Beyond Words

Whether our children are babies, adolescent,

teen, or adult a mother's love

is beyond spelling...

fierce and tender,

firm and gentle,

sweet and staunch,

watchful and brave,

forever and ever

I told Victoria that the poem I posted last week isn't really her 'official'

birthday poem, but every time I try to put my love into a poem

I am at a loss for words...

How does one spell the holy, humbling

deeps of love ?!

Dear mothers, you know that 'feeling', right?

As you look at your children, no matter their age

and you are rushed through with a tidal wave of

compassion, concern and thankfulness...

Mother's love is a language

commonly penned with the domestic ink

of cooking and baking,

cleaning and laundry,

and little extra-touches to make home

a gentle, orderly and happy place

that says

'I love you'

Victoria chuckled at the over-tanned smiley faces garnishing

one of our suppers last week...

It transcends tender thought

It defies utterance

It strains but yet has never wrought

Perfected eloquence

It fills a treasure trove

Where ink-penchant runs wild

But cannot tame to words, the love

Mother has for her child

It evades wistful rhymes

Medley of smiles and tears

And prayers to fill ten-thousand times

The cannikin of years

It gapes in grasping sighs

Through hold and letting go

It glints, like hints of paradise

Caught in a flake of snow

To write a mother’s love

Seems to elude Her pen

While evoking cries of 'enough

To try and try again'

To temper onto page

The ocean of the soul

To grant a glimpse of age to age 

Where wordless poems roll

 

© Janet Martin

3 John 1:4

 I have no greater joy than to hear 

that my children are walking in the truth.

Dear Lucy...Perfected At Last

After this poem was written, I realized that it was in a sense a reply to

some of the last words shared by Lucy on Instagram...

Today marks six months since she left this world.

(the photo was taken from her front porch)

Pen cannot fan to flame again,

 the span of spent Septembers

But it can kindle fires from tender tinder of thought

Where sanguine scenes still warm a heart-shaped hearth of glowing embers

And spill into the silence,

 bouquets of forget-me-not

Pen cannot lure to life again 

that which is dead and buried

But it can keep alive a memory that else would fade

I see you waving from your porch; and yet, your voice is carried

Not on Time’s winds of change

 but from a doorway Heaven-stayed

Pen cannot write/right away the wrongs

that love is bound to weather

But, like a splash of sunshine it can pen a hymn of cheer

To bind love’s wounds with syllables that weave a kind of tether

That draws us close together

 until Time’s mists disappear

Pen cannot press away the pangs

that sweeten joy with sorrow

Ten-thousand poems cannot write away the loss of one

You were a poem penned by God not to keep, but to borrow

Perfected at last; not by Time, 

but by faith's triumph won

Love forever,

Janet Martin

Ps.138:8 KJV

The LORD will perfect that which concerns me;

 Your mercy, O LORD, endures forever; 

Do not forsake the works of Your hands.

My heart still aches beyond words 

and our Heavenly Father still comforts with His words.

He is faithful.

Ps. 145:13-14 NIV

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises
    and faithful in all he does.[c]
 The Lord upholds all who fall
    and lifts up all who are bowed down.

Of Bard's Battlefield or Walking Battlefields

How swift the eye perceives 

The innocent façade

That veils the part/heart that hails or grieves

The holiness of God

The battlefield of Bard (humankind)

Is neither ink nor page 

Beneath form's peripheral guard 

What storms of worship/passion wage 

Be still, my soul, and know

That He alone is God

He heals the battle-wounds below

The innocent façade 

© Janet Martin

The battlefield of Bard

Is neither ink nor page...

I do constant battle with a dark voice telling me I should quit this blog.

This fierce force laughs, jeers, scoffs, scorns, accuses, belittles, stabs, shames, 

in great attempts to dissuade, discourage and despair!

(It's not always easy to put one's mind and heart on public display)

But that voice is no match 

for The Other Voice who, 

as I bow my head He hears my heart,

 He whispers sweet peace to me.

He orders the demons out!

He restores my soul!

Hallelujah

 💝🙏

Whatever our personal battlegrounds are,

may we heed the Still, Small Voice of our loving Creator

remembering we can do all things through He who gives us strength,

and who designed us each with our own unique abilities

gifts and responsibility to them/Him!

If we proceed, empowered by His grace and for His glory

 we succeed, not always perfectly, but never in vain!

Let's keep in mind we are all walking battlefields-soul-diers-warriors,

and thus be more gentle with each other !!

***

The cure for fear and despair is always

to take my eyes off myself

and fix them on God

And His great love's 'battle-scars'

when He broke the curse of sin

when He was pierced for our transgressions 

and crushed for our iniquities💓🙏

Isa.53:5 

***

Over 12 years ago my friend gave me the tidbit below

and since then, it has been taped where I generally write,

as her gentle reminder when I need it.

Thank-you Jane W.

1 Cor.10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, 

do it all for the glory of God.

One voice tells me to quit 

A critic mercy-void

A brute who thrives on fear and doubt

Till courage is destroyed

But oh, the other Voice

 Is gentle as can be

A friend whose tender grace and joy 

Whispers sweet peace to me 

One voice is loud and crude

The other, still and small

One makes love feel misunderstood

The other, not at all 

One voice is like a sting

And fuels dark despair

The Other sets the heart to sing

And fills/stills the soul with prayer 

© Janet Martin

He Whispers Sweet Peace to Me

 

No Minimalist (when it comes to poetry)

  Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest

For today's prompt, write a minimum poem. 

“Enough is as good as a feast.”

— Thomas Malory

Black coffee, wake-up call's delight

Feet touch down; glorious

So many mercies to ignite

Poetic impetus

From winter's drab, depleted vaults

To buds bursting with pink 

From zephyrs turning somersaults

Ten thousand ballads wink 

Heaven and earth's fullness implores

Poetic ecstasy

Each breath drawn from a sea that roars

With unpenned poetry 

Human nature, predictable

Would drive us dearly mad

Without Poetic Canticle

To keep us kindly glad  

Creation pulses, poem-kissed,

Thus, I can never be

An organized minimalist

Regarding poetry

As soon as I awake, it seems

To be my lovely lot

To troll a tugging tide, that teems

With poems yet to jot

A crimson rose, a freckled nose

The tireless march of time

Dusk's diamond-studded curtain-close

Beckon for lilt and rhyme 

A hand to hold while growing old

A lake, mantled in mist

A pansy, purple, white and gold

Poem cannot resist

'Enough is as good as a feast' 

Is good enough for me

Unless this includes an increased

Poem-frugality 

Janet Martin

My poetry book collection used to be contained in one cupboard,

but no longer...because a good poem book I simply cannot resist😅😏

Sweet Saturday-morning Skirmish (between Poet and Prudence)

This daily/weekly Saturday morning tango is blissfully

unfamiliar to some, yet, I wouldn't trade it for a world of shiny

'ballroom' floors, as much as I dearly admire and strive to acquire

  brief glossy-floor bliss once in a while!

I try to balance ballads, oops I mean battles

with a bit of both poem and prudence. 😂😅💖

This beautiful battleground is composed of longing to linger on pages 

of past poets/artists

or tackling present responsibilities like prepping for Christmas!

Today's task; homemade chocolate bars

In the above recipe to clarify amounts;

 approx. 8-9 cups rice krispies, 2 cups peanuts and 11/2 cups coconut.)

Sometimes the battle is a toss-up between

pausing without pressure to percolate in the pure pleasure

of God's poetry in every season...

Whether gray...

...or gold!

...or vacuuming and fussing over delightful details

because Victoria is having friends 

over for a Christmas party this weekend!

Sweet Saturday Skirmish💓💓💓

Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready/drained with of extra refills

Coffee pot beams with Columbian brew; ready with extra refills

Duty and Dream dance, a skippety-do; Poet and Prudence clash wills

Wonder is waiting with gifts still unfurled, often where we least suppose

Dawn is deflating night’s slumbering world with a sky full of hellos

Tuning spent ages with notes rearranged in compositions brand new

Learning’s lent pages divinely exchanged by He who loves me and you

Fueling reason with thankful reply for mercy’s replenished fount

Every season chock-full of surprises, too prolific to count

…thus, in the matter of work-to-do lists versus perhaps-poetry

Always a Saturday morning untwists two worlds that cannot agree

One (but a guess) a shining specimen of domestic excellence

One, happiness, pressed like wine from a pen never drained of Imminence

….coffee-pot beams with Columbian prose; ready with refills galore

Poet and Prudence tango, nose to nose ‘cross Saturday’s ballroom-floor

Weathering whispers that spar between ink and plain practicality

Untethering silver rivers that wink into….oh, which will it be

© Janet Martin

And hopefully this is my/our daily prayer;

'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do,

do it all for the glory of God.

1 Cor.10;31

Where Ten-thousand Poems Brim...

This is the day that the Lord has made.

We will rejoice (and rejoice) and be (humbly) glad in it

Ps.118:24

Seems like every new day bleeds/breeds

A fresh crop of poems seeds

Seems like every season spills

Plethora of poem-thrills

Seems like every hour bared

Begs a poem to be snared

Seems the world is full of ink

Bidding thirsty bards to drink

Seems life is a garden room

Where poem-buds wait to bloom

Seems a pity then to haste

While a poem goes to waste

Where a moment waits to be

Woven into poetry

Seems reason enough to pause

To glean glints of poem-gauze

Seems like everywhere we look

Life is like a poem brook

Where each new day lilts and brims

With ten-thousand poem-hymns

© Janet Martin

A Little Ink Reminder...

Life/love is poetry

waiting to be written...

Some days poem-possibility is like fruit, ripe for harvest and preserving,

...other days require (soul)-searching!

Ps.139:23-24

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.

...but every poet does well to remember Who bestows the ink

then, to be diligent and conscientious in our reply!

***

The troubles of this world could drain the poet’s pen of verse

Its weight of care could crush the lyric-spring within the heart

But what doth it profit a man to clench a fist and curse

When all it takes is each of us to do our willing part

To make this world a kinder place for our fellowman

To help each other weather trouble’s trouble while we can

The poet’s charge is more than ink-caper to paper pressed

But rather, an attempt to keep us wonderfully awed

A page can capture beauty, like a cloud by pink caressed

To replay when the day grows dark and we start to doubt God

Poetry preserves pictures long after seasons have set

So we remember tinctures we might otherwise forget

…the laughter after it has passed, the once-upon-childhood

Before the way time flies teaches the fledgling how to fly

It gentles bitter aftermath of love misunderstood

As the whisper of God compels the poet to reply

And rally us to be more humbly glad for me-‘n-you

Remembering who we will answer to when life is through

The trouble of this world will always be; the poet knows

The pen is mightier than sword; font is a holy thing

For the sacred longevity of written word bestows

Accountability for all touched by its rendering

Thus, before thought entrusts its erring tendencies to ink

The poet ought to ask the Author of Love how to think

The troubles of this world could drain the poet’s pen of rhyme

Its weight of care could crush the raring rush to write and write

Without the One whose replenishes joy, time after time

And overflows the wellspring of the heart with sheer delight

To share without exception, every hymn that frets to spill

And follow the direction of the Hand that lets the quill

...where the trouble that groans is never greater than His grace

Though pleasure/measure of a poem cannot erase creature-care

Like a soft kiss upon the cheek, a handshake or embrace

A poem can kindle a smile, a tear, a song, a prayer

To cheer each other on with kindness and humility

A little ink-reminder of God, spilled in poetry  

© Janet Martin

Happy September Saturday!

Life Is Poetry Waiting To Be Written or Eaten!!

The endless possibilities of garden-fresh fare

is pure culinary poetry!

So worth the toil 

when the soil is rich 

and the rain is plentiful

and the roots thrive!)

Makes the humble laborer

So glad to be alive!

Yesterday my neighbor dropped of a pint of raspberries

so I texted the clan and let them know 

there is a surprise dessert at Emily's house

for anyone wo can make it...

Cornstarch Pudding topped with raspberries and whipped cream

'or as the garden spills with fare and thrills the happy cook'

I had picked the currants just before leaving for the special Dessert evening so

this morning's question was,

What to do with a bowl full of black currants?

this! Black Currant Coffee Cake

Beets are constantly being thinned...

Roasted Beet and Feta Salad

(I used white onion instead of shallots)

Before the ink of one is dry another starts to brew

As surely as you catch my eye or as the sky is blue

Or as a bud bursts into bloom or a bird into song

Or morning into blush-brushed light and night into so-long

As surely as the cricket hails the middle of July

Or as a season scales the height of a year slipping by

Or as the colour of its cast crescendos ere it fades

Or as the valour of the past augments its promenades

As surely as love holds and must let go, ready or not

As surely as a sense of sorrow stirs a tender thought

Or as a breeze rolls through treetops like waves on lofty seas

Or as a pang of longing tugs at World of Memories

As surely as tomorrow is forever held at bay

Or as a surge of gratitude steals humbled breath away

Or as the flicker of a lily showcases the sun

Or as the shadow climbs the hill where one more day is done

...or as kerplop of a raindrop ignites a giddy dance

As dust devils are tamed and liquid diamonds lavish plants 

Or as a summer afternoon entangled in heartstrings

Wakens awareness to the whir of time's gossamer wings 

...or as the garden spills with fare and thrills the happy cook

Or as the tea is poured and feet pulled up, nose in a book

*Or as the gladness of a child hearkens to childhoods spent

Or as the ilk of life runs wild with laughter and lament 

As surely as the green of spring turns summer bronze and gold

Or as delight is overcome with wonders to behold

Or as the grace of God ignites a rush of poetry

Before the ink of one is dry, another starts to be

© Janet Martin

*It was so amusing to watch my grandchildren wild with excitement and curiosity

hovering at the 'Mystery Dessert (hiding in a big bowl with a lid)

while we waited till everyone was there to start.

...made me relive a little of my own long-lost childhood.

Oh, the excitement of out-of-the-blue guests and surprises. 

Esp. surprises you could eat!!

Wild with delight...

We could literally write a little book right now entitled

'If Big Brother Can Do It

So Can I!!'😅😂💗

A Little Piece of Life...

In every flare and fizzle of future turning to past...

In every stolen breath kindled by innocence run rife...

In every curlicue capturing colors, echo-cast...

In every snared doggerel lives a a little piece of life  

(Grandchildren are the most wonderfully wearying creatures in the world!!)😅💖

Sometimes as another beloved June 'bites the dust' an intense

ink-storm is roused inducing another attempt to tame Time into Poem

***

Poetry is much more than ink finagled into art

Much more than oratory chants or dance of lilt and rhyme

In every poem wafts a wisp of the troubadour’s heart

In every lyric lives a little kiss from Father Time

In every sigh, a tie that binds the bard to fellowmen

In every line a memento of mortal’s common bond

In every tender tempest roused by pictures from a pen

A friendly sense of kinship on a journey to Beyond

In every ebb and flow of wonder-hunger satisfied

In every surge of season-dust wrangled to parchment shores

In every turn of page that feels akin to eventide

Something far more than meets the eye appeases and implores

Ah, Poetry is more than glint and gleam of ink-cajole

In every throb of empathy where love and longing meld

It tunes us to a toll that rattles the cage of the soul

To Cord that will be severed and to Frond that will be felled

In every touch that tugs within where hope and despair wars

In ever scene that stirs a fond and sentimental tear

In every finite reach of thought humbled by heaven’s stars

Poetry hones us to the holiness of now and here

The meeting place of angst and awe and all points in between

Startling ‘aha’ epiphanies that trial and error earn

Tremble in every surge of poetry’s syllabic mien

To remind us since time began, ah, such is live-and-learn

In every flare and fizzle of future turning to past

In every stolen breath kindled by innocence run rife

In every curlicue capturing colors, echo-cast

In every snared doggerel lives a a little piece of life  

© Janet Martin

There Will Be Poetry

 As long as earth unchains a thoroughfare of blossom-laud...

As long as the heavens declare the majesty of God...

(this sunset is from May 2022)

 

...because this year the sunrises and sunsets are obliterated 

by a smoky haze due to the wildfires out west!

The best the skies can muster is a rosy orb...

As long as work can wait because a child has come to play

Before they dash through that old gate that draws the child away...

As long as earth unchains a thoroughfare of blossom-laud

As long as the heavens declare the majesty of God

As long as bowers burst with leaf and flower filigree

After winter’s welcome retreat, there will be poetry

As long as zephyrs pirouette and oceans roll to shore

And dusk authors a silhouette-and-shadow-repertoire

And morning metes mercy renewed and sets a new day free

To stir the heart with gratitude, there will be poetry

As long as work can wait because a child has come to play

Before they dash through that old gate that draws the child away

As long as May rolls over bars as green as green can be

And lilacs burst with perfumed stars there will be poetry

As long as baby birds peep-peep from nests tucked into trees

And seasons sweep from east to west tuning fond memories

As long as joy surprises us with its simplicity

Keeping the child alive in us, there will be poetry

As long as there are gardens to grow happiness and plants 

As long as nature's arboretums burst with radiance 

Overflowing bud-chalices with petal-luxury

That crowns plain dirt with palaces, there will be poetry 

 

As long as dawn is gentle, always new and fresh from God

As long as hearts are humble and kind and constantly awed

By so much to be glad about, as long as we can see

Beyond the brunt of fear and doubt, there will be poetry

As long as thoughts are soft, not hard and embittered by spite

As long as cloud-ships sail aloft and stars dazzle the night

And the music of moments orchestrates a symphony

Of wonder and contentment oh, there will be poetry

As long as there is always something new, like a sunrise

…and, (though not all dreams may come true some do to our surprise)

And, as long as Today runs rife with opportunity

To make the most of love and life, there will be poetry

© Janet Martin

As long as baby birds peep-peep from nests tucked into trees...

(not quite peeping yet!! just freshly hatched!)

Psalm 66:1

Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth!

As long as joy surprises us with its simplicity

Keeping the child alive in us, there will be poetry...