet Martin


Friday, October 25, 2013

Life's Letting Go...



It must be so
Life’s letting go
Torments and teases
Our clutch
I hold you near,
Somehow a year
Is fleeting
As a stranger’s touch

When we were young
Time pleased our tongue
In dreams beyond
Our innocence
We didn’t know
Life’s letting go
Falls in swift,
Keen deliverance

It must be so
The ebb and flow
Of moments yield
Both joy and woe
Gifting our reach
They gently teach
Us to hold on
While letting go…

© Janet Martin




Wednesday, June 12, 2013

This Fine, Fond Mingling...

Inspirational Quotes


This fine, fond mingling shapes and reshapes us
Because in love’s holding and letting go
We realize the beautiful measure
Of transient treasure in life’s moment-flow

We ought not cling then, but ever hold softly
The offerings rendered in Time’s tender tide
For just as the wave melts over the seashore
Moments wash over the mother and child

It is not long; this sojourn of laughter
Of heart-rending hurt; of hello and good-bye
Yet it is futile to try to chase after
The echoes that murmur in midnight’s deep sky

We ought to love then and love beyond reason
For what good are worry and wanting and spite?
All of life’s loaning is but for a season
Soon they slip silently from touch and sight

Treasure the measure of love’s kind bestowing
Because in its holding and letting go
Time gently shapes and re-shapes our knowing
This is the beauty in life’s moment-flow

© Janet Martin

Sometimes what I thought I knew surprises me by the realization that the older I get the less I know.



Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Love's Testament




Sweet hour of dawn unfolding on the air
Its whisper spawning bird-song to the breeze
The dell, a sea of mist and memories
Rousing within the heart a wordless prayer
Here pain and pleasure mutely synchronize
Surging within like only love can do
Where hunger, having, holding, missing you
Alloy; a raw and tender paradise
And I will hold you just to taste the grief
Of letting go; its ache love’s testament
As joy and sorrow, the heart’s filament
Rends and mends in bittersweet relief
For joy alone or grief cannot exist
It mingles like the morning with the mist



Moments; oh, mighty, subtle, sheer deluge
Breathing to bloom the bud-let tightly clenched
Yet nature’s roving thirst is never quenched
Its force an unrelenting subterfuge
We stoop to trace the petals on the lawn
Mourning the haste at which the hours pass
The prophets understood ‘all flesh is grass’
Our sojourn like the mist upon the dawn
The heart, a chalice for life’s offering
Runs over with the gifts that life employs
We drink its bitter gall and honeyed joys
Its beauty and its sorrow-suffering
As love, a soulful, stirring melody
Inspires us to press on faithfully



Hope in an arabesque spiral of calm
Trembles anew upon the morning brink
We cannot touch the haze of muted pink
Nor can we clasp the moments in its palm
Yet, in this gossamer incline of Time
Goodness and mercy shod each gifted hurt
And thus we laugh, willing to kiss the dirt
And thus we weep; relinquishing its rhyme
To rivers rushing out to twilight’s edge
We cannot keep, but simply touch and taste
The silver mist of mercy’s moment-haste
Before they fall like seeds beneath the sedge
Yet oh, within its beck I’ve come to know
I hold to feel the hurt of letting go

© Janet Martin