Showing posts with label silence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label silence. Show all posts

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Song of Silence



I had the honor and delight of being one of the hosts
this morning for our church's annual women's Christmas brunch!
(Faces blurred for privacy)
I forgot to take a picture of the food!
(It was a potluck event and it was so delicious)



After the laughter and chatter subdued
After food savored and fond farewells bade
Silence settles like a snowflake postlude
Over scrubbed kettles and memories made

After hello has turned into ‘so long’
After the treasure of fellowship ends
Silence follows, like a bittersweet song
Medley of echoes and pleasure of friends

After the loveliness of touch and sight
Slips from our fingers and fades out of  view    
Silence, like a flicker of candlelight
Wraps love's gold halo around me and you 

After the fabric of moments unfold
After ‘together’ turns into ‘apart’
Silence is like a picture book we hold
Every page in the shape of a heart

© Janet Martin 

Silence settles like a snowflake postlude
Over scrubbed kettles and memories made...


Tuesday, February 3, 2015

When The Gift Is Wrapped In Silence...called Writer's Block





The will of want can be a taunting whisper that distracts
And tugs us from the purpose of The Call
The will of God invites us to trust Him when fear attacks
Then make His purpose our all in all

Sometimes thought is reluctant to deploy, its joy exiled
The head hollow where heart is heavy-weighed
And we wish words would spill like laughter of a little child
Instead, silence erects a barricade

But, if we have believed that He is able, by His might
We pray, then, humbly wait upon the Lord
Until He grants permission; it is by His grace we write
From Him, for Him, to Him, the gift of word

© Janet Martin  

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

As We Slow Down our Thought...





The noise has died away as daylight seeks its rest
The child forsakes his play, the bird returns to nest
As we slow down our thought where light is almost gone
Drawing the shade on one more day closer to That Last One

Silence becomes a hum save for the distant bark
Of dog baying at the full moon; or stragglers in the park
Reluctant to return behind closed doors to sleep
Knowing how soon the morning urges darkness to the deep

Duty is set aside; its toil must wait til dawn
The intimacy of ‘good-night’ beckons in every yawn
And yet, within the tug of slumber we resist
To fully taste the fading fringe of farewell’s purple mist

…where we laid bare our dreams and scattered laughter, tears
Now twilight folds into its ream the filament of years
The child is fast asleep, the little birdie too
We turn to see the slow release of deeper, deeper blue

Thought is a microscope where sound does not distract
The hush of night like Holy Ground vulnerable in black
But Hope is not deterred by colors of the air
How mightily the soul is stirred as we fill thought with prayer

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Winter Quietude





Gone, gone, the laughing leaf of auburn fall
Bronze timbrel tucked into white solitude
The crinkled creek, a placid, polished hall
Its melody of merry May subdued
The song-bird choir that heralded the morn
Is mute; its choristers far, far away
And fields, stripped of wild-bloom and rippling corn
Roll soundlessly to skylines dull and gray
Forgotten fronds shiver, bereft of smile
Betrayed, it seems by winter’s gilded guile

On street or field our muffled footsteps fade
Stillness of white blankets hushed countryside
Somewhere bare feet pause in kind, crooning shade
Where heaven’s eyes are blue and open wide
Here, where the zephyr teased bracken and bloom
Now winds wander earth’s stricken emptiness
Searching through nature’s whitewashed living-room
For something more than stiff, stoic witnesses
Beneath the spell of sequin-silver kiss
The world is wrapped in winter quietness

This is the hour of tranquility
Do not despise the door that leads to spring
The barren tree in meek humility
Trusts He who holds and molds each season-thing
Though stalk has rendered its bloom to the sod
Farewell is not its death, hope fills the seed
It slumbers where the faithfulness of God
Does not forget for He beholds each need
While now we wait; our wanting will subdued
In cathedrals of winter quietude

© Janet Martin

Because my mind is racing this morning I decided it would be good to focus on quietude! :) Merry Christmas all, and may your days leading up to His Birthday Celebration be peaceful and bright!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Walk in the Winter-woods





Maybe it’s the hush as it traces dappled spaces
Dripping from lofty and bare-naked limb
Or the meekness of nonchalant hemlock fingers
Strumming the hour in a reverent hymn

Maybe it’s the absence of mortal creation
In this sanctuary, not made with hands
Where winnowing winds murmur kind, tender mercies
Softening duty’s despotic demands

The nuthatch flits from its tree-hole safe-haven
The language of leaf-song has slipped to the earth
Yet the breeze slides through the turrets of summer
Teasing the silence with evergreen mirth

Maybe it’s the absence of primal persuasion
Here, in the off-spring of Eden’s paradise
There is no clamoring intimidation
Where century-shaped pillars reach to the skies

What is it about a walk in the woodlands?
This beautiful garden bereft of cruel strife
Where shoulders, care-weighted upon our arrival
Are no longer bent beneath burdens of life

Time charts its discourse of four-season struggle
The woods are a glorious four-season reprieve
And perhaps we all would remain carefree children
If we wandered through the woodlands every eve

© Janet Martin





Thursday, January 3, 2013

Sweet, Sweet the Still





Sweet, sweet the still
Of fall’s repose
The dormant season
Of the rose
Where drifting dirge
In memory flows
Across earth’s tempered tides
Of grassy green and vesper-lay
Of clover mien and summer-day
Of sun-kissed scene and willow-sway
Where retrospect resides

Sweet, sweet the still
Of winter hush
The woodland void
Of lark and thrush
Where landscapes bow
Beneath a brush
Dripping with ice and snow
Over the umber aftermath
Of summer’s dusty barefoot path
Where in the quiet echoes laugh
In tender afterglow

Sweet, sweet the still
Of mantled brook
Of winter laden
Summer-nook
Of aspen-song
And bloom forsook
Beneath gust-gilded glaze
Sweet, sweet the still of nature’s surge
The emptiness of autumn’s purge
The wonderment of snowflake splurge
Embellishing our gaze

© Janet Martin 

I love getting out on winter mornings to listen to the quiet.
 And yes, it is finally white!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

November's Farewell Song





What is that song you play tonight?
It rolls across the cobalt eve
Where finger-tips of silver-white
Strum branches aching for their leaves

What is that melody we hear?
Of still and starless diadem
Tolling the waning of a year
In farewell notes of snowflake gem

Who plays this moody minuet
A sudden, surging solitude
Where daylight rests her weary head
As rushing winds are calm, subdued

Where is the Maestro that instructs
This tender, tortured euphony?
It trembles in the midnight arch
And drifts across the frozen lea

What is that song; a humble hymn
Autumn’s postlude, a lullaby
That trickles from the silent scrim
Of deep November-night good-bye

© Janet Martin






Friday, November 9, 2012

Oh Night...





Oh night, you do not shape the silence
Like the quiet of the day
When the harvest is all gathered
And the vesper dies away
But over the mute garden
At twilight, soft you creep
And cover gilded fringes
With your garment dark and deep

 Oh night, sometimes your quiet
Is a comrade, kind and true
But sometimes it is keen and sparks
Raw thoughts of ‘missing you’
And into the still darkness
Our reminiscing bleeds
And only unmarred silences
Its want and wonder heeds

Oh night, you strip away the masks
Of bravery and pride
Beneath the cloak of quietness
We do not need to hide
Or wear for meek appearance
A calm and cool facade
Here in the folds of darkness
It is simply us and God

© Janet Martin



Thursday, September 6, 2012

Once More the Daylight Fades Away...





Once more the daylight fades away
With darkness overtaken
The canvas where we gently lay
Our dreams until we waken
The hidden hope of things to come
Must bide until tomorrow
As night becomes the stepping-stone
To gladness or to sorrow

This day has ceased; its cloak forlorn
Is claimed by subtle fingers
They hover now to wake the morn
Where deepened onyx lingers
The highs and lows, the smiles and woes
Of trial and error tumbles
Go now where every hour goes
In slipping swirls and stumbles

The solace of night’s tranquil grace
The aura of surrender
Enfolds us in a calm embrace
And whispers soft and tender
Once more the daylight fades away
Beneath the raven tresses
On the horizon waits the day
Which now the night caresses

© Janet Martin






Friday, August 3, 2012

Timeless Troubadour



My darling, tender, timeless troubadour
You come to me when deepened skies are still
No violin, no flute and no guitar
To soothe the sighs that press against my will

Oh mediator of the heart and mind
Oh, miracle of half-forgotten hope
Oh twilight troubadour, reckless yet kind
You stroll across the spirit’s silvered slope

With obscure fingers, softly you caress
The gilded latch, secured by daylight schemes
And easily it seems that you access
The storehouse of fond memories and dreams

Grand Maestro of entrancing, ethereal art
Oh lover of the tranquil midnight fell
You curve your melody around my heart
And move me in your transcendental swell

My darling, tender, timeless troubadour
I tremble ‘neath the movement of your touch
Oh gentle minstrel of the midnight hour
Tuning the breeze, the moon, the stars and such

Then, as you strum these astral instruments
And earth becomes a begging ball-room floor
You take me in your willing arms to dance
My darling, tender, timeless troubadour

© Janet Martin

Dream a Little Dream of Me   Michael Buble` 

J~




Monday, July 9, 2012

Gracious Insufficiencies




Of things too near and dear to me
It seems I cannot speak
Or breathe its form in inept verbal art
I tremble, for the pen I hold
Is powerful, yet weak
Too weak to spell the silence of the heart

Though pulses throb with quiet want
To spill its candid draught
The pen obeys the movement of the hand
The words I crave dangle and taunt
Unformed within my thought
Sealed just beyond my beckoning demand

Perhaps there are no syllables
To shape our deeper pines
Is this life’s gracious insufficiency?
Perhaps it is enough for us
To read between the lines
And understand what word can never be

© Janet Martin

Friday, June 29, 2012

The Fellowship of Silences



The Music in It Prompt: Silence

To commune with silence
is blissful fellowship
in proper balance
But oh, the oceans
that surge and slip
as we dance

Silence teams
with wanton whispers
The sky is full
Memories and dreams
of which I am not master
Push and pull

Silences cannot be stilled
by stopping of ears
or closing of door
Who knew that silence could be filled
with the sound of tears
pelting a phantom shore?

Silence is a painter
A Maestro of thought
composing master-piece art
on canvases broader
than heavens above
but sealed in the heart

J~

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Sonnet of Still-song


The rain has ceased its miniature applause
Night’s hush is amplified in silver mist
Its scarf concealing blatant noon-day flaws
Intimidating North wind’s bully fist
The ragged edges of a fading day
Hesitate briefly; then slip to the deep
Tomorrow hovers, half a night away
Beyond the argent hills of tallied sheep
The silence plays a soulful melody
It rolls across the valley, hill and lea

The knife-edged blue softens its keenness now
As still of midnight rouses reverence
The rise and fall of longing sweeps earth’s prow
In passion searching for deliverance
Within this temple built of grass and sky
The shepherd of a thousand hills presides
Sacred extolment ripples in the sigh
Of rain-drenched willow-limbs and country-sides
Motionless, spectral legions sweep the sod
In secret thoughts of love and loss and God

The still-song of the darkness steals my breath
Its ghostwriter and maestro void of word  
Whist passages of time drip from the earth
In compositions felt rather than heard
A stray leaf wavers, circles on the air
Then spirals in an eighth note to the ground
It strikes the perfect chord, somehow, somewhere
I revel in the silver-threaded sound
Of still-song trickling from the astral stage
In choruses without author or age

© Janet Martin

After the sound of freezing rain
Pelting on the window-pane
The night’s still-song is amplified
Sweeping the misty country-side…    





Thursday, January 12, 2012

Separations


As the winter rains wash the world
Theirs crumbles
Silence is a long and painful good-bye
In veiled shambles

Soft as a baby's breathing morning wakes
Flicker of hope
But, how does one shatter an invisible cage?
Air is hard to grope

To wish on another, weakness
Is an all-time low
But oh,in a thousand new lows she wishes
He could not say ‘no’

She stares through the window; an unbidden mirror
A wall tear-drenched
'It takes two to protect and maintain walls'
Truth is a fearless wench

Across the room five-hundred channels worth
Of chatter swirls
Thick silence seeks the safety net of noise
As raindrops wash the world


J~

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

At The Mercy of Night's Beauty...




Tonight I’ll let it envelope me
With its pleasure and its pain
I’ll let its blue wash over me
Like a sudden summer rain
Tonight its arms may cradle me
I have never loved in vain…

Tonight I’ll beg the lonesome wind
To sing in low melancholy
Loosening all the ties that bind
Setting heart and spirit free
Leaving tiresome woes behind
In bitter-sweetest ecstasy

Tonight I’ll willingly succumb
To its keen and moody touch
Let it kiss my sorrows numb
Until they do not ache so much
Tonight I’ll feel kindly at home
In its wild and gentle clutch

Tonight I’ll let it whisper words
That I don’t seem to hear by day
Let it soothe the little hurts
In the arms of deep blue-gray
Tonight I’ll let it move the earth
Beneath me as it has its way

J~


Monday, May 30, 2011

Perfect Poetry


There is a certain time of night
Somewhere twixt twelve and two
When the pastureland is white
Gleaming with moonlit dew
When starlight fans a velvet sky
And silence cloaks the earth
As even lissome zephyrs die
Quelling their noontide mirth
When the pond is smooth as glass
Without the faintest brush
Or ripple of a breeze to pass
And mar its flawless hush
There is a certain time of night
Somewhere twixt twelve and three
Where heaven waits to softly write
Its perfect poetry

Janet~

Monday, April 18, 2011

My Quiet Time


This is my quiet time of day
My time to read and think and pray
While midnight draws its dewy shroud
Where moonlight traces silver cloud
While every little noise is hushed
And harsh outlines are softly brushed
While cares of daylight slip away
Behind a veil of misty gray
While hurried feet slow to a stroll
As midnight’s calm sweeps o’er my soul
While ten-thousand thousand diamonds gleam
Above the beds where children dream
While seekers seek and rovers rove
While weary sleep and lovers love
While some lone dog howls at the moon
And silence strums a wind-stroked tune
I wrap its comfort like a shawl
Around my heart, around my soul
As I read and think and pray
In my quiet time of day

Janet~

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Ink Teardrops


Daringly arranged in whispers of ink
then splashed upon a page
to leap over an invisible brink
that some call cyber-space
Released into the great unknown
Small pieces of our hearts
These fragments no longer our own
Become a little part
Of other people’s reverie
Perhaps a secret tear
The stirring of a memory
The thought of someone dear
each with our own picture
an unfolding of a scene
of what is and what was...
... and what we wish had been........
What are these ink teardrops
but bits of poetry
that matter little or nothing at all
………my pen falls silently

J~

Monday, March 21, 2011

Full Moon Night

I step outside
Hugging the warmth
Inside my robe closer to me
But I must feel you
Without the barrier of glass between……. .Us
The night air is lissome in your glow
The breeze a kiss upon my brow
The frieze of the horizon line
Taunts just beyond this reach of mine
Bordering a masterpiece
Of silver-gray and pale chartreuse
Heaven dips earth-ward tonight
Spilling its splendor in dazzling starlight
Above the sweeping, mellow tune
Sung by the weeping of the moon
A melody of days and years
Caught suddenly within my tears
I know the moon is not to blame
But somehow it breathes your name
And here with you in the moonlight
Heaven bends a little closer tonight


Janet~

Was that full moon not absolutely SPECTACULAR
on Saturday night?

Because of MAJOR internet issues I am unable to
post with pictures:( right now....

Friday, February 25, 2011

Prelude to Spring.........


It’s a stirring within dead stillness
Silence without a name
Evoking an urgent longing
To press it from whence it came
An ambience of expectation
Hovering in the brush
Beneath still-life submission
I sense a deeper push
As waters burst the barriers
Of winter's frozen shell
The rush of silver laughter
Now tunes the murmuring dell
A quickening of pulses
Deep within the earth
A stirring of the senses
An imminent re-birth
The harbor of hope’s promise
Cradled in bud and limb
A deep and soundless wakening
Prelude to nature’s hymn


Janet~

I did go on a trek yesterday afternoon.
The grayness did not hold its usual biting chill.
There’s not enough snow left to ski on the fields so
I walked, feeling like an unwanted intruder
Breaking the wind-swept stillness……..