Showing posts with label imagination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label imagination. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Poem-Schooner





This February morn let’s stroll the countryside, my sweet
Where dandelions laugh like bobbing sunbeams at our feet
Dawn rolls across yon shoreline in a tide of blush and gold
Let’s sit on morning’s front-row seat to watch time’s bloom unfold

Let’s step beyond the shiver-sheen of shoveled walks and such
The velveteen of spring’s first green is easy to the touch
And we are not as far-off as we were from flowered clime
Where poem is a schooner we can board without a dime

…and if we please, we’ll sail the turquoise seas of mid-July
Or afternoon of em’rald June spread beneath sapphire sky
Let’s lure from winter’s white on white an arbor, rose-entwined
A bare-foot rendezvous through meadow lanes wild blue-strife lined

This February morn is like a schooner summer-bound
Then hop on board and praise the Lord for gardens underground
Where nothing stays the same for long above an undertow
That soon strips Old Man Winter’s song of words like ‘cold’ and ‘snow’

© Janet Martin


I'm not rushing winter, but every once in a while its nice to 
climb aboard a poem-ship and sail to warmer scenes
...every once in a while its nice to be reminded
under winter-cold white waits summer-warm greens! 
Instead of boots, flip-flops, 
instead of parkas,
parks filled with laughter of children 
going up, up, up to the blue sky in a swing!



Thursday, July 9, 2015

This Was Before...



 I bet you think this is a tree;-)

While trying to come up with activities for the boys the other day and remembering what we used to play I told Victoria 'the thing is, we had Imagination and it took us anywhere and offered endless ideas'...(then came the sad,sad day when 'what we used to play' didn't feel as fun as it did and mother told me, 'it's because you're growing up'...

‘Neath maple-willow banners happy Martin-children grew
And What or Where or Who they were nobody ever knew
Aboard Imagination and a picnic-table ship
They traveled holding on with all their might lest wild waves tip
And toss them to the green grass sea; Ker-plunk. Save me, the cry
Stirred sibling-hearted bravery. We’ll save you! they reply
And with their arms a-flailing to battle the boisterous wave
They drew their drowning ship-mate from a hard and grassy grave
Then, harbored near the hay-mow Alps they paid a visit where
Heidi and her Grandfather lived; offering a hay-bale chair
For each guest and invited them to share their bread and cheese
And, if it is no trouble could we see the goats too, please?
...or, where the towels were flapping on the clothes-line we would sit
And welcome all those sad strangers to join our fun a bit
The maple-tree branch broncos and the playhouse ‘general-store’
 Where shelves brimmed with things salvaged from the trash; this was Before
Reduce-reuse-recycle; 'waste not, want not' our way
Of life because ten Martin children learned to live like that each day
The storehouse of imagination gave what coin could not afford
And often on a summer afternoon they could be heard
And What or Who or Where they were nobody could full-tell
Imagination at it its best is Unpredictable…

© Janet Martin



Friday, June 20, 2014

Of Imagination and Temptation



   

(click on this image for a must-hear message!)

Mankind’s thought super-power
Is imagination
Prone to both good or evil
For with it comes temptation

How subtle is deception
This testing of our will
Amplifies weakness or brute strength
To fight for good or ill

How can we battle purely
What thought perceives as ‘nice’?
Prayer is our single sure defense
Against temptation’s vice

For thought, the lone precursor
To everything we do
Proves through our action who we serve
In places hid from view

...and mankind’s super-power
Is imagination
Thought is the doorway whereby we
Are led into temptation

 How can we guard the barracks
Immune to force of limb?
The Word of God is faultless
and fills our thoughts with Him

© Janet Martin

What a great undertaking imagination is...
soon it reveals its colors in wisdom or foolishness

Imagination is a great thing. Every astonishing invention was the fruit of someone’s imagination, but imagination is also the first-fruit of temptation!

 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Cor. 10:13

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Beneath the Willow-tree



  


On evergreen-lined oceans
We wave cheery farewells
Teetering on the tabletop
As Neptune bucks the swells
Aboard a wooden vessel
Young sailors off to sea
Our ship, the picnic table
Beneath the willow-tree

‘Hang on’ we urge the younger
Or with a flying leap
We splash into the garden
Where the water is so deep
For we are champion swimmers
The front yard a vast sea
And we could sail around the world
Beneath the willow-tree

We climb the Alps, the hayloft
Dim and dusty made us sneeze
There, Heidi and her Grandpa lived
They fed us bread and cheese
But we needed to hurry
A war was on, you see
So we scurried back to safety
Beneath the willow-tree

...where the wind tosses its tresses
As seething waters rise
We stagger on the tabletop
And hope we don’t capsize
For the sea is full of monsters
And woe if he or she
Fell to there death in foaming depths
Beneath the willow-tree

So we cling to each other
SOS, we shriek and squeal
Praying for a miracle
We crank a phantom wheel
Then we hear Mother calling
Back to reality
Its chore-time; we drop anchor
Beneath the willow-tree

© Janet  Martin

It didn't look like much...just an old weathered table beneath the willow-tree, but it was a schooner and the tickets were free!

Yesterday was the first day of summer vacation for Victoria and already I've heard the words 'I'm bored'.uh-oh.

Often, in this age of gadgets and screens I find myself thinking,
‘Kids don’t play like they used to’. When we grew up our greatest toy was our imagination. I remember my mother laughing and shaking her head saying ‘what must the neighbors think!’ as we were transformed to whoever we saw in our heads. We didn’t travel much in real life but we all loved to read, these stories fueling our wildest ventures. There was nothing quite as adventurous as ‘playing pretend’…oh, the untold destinations in those words ‘let’s pretend we’re…’and beneath the willow tree the summer fell away as we carried out kitchen chairs if necessary and they became school desks and Big Sister was Teacher and we all were naughty students until she punished us with a sheet of math-facts and suddenly school was over as students stomped off in a huff. We traveled ocean-liners and trains, tamed wild ‘tree-limb horses’, became airplanes...and yes, sometimes we were so bored we thought we were going to die, but then we 'invented' a new game. Boredom's desperation fuels imagination!