After Words or Afterwards

A moment in the speaking

Those little words we say

Before the ever-after

That none can wipe away

A moment in our making

Before released into

The blue of ever-afterward

That nothing can undo

A moment for a moment

Before its drop is stored

In the endless eternity

Of ever Afterward

© Janet Martin

Love-torn...

I let go softly

But ever within

Harbor the echoes

Of ‘never-again’

Sweet happy-sadness

Ah this, I am told

Is the fond flip-side

Of love’s have-and-hold

Thought is a lover

That walks tenderly

Back to the places

Of what used to be

Still, from Time’s spigot

Spills hope ever-new

Filling our fingers

With fresh things to do

Thus, I am torn

At midnight’s dark door

Twixt what is waiting

And Time’s never-more

© Janet Martin

On Past's Stilly Lake

Our pinnacles, dungeons

Daily give and take

Are pictures soft-painted

On Past’s stilly lake

Tear-threaded triumph

And hellish heart-break

Spill into silence

On Past’s stilly lake

That Something we clung to

That birthday-sweet cake

…faint, frozen ripples

On Past’s stilly lake

Love, loss and longing

Together they make

Fantastic farewells

On Past’s Stilly Lake

Do not hold tightly

Or too lightly, This

Soon it falls prey to

What no longer is

Darling, each day

Is a fleeting handshake

Echoing playback

On Past’s stilly lake

© Janet Martin

Reflection-time has begun...;)

After the Darling Day...

After the darling day has borne its due

To add another patch to Time’s worn coat

Its gossamer embossed against a hue

Of sentimental blue where echoes gloat

We gaze across a haze of yesterdays

Exhuming graves beneath a brush of thought

Time softens imperfections with love’s glaze

As we forgive distresses best forgot

Then how beloved that landscape reappears

In sudden images of yesteryears

The innocence of childhood, swift and sweet

Spawns lithesome laughter to delight our day

Too soon the deeper shades of life compete

To steal the carefree lad or lass away

Yet, we would not rob them of living’s joy

To dream and reach, to reach and dream want-wild

For oh, there’s nothing like a girl or boy

To draw our thought to when we were a child

It stirs within the soul soft, sudden tears

With panoramic scenes of yesteryears

Shoulder to shoulder ever older we

Begin to empathize with patriarchs

Exclaiming at a season’s subtlety

Tasting the essence of age-old remarks

While deep cornflower blue closes the sky

And starlight way up high tugs at our throat

For we know it is foolhardy to try

To unravel time’s tried and tattered coat

…the last tree on the skyline disappears

Stitching another patch to yesteryears

© Janet Martin

Babysitting three busy boys this summer keeps me on the run and laughing...

Boy: Janet, why is a tractor magic?

Janet, after thinking a few moments; Why?

Boy; Because it can drive down a road and turn into a field!

My mother entertained her granddaughters today. When I went to pick up Victoria it reminded me of my 'Grandma-visits'! Esp. when Mom/Grandma passed out jellybeans;) 

My Grandmother Martin kept a covered candy-bowl on her buffet. I loved to peek into it when she wasn't watching, knowing that somewhere along the day we would be invited to sample its goodies!

Oh, sweet yesteryears...

Stained-glass Elegy

 PAD challenge Day 16: write an elegy

They sit like stained-glass spectacles

Tucked in rural burgs and vales

Steeple-postcards; red, brown, gray

Where fore-fathers came to pray

As Amazing Grace rang strong

Before progress stole its song

Here Miss Betty sang off-key

Baby bounced on mother’s knee

Johnny scribbled on the pew

Mary blushed and peeked at Lou

Daddies paused from six-day test

Sabbath was a day of rest

Once upon a simpler Time

Sunday morning bore the chime

Of the tolling steeple-bell

…’Come to church or go to hell’  

Now when Sunday rolls around

Silence is its only sound

 

Here they sit; each village square

Has a little church somewhere

Mr. Brown still mows the lawn

Pausing to reflect upon

Friends and neighbors lying where

No one comes to pray a prayer

...and those doors that never locked

Never open; is God shocked

As He sees His house of prayer

Empty; hallmarks of despair

Like a grave among the graves

Echoing 'come, Jesus saves'

 

© Janet Martin 

If you come to visit St.Jacobs Ontario, Canada you will hear these bells every day at noon.They play for 10-15 minutes. I love how the guy mowing the lawn stops as soon as he realizes the bells are playing...

  

love, love this song by Craig Morgan...

Fulcrum

 

All those things that we recall are molded where Now-moments fall

Future hinges onto Past

Ether-spectrum arching where

Present ever spreads its path

Fulcrum of our 'here to there'

Everything exists in Now

What once was or yet will be

We cannot  touch or bestow

Rearrangements to its lea

Now; a state forever fixed

Through our touch Time wends its way

Present is the binding twixt

Tomorrow and Yesterday

Awesome, ephemeral Now

Future leans potency on

Present's mystic moment-flow

And the shadows it will spawn

Janet Martin

Tomorrow's Hope

PAD challenge Day 10: write a future poem

The future has a funny way

Of turning into past

This little cup we call Today

Is emptied far too fast

All Unknown in tomorrow lies

No one can know its lot

The future, though we fantasize

Is never what we thought

I could not bear today’s regale

Or hear its melody

If someone drew aside the veil

From morrow’s mystery

We chase the sun across the skies

Yet every night it slips

Into an ocean of Good-byes

Beyond our finger-tips

One foot and then the other, love

Through both life’s good and ill

Tomorrow never really comes

Yet is today’s refill

The Hand from which Time’s moment’s rain

In gasps of joy or sorrow

Does not falter but will remain

Beneath every tomorrow

© Janet Martin

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb. 13:8

Since Our Last Conversation

PAD Challenge Day 4: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Since (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Since our last conversation

Years have swept across the yard

And what remains of you and I

Is like an old post-card

Some memories grow distant, cold

Like hallmarks of lost fame

Time leaves its kiss upon my cheek

But you remain the same

We progress toward morrow’s place

Where hope still keens its dark

In spite of countless yesterdays

And dreams that lost their spark

Since the last time I craved your voice

The sun has risen…once

I always thought Time takes away

What it cannot ensconce

I’ve climbed many an afternoon

To gaze across the tide

Of Time’s intrinsic moment-swoon

…morning to noon to night

Since our last conversation

Past has grown robust and fat

For since dawn of creation

Years have a way of doing that

© Janet Martin