The Gift of Here and Now

 

How swift Here-and Now's moment-spheres

Augment the tent of yesteryears...

Yesterday I collected autumn colours for lunch (rainbow Swiss Chard)...

and air-fried beets with feta cheese (5-star meal!)

...and marigolds, dried for tea!

One large bowl of flowers when dried

fit into this jar!

What is can never stay; hello soon farewell kissed

The golden summer day soon drawn away on autumn mist

The garden green and young soon gleaned of harvest fare

The boldness of the silver tongue soon wizened by life’s care

To everything a time; this clime where seasons flow

A little like a pantomime of hold and letting go

A little like a page where ballerinas twirl

Like autumn leaves across a stage that steals the little girl

What is soon disappears, a joy and sorrow spree

Bittersweet fleet of smiles and tears that sparkle out to sea

Duty and beauty’s sands like treasures from a trove

That sparkle through our hearts and hands all for the sake of love

So then, because of how swift seasons rise and fall

Let’s use the gift of here and now to its full potential

To do the best we can to shoulder what we ought

For the welfare of fellowman and the glory of God

© Janet Martin

A last-minute invitation to Daughter and children made the meal ever-so-much-more memorable!

Granddaughter decided to bring alpha-getti when she heard what was on the menu😂

Baby just cooed and smiled (between gramma-cuddles, naturally!)

Dear Granddaughter...here's to a whole winter-long of tea-parties!

(And Grandsonny too, but he prefers stirring it to drinking it😍)

We've dubbed this blend (fresh mint, lavender and marigold)

 Azerbaijan Tea thanks to all the varieties showcased on Country Life Vlog

Phil.4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, 

whatever is true, 

whatever is noble, 

whatever is right, 

whatever is pure, 

whatever is lovely, 

whatever is admirable—

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy

—think about such things.

The Book of This or Why Do You Have to Hurry So?

 

Why do you have to run and dance where green of youth is fleet

And dare the dust of innocence with eager, restless feet

Why do you rush my dear, beyond brushstrokes of Now and Here

Through sun sparkles on summer’s pond, you leap from childhood’s pier

Why do you have to tug at strings attached to hearts of They

More attuned to fine-feathered wings straining to fly away

Quite near enough, my lovely child, are morrow’s misted swells

Driving starry-eyed darlings wild with dreamland’s dinner bells

Why do you have to hurry so from worlds of girls and boys

You poise upon the ebb and flow of childhood’s carefree joys

Without a second thought of what will soon be borne away

While you are busy straining at a Big World held at bay

A feast of tears and laughter scatters while you grow and grow

A heaven-ness of happy chatter smiles, but you don’t know

That you are splashing through the brook of life’s most buoyant bliss

Why do you have to hurry so to close The Book of This?

...a cartwheel made of stardust and love's countless hugs and prayers

A petal-vault of wanderlust soon turned to creature cares

A gift we cannot treasure to the full of its extent

Until its outpoured measure makes us wonder where it went

© Janet Martin

Inspired in part by a girl who remarked yesterday

that she is not going to be a child forever!💖😘

 

 

Memory-Book (in the Making)

A sticky, sweaty, cacophony of canning, sweet kiddoes,

 broken fridges and toilets, chubby baby,

bee-stings, muddy feet, larkspur-loveliness, 

lilts of laughter and oh-no-groans 

new and renewed resolves,

among this week's memories!

Gramma, do you have any freethies (freezies) left?

Gramma, what stinks?!! (bread and butter-pickle-canning)

Baby-snuggles and squishes...

Thunder/rain/wind storms...

Bee sting...

 snakes and ladders...

No complex paradigm

No exorbitant fee

Only a moment’s worth of time

To make a memory

The sparkle of spent day

Wafts on the eventide

The mist of moments borne away

In memories to reside

A surreal picture-show

Filling frame after frame

A collection of high and low

Life’s snakes and ladders game

…where noise of girls and boys

Of choice and consequence

Unravels amidst childhood’s joys

Youth’s garb of Innocence

Ah, sweet and sacred surge

Of emerging daybreak

Today is poised upon the verge

Of memories to make

...as dawn sets new day free

Before Have turns to Had

Let’s make the kind of memory

That makes each other glad

And never overlook

Fresh opportunity

Soon turned to pictures in a book

That only thought can see

...and never to forget

From whence love's blessings come

And to keep close the Sacred Yet

Of life's eternal Sum

© Janet Martin

Dusk-bean picking and flower-delighting!

A Ride (literally) Down Memory Lane

My third-youngest brother (Lewis) treated us to wagon-ride down Memory lane

(back our sideroad and local backroads)

on Saturday at our annual summer Martin family reunion...

Lots of laughter-filled reminiscing💖

(because most of us sister's childhood memories of wagon rides was to or from stone-picking,

 one of my sister's said 'yes! she would love a wagon ride!

 as long as there are no stones waiting to be picked😂😂)

 

(Dad and Mom, treasuring the flashbacks)

Young people getting a ride to the baseball field 

before we had our turn...

(to respect privacy faces have been blurred)

Where wild flowers still bloom and dust of youth still (almost) flies

Where fields gleam with bent barley-plumes beneath still cloud-strewn skies...

A few of my siblings teased me about a poem percolating as we trundled down dirt roads

and memory-lanes...while in the moment I couldn't imagine what was to come of it,

it was too special an occasion not to at least try to capture!

I tried to reel it in but it turned out longer than (Hubby, ahem,) 

quick readers would likely prefer...😅

We peer with distant gaze back to a long-forsaken world

Where out of Bygone’s haze an echo-mirage is unfurled

As scenes of common stomping grounds revive in hearts and eyes

And resurrect from misted Bounds, dear childhood’s paradise

Of dusty lanes and creeks and strains of weeping willow’s sigh

The thrill of racing to watch or chase freight trains rumbling by

Of dad and mom much younger then, although we didn’t know

Caught in the quick of hunger and molding what soon would show/grow

…while never going hungry, though a dozen mouths to feed

While learning about boundaries and how fruit follows seed/deed

While always loved no matter what we did or didn’t do

(…as we acknowledge the college, we drew dear parents through)

As we revisit places wakened by Past's sudden swell

As we dare to share secrets; laughing, brave enough to tell

As we retrace bare footsteps tripped through pastures; cow-pie rich

Or point to ‘there A Hay Load Tipped’, ‘there Fast Car Found the Ditch’

Where wild flowers still bloom and dust of youth still (almost) flies

Where fields gleam with bent barley-plumes beneath still cloud-strewn skies

Where little trees are big trees now, where yester-children learned

How swift the hand put to the plow will find time’s tables turned

Where correction we would not choose is worth its weight in gold

Where now we walk in well-worn shoes of swiftly growing old

Where mom and dad (still with us) hold a very precious part

In every single (ten of us’s) thankful-prayerful heart

So humbly blessed, we marvel at the patient, loving care

That surely must have tested their most earnest, pleading prayer

Of accidents (but life was spared) of mischief-foolish pranks

Of innocence guarded, work shared, of humble giving thanks

Memories mete a melody where music-shadows wend

As time perfects the harmony of notes that didn’t blend

As treasure-laden vessels, bent, broken, warped, chipped, and scarred

Embrace each tender token composing childhood’s postcard

Where weathering youth’s recompense makes us meeker of mind

Truth’s tethering of consequence and circumstance entwined

With what our precious dad and mom instilled, example-shod

The cornerstone of home-sweet-home; of love and faith in God

© Janet Martin

Motley Masterpiece

Hello again😊💓 

Due to this year's vacation being much quieter than any before,

(due to adult children with other commitments)

 let's get the sentimental tribute out of the way first, okay?

💝💖

I murmured the first line of this poem as we arrived at our cottage last Saturday,

 before/in spite of a much needed and appreciated week of R&R!

Many a pleasant hour can pass flawlessly here

while reminiscing, dreaming and simply enjoying the views/hues...

To every thing there is a season, 

 a time to every purpose under the heaven: Eccles.3:1

There is a hollow in her heart where children used to be

A sacred sense of loss amidst life’s generosity

The tender impact of love’s Once Upon What Disappears

Strikes Something in Her bosom that only a mother hears

Where edges, smoothed by ebb and flow of time’s finessing touch

Perfects a wake of letting go, echo-keepsakes, and such

There is a blade that carves a niche impossible to find

Sun-sparkles siphoned from a splash of seasons left behind

Amass, to meld, with measure of moments-to-memories

A panoramic treasure that only a mother sees

Of happiness soft-startled by the bittersweet divide

Twixt tempests snuffed by nightfall and today’s swift-ebbing tide

There is a hunger that poetic font cannot appease

A heart-shaped hollow of frames filled with fondest memories

Where twilight claims its dauntless prey as moment-sums compose

A Masterpiece of Yesterday only a mother knows

Of what time cannot reimburse and yet cannot estrange

In the clash twixt heaven and earth beneath the hand of change

There is a hollow in her heart too darling to portray

A sweet and sentimental smart where children used to play

While time will weave its winnowing into felled thoroughfares

To leave beneath her skin Something only a mother bears

Where, somehow past’s increase endears an echo-escapade

A motley masterpiece of years that she would never trade

© Janet Martin

Oh, Glorious Pangs of Love

So many of us have loved ones not within arms or quick car-ride's reach...

Oh, what a gift to love enough to suffer its glorious pangs!

Our grand-kiddos other set of grandparents live an airplane flight away

so needless to say, they suffer the kind of pangs

possible only by beautiful love!

We miss our Nova Scotia family too💕

The 'other gramma' has become a dear friend of mine

so this poem was inspired by the Afterward of her recent visit💖💘

(Pics used with permission. photo credit: Emily Curry)

Oh, glorious pangs of love

No sorrow is so sweet

The heart is like a treasure trove

As smiles and tears compete

Where, though our paths may part

It holds in its embrace

Love’s everlasting works of art

That nothing can erase

Oh, glorious pangs of love

What tender weight to bear

The bitter-sweetest banter of

Echoes upon the air

Where once upon a day

The joy of you and me

Became what none can steal away

A cherished memory

Oh, glorious pangs of love

May we all be so blessed

As to never get quite enough

Time with those we love best

Then, though farewells must be

As you and I must part

May memory’s kind company

Soothe sorrow’s stinging smart

How oft it warms my heart

To picture God above

And how He too must ache and smart

With glorious pangs of love

While counting down The Toll

That draws us through the Door

Where He unveils love’s sweetest goal

Together Evermore

© Janet Martin