Better Than Pen-Poetry

Somehow the thoughts I think tonight

Mere poetry cannot corral

Release of ink inept to write

Its relief in a madrigal

The world that aches beneath my skin

Where wars of faith and fear hope, dread

Ignite a hunger-storm within

Like waves that surge and break, blood-red

Sometimes ink cannot mediate

The ways of love’s there-of and such

Nor can Poetry compensate

With offerings of type-print touch

My dear, the world at night can be

A black expanse of brooding air

A pen is maudlin company

When I am here and you are there

Prayer reaches through the dark with ease

God hears the words I cannot say

For He can translate tongue-tied pleas  

Into miracles when I pray

...and suddenly, my dearest dear
You do not seem so far from me
The transport of whisper and tear
Is love's sacred soul-poetry

© Janet Martin

 I will love You, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock 

and my fortress 

and my deliverer;
My God, 

my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield 

and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold. 

 I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

Ps.18:1-3

Love's Souvenir

 (for all parents with loved ones moving out to return to school)

It is the color of August, bronze-burnished

It is the murmur of sky-high true blue

It is the whisper of hours relinquished

It is the longing in summer’s adieu

It is the almost touching of our fingers

It is the ache of a slow-breaking heart

It is the waft of soft echoes that linger

Where time dismantles its breath-taking art

It is the fading of flower-fringed fencerows

Petal-parts scattered on time’s avenue

It is a tug-of-heart flipside of hellos

It is love’s souvenir;  missing you

© Janet Martin

Melissa doesn't move until Sunday, 

but already I sense an immense missing-you ache...

Going the Distance Between Echoes and 'Hello'

PAD Challenge day 4: For today’s prompt, write a distance poem.

We wear worlds within us

Darling, you and I

Though miles apart are near at heart

And distance but a sigh

Tug-of-will-and-wanting

War where future-past

Spurs us to ‘when me and you

Are together at last’

When and why and wherefore

Wakes an aching plea

For the day when we can say

Hello, you, it’s me

We wear worlds within us

Hearts can cup a sea

Where a splurge of echoes surge

Keeping you with me

© Janet Martin

It wasn't quite the same...a belated family Easter-dinner yesterday with one missing. 

but at the end of April when classes are done she might come home for a few mos.!!!:)

Of Those We Have And Hold

Sometime the places that you left jar yester-worlds within

The grief of missing you, my love, tears holes beneath my skin

Those days gone by will not return; past is a soldered fold

But,

Absence of one keens Awareness of those we have and hold

Sometimes weakness begs me to cling to what does not exist

The strength required to let go leaves me feeling half-kissed

Where hours fall like flowers spinning moments into years

And

One absent keens awareness of how swift time disappears

Fingers can shake with wanting and a heart can ache for years

The hardest part of loving is its softest part; our tears

Still, we love willingly and martyr-like, suffer its pain

For

Absence of one keens awareness of those that yet remain

© Janet Martin

While Watching the Stream Flow Forward...

 Tonight we were out to celebrate my sister-in-law's fortieth birthday...(remember when we thought 40 was old?!;-). My youngest sister remarked to me that she can't imagine one of her boys living far away(I mentioned that Melissa will likely stay in Toronto for the summer because she pays rent whether she is there or not) and I suddenly tasted the full flavor that time insists on seasoning our years with...letting go again and again.

Eventually it becomes a way of life

…this yielding to the forward flow

Of hold-let-go-I-miss-you-so

Where love’s long reach is raw and rife

…with memories when times like these

Were still fear and far, far away

Before the breadth of yesterday

Snared years breath-soft as midnight’s breeze

…and we remember how it was

When we were glad that we could speak

'I love you' close against the cheek

Of those we held and dearly loved

Knowing Time, bent on moment-strife

Opens and closes doors with haste

...we grow accustomed to the taste

That has become a way of life

© Janet Martin