Showing posts with label longing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label longing. Show all posts

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Longing For What Seems Lost (a Covid-Weary Canadian's Nostalgic Lament)


I had no idea just how precious the ordinary was
before everything changed!








How beautiful the cleated feet of players, baseball-proud
How wonderful are words like, ‘could I have a refill, please?’
How lovely to be buffeted by elbows in a crowd
Ah, what a neon masterpiece, flashing ‘no vacancies’

How perfect is the planter, pruner, picker’s glistening brow
How handsome are the calloused, blistered hands of honest toil
How holy is the ground we trample and the heads we bow
As mourners merge around a grave where death collects its spoil

How utterly breath-taking is a church-house with packed pews
How hearty the handshaking, back-slaps, hug-comradery
How sacred is the gathering where worship pours its dues
How gorgeous is a dinner table set for company

How priceless is the freedom to come and go as we please
How pretty are your eyes, nose, mouth, wrinkles and double-chin
How nice, the music some call noise, that comes with families
Because we’re running late and someone’s patience has grown thin

Oh, lucky you in the parade behind stop-go school bus
(It never crossed our minds, how precious was the commonplace)
To think that in those dear old days we used to fume and fuss
Before we grew accustomed to people with half-a-face

How precious are the plans for proms, performances, menus
A wedding guest list open for 'all welcome to attend'
A kitchen full of giggling girls, reasons to buy new shoes
A dinner-reservation for a birthday for a friend

No deafening applause now, for goals scored in overtime
How hesitant the glance across the six-foot ‘safety-zone’
How stiff the shoppers move to keep their steps between the line
How foreign feels the world where fear has made its presence known

How beautiful, the bustle of a busy workaday
How wonderful are words that come from smiles seen and not guessed
How lovely to be to planning a much-needed getaway
How good to be reminded to count the ways we are blessed

© Janet Martin

Monday, September 30, 2019

Somehow A Heart...


 Cleaning out vegetable and flower gardens
is always bittersweet...
and part of my heart always seems to go with it.


 ...but I'm not pulling out all the veggies yet, until the threat of killer-frost
 so we can keep on enjoying fresh-from the garden rainbow-suppers!


oops, I was so excited to eat it when it was cooked I forgot to take a picture...
so picture a plate with chicken and veggie stir-fry, 
red tomato slices, green and red lettuce, 
white feta cheese and bits of wholewheat wrap.
Yum!

Somehow a heart repairs its wounds
And makes the bearer of it smile
When bud has borne its parting blooms
We mourn its plumes a little while
Then bind the season that we had
With brand new reasons to be glad

Somehow a heart restores its loss
With more of what first made it sing
For sorrow is love’s albatross
But love runs rife with life’s fresh fling
Where hearts hold threads that interlace
Both launching pad and resting place

Somehow a heart resists farewell
Where moments like links in a chain
Hinge to a fringe that tolls a bell
That tugs somewhere hard to explain
And yet, we cannot be too sad
Because of the good times we had

Somehow a heart resigns its ache
To burst with both bitter and sweet
Where the mercies of give and take
Will sometimes make it skip a beat
And wonder as its pieces fall
That there is a heart left at all

 (repeat first stanza at the end, optional)

Somehow a heart repairs its wounds
And makes the bearer of it smile
When bud has borne its parting blooms
We mourn its plumes a little while
Then bind the season that we had
With brand new reasons to be glad


© Janet Martin

oh!  you're still feeling a little peckish?
 how about one of the Apple-oatmeal muffins that Victoria made!


Saturday, June 22, 2019

Because Love Is Not a Walk in the Park...


 When love is 'performed' out of sheer Duty
It is a thorn void of joy's Beauty





The cost of love can drain the glove where pleasure’s prize is pain
Yet love keeps no account of wrongs but simply loves again
The way we are can scar the best of good intention, oh
With proof that we all need Love’s blood-bought grace whereby we go
…and remind us how much we owed but Love braved and forgave
To free us from the clutches of a long and hellish grave

Oh God, failure would be a weight that drives us to despair
For Thought can play tricks to enslave us to dread’s gloomy lair
But Thou, Creator God, art greater than torment of fear
Your Hope in all love’s heartache is an anchor for its tear
Where agony of sorrow, when love seems to fail somehow
Is healed a little as we reach to touch Thy thorn-pierced brow

Ah, Love; sometimes the masquerade of loud and flashy frauds
Seduces us to lust after the glut of lesser gods
But there is only One through Whom Love was, is and will be
And God will prove in time enough, His authenticity
For He is Love, and all who love (His face hid by Time’s veil)
Bear witness to kind proof of He whose Law will never fail

Therefore, no matter what may lie before us (or behind)
Love soothes the soul with mercies everlasting, ever kind
Where all that we encounter is an opportunity
To place our bodies on the altar of humility
And offer Self as living sacrifice to He who gave
Himself in perfect love to free us from hate’s hellish grave

‘There is no fear in love’ oh God, drive out the foe of thee
Who seeks to lure us from the comfort of Love’s Surety
And screams bold accusations to we, all broken at best
Where we could be persuaded to believe the devil’s lies
And be intimidated by The Vile Accuser’s cries

…but for the holy confidence in love of God alone
Where cost of love can drain the needy glove of flesh and bone
But never can annul the miracle performed within
Where Love redeemed the convict and forgave us every sin
And broke the chains that Hope maintains until that Solemn Day
When love, God’s love at last will have the perfect, final say

© Janet Martin

and a good read here on love' Love is not whatever you want it to be...



 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, 
God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
 1 John 4:12

Monday, May 20, 2019

Longing To...


We all reveled in the brief warmth and bit of sun yesterday;
before heavy thunderstorms moved in and temps nose-dived!

On Saturday I saw a few tractors in fields and thought
maybe this is the beginning of the end of the spring that would not be!
but this morning optimism takes another hit while
 we pray that farmers can keep their cool/faith and patience!
 This morning (because its a holiday here) I could
'linger longer at the brook that took so long to sing' (see below)
 last year above...this year below

 Last year above...this year below
 Last year above...this year below

 Last year above...this year below

 last year above...this year below



We are all longing to...
To wade through leas where green grass gleams and ripples in the sun
To be a little more carefree where barefoot children run
To make the most of idle time, sprawled beneath sapphire deep
Or take an afternoon to climb a flower-studded steep
Or linger longer at the brook that took so long to sing
While we were waiting for the melody that we call spring
And shivered in our sugar-coated platitudes and such
Where it seemed somehow summer’s harbinger had lost its touch

© Janet Martin