Earth Always Responds...(to the tender touch of Father Time)

PAD Challenge day 25: For today's prompt, write a response poem.

Song of Solomon 2: 10-13 (BSB)

My beloved calls to me,

“Arise, my darling.

Come away with me, my beautiful one.

For now the winter is past;

the rain is over and gone.

The flowers have appeared in the countryside;

the season of singingc has come,

and the cooing of turtledoves

is heard in our land.

The fig tree ripens its figs;

the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come away, my darling;

come away with me, my beautiful one.”

Earth starts to shed its dormant hues, where nature’s gaberdine

Of brown and gray is woven through with threads of verdant green...

Upon a loom we cannot see we sense its shuttles hum

To trim the limb of barren tree with hints of more to come...

Earth starts to shed its dormant hues, where nature’s gaberdine

Of brown and gray is woven through with threads of verdant green

Upon a loom we cannot see we sense its shuttles hum

To trim the limb of barren tree with hints of more to come

Soon still bedraggled sweeps will beam, where warmer winds caress

Earth’s weathered countenance will gleam with Mercy’s promises

The canvas where spent generations toiled and tilled remains

(We too must bear the castigation Adam’s curse sustains)

How often we begin to think that springtime is amiss

Only to be rebuffed with pink petal-confetti’s kiss

Only to be awestruck anew by ways we cannot change

On an established avenue that none can rearrange

The Maker of heaven and earth keeps every vow He makes

He tunes time’s tethered tide where birth and death’s season-surf breaks

Across the rise and fall of hill and dell His fervor spills

Merlot bud-beakers pulse and swell with favor He instills

Annual metamorphoses-es always steal the show

An unplumbed vault of happiness-es bound to overflow

Where vistas, still silence-immersed in April’s spartan scrim

Are like an orchestra about to burst into full hymn

Earth always responds to the tender touch of Father Time

She blushes as a rush of splendor rises to her clime

As monotones of brown and gray give way to green and gold

And color-worlds about to play May’s wonders to behold

© Janet Martin

Annual metamorphoses-es always steal the show...

An unplumbed vault of happiness-es bound to overflow...

While Faithfully He Parts the Gates...

April mornings in Ontario, Canada serve up a salad-bowl of seasons...

Spring sunshine,

Inspiring picnics...

Picnic lunch: fresh homemade bread, fresh farm-made cheese, zucchini relish canned last summer,

locally made summer sausage, and cucumber slices!

In the fresh air it was a five-star meal in a top-notch setting

of quilt table-tops and no-shoes service!

THEN whoa, back to winter woolies,

...and today?

Raindrop rhinestones and ringlets!

Grand-daughter sighs ecstatically as she counts 'all thothe puddlthe'💖

(but, no puddle splashing today. They are simply too frigid to be healthy!

Warmer puddle-days are just around the corner!)

Creation swells with goodness; wellsprings brim that none can drain

Life’s Giver keeps His promises; He grants the sun and rain

Where nature heeds its father’s rules and trust its father’s lead

Where miracles burst from capsules of bud and bulb and seed

The crux from which earth’s deluxe wonders seep, thrills mortal gaze

The cradle from which birth thunders in silence, leaps with praise

Awe authors humble worship to He who some dare deny

From the fringe of eternity mercy and grace reply

Love lavishes this creature place with glorious majesty

Although the beauty of His face we cannot clearly see

We glimpse Him in the seasons as they toll from shore to shore

Frilled field and flower oceans rolling past our very door

The thankless creature shakes a fist; the grateful creature bows

As gray, or gold and amethyst bends daybreak's gleaming prows

Where whether unawares or not each precious creatures stands

Not only on a foot-width plot, but in God’s gracious hands

Morning’s welcome mat shimmers as it unveils land and sea

Creation swells with glimmers of the Giver’s majesty

Oh, God forgive, greed claws, hate desecrates and bombs destroy

While faithfully He parts the gates where nature rings with joy

© Janet Martin

Something about the gory scenes of war 

bleeding

beneath trees bursting into blossom 

on hills 

steeped in virgin green

tugs at the crux of one's 

soul! 

🙏😢

Psalm 89:11
The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: 

as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.

This Is My Father's World

This Is My Father's World Lyrics

(so comforting for the times we are in as we lift our prayers

for all the hurting to Him)

This is my father's world

And to my listening ears

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres

This is my father's world

The birds their carols raise

The morning light, the lily white

Declare their maker's praise

This is my father's world

I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas

His hand the wonders wrought

This is my father's world

Oh, let me never forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong

God is the ruler yet

This is my father's world

Why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is king, let the heavens ring

God reigns, let the earth be glad

This is my father's world

He shines in all that's fair

In the rustling grass, I hear him pass

He speaks to me everywhere

Songwriters: C. Barny Robertson / Dp / Maltbie Babcock

Until Nature's Silence Breaks...

April poem-a-day challenge day 9:

For today's prompt, write a breaking poem.

While we wait to go from this...

to this...

...and this!

Tulip, daisy, daffodil

Long before they bloom

Stoke anticipation’s thrill

As spring threads earth’s loom

Pansy, poppy, peony

Lupine, columbine

Lilac, orchard’s blossom tree

Wisteria vine

Woodlands wait; a silhouette

Somber purple-gray

Where the bud, not broken yet

Cradles spring’s hooray

Bronze, the bristled creekbank gleams

Like a vault that holds

Gush of blue flag-iris-streams

Plush marsh-marigolds

Expectation escalates

Hope ignites in sighs

Everybody crowds barred gates

Eager for earth’s prize

...until nature's silence breaks

And bud-belfies ring

Waiting tunes want's tender aches

With love songs for spring

While yon welkin coffers brim

With grim pelting pearls

While a wooing, wailing hymn

Dashes, drips and swirls

While a trusty glockenspiel

Winnows down the hours

Until Someone breaks the seal

And earth sings in flow’rs

© Janet Martin

Can You Smell It?

Poem-a-day Challenge day 3:

For today's prompt, write a smell poem.

It fills picnic baskets with quilt-and-book dreams...

It flutters and twitters in finch-frilled treetops...

It gleams in each sunbeam...

It gleams in each sunbeam, streams where brook-song brims

It sparkles in jewels that gild barren limbs

It quivers and gushes from heaven to earth

A river that rushes death’s graveyards with birth

It lilts in the lyric that landscapes compose

Hint of minty tincture and pink wink of rose

It wafts in the softness of purple mist-crowns

Hiding yonder hill, still steeped in grays and browns

It billows in breezes that test laundry lines

It melts in mosaics of last summer’s vines

It purrs in the fur of pussy willow trees

And laughs in the garden that wakes from its z-z-z-z’s

It spills like a love-song we had long forgot

A duet of bluebell and forget-me-not

It fills picnic baskets with quilt-and-book dreams

The shrieking of children knee-deep in cold streams

*It romps in the rollick of puppy and cat

It makes happiness feel so jolly and fat

In spite of mud-messes and shivery show’rs

Washing dowdy tresses and waking the flow'rs

It takes winter-weary woodlands in its arms

In renewals wrought only by nature's charms

It reinstates pulpits and preachers named Jack

And carpets its chapels with violet bric-a-brac 

It flutters and twitters in finch-frilled treetops

It shimmers in puddles, glimmers in raindrops  

It runs in the sap boiled to maple-sweet yum

First harvest's gold gathered in drum after drum

It flings wide the sense of a rust-jaded gate

Where havens of trillium and daffodils wait

Where choruses warble in numberless laud 

It rouses from slumber the gardens of God

It bobs in the step of farmer’s pep restored

It steams up from cups where outdoor tea is poured

It makes home-sweet-homers feel like queen and king

The pure, pungent, heady aroma of Spring

© Janet Martin

* click on link for a pure-happiness treat

Today Spring has Come True...

*Where nature's hidden hold 

Begins to drip and spill

As sweetest wealth of Maple Gold

Gives young and old a thrill... 

 Find your tasty Maple 'treasures' and treats here!

Winding Road Maple Products

I didn't have the opportunity to post a first day of spring poem yesterday

so let's celebrate its arrival today!

And though we know somewhere

The last snowfall still taunts

With bolder happiness we dare

To dream of flowered haunts...

We revel in the afternoon

Of leafless gold, sun-kissed...

Today spring has come true

The sun climbs a blue hill

Strewing a golden residue

To earth, still stark and chill

And though we know somewhere

The last snowfall still taunts

With bolder happiness we dare

To dream of flowered haunts

The robin sings for rain

Bird-warbling hails the morn

Across the melt-and-mud terrain

The killdeer’s cry is borne

…and though the bud’s cocoon

Is a clenched, maroon fist

We revel in the afternoon

Of leafless gold, sun-kissed

*Where nature's hidden hold 

Begins to drip and spill

As sweetest wealth of Maple Gold

Gives young and old a thrill  

 

A promised land of green

Starts to break winter's spell

Where once a whitewashed world had been

And frigid shadows fell

We sense time’s discipline

That no hand can undo

And smile the smile of youth again

For Today Spring came true

© Janet Martin

March Melody/Medley

This poem began percolating on the first day of March

while I watched the birdies celebrate with unbridled abandon

before the next day turned the bird bath back to a skating rink

They do look a bit shivery though, don't you think?

March kindles in its coming dreamlands of sun-drenched delight

It sparks a sense of celebration to worlds tucked in white

We start to hear an orchestra as tempos ebb and flow

While poetry of petals trembles beneath drifts of snow

March stirs in winter-frazzled hearts spring-hunger’s hope renewed

And reignites the flame that harvest-weariness subdued

As once again thoughts turn toward the flow’r and fruit of seeds

Duets of plant-and-prayer that God would supply our needs

March teases our emotions as temperatures dip and soar

One day it kisses faces that it froze the day before 

While we, of past experience, embrace this yearly spar

Because we hear the songs of spring within its tug-of-war

March matrons pummel pillows heaped on Old Man Winter’s cot

They free a feather-frolic to a world tenderly caught

Between the throes of winter and the crocuses of spring

We smile because we know what time will most assuredly bring

...soft pussy-willow kittens, fragrant violet-starlight, strewn

Farewell to toques and mittens, hello, yellow afternoon

Pretty pink tulip chalice, in a palace fit for queens

As white on white yields to earth's brightest hues of spring's first greens 

March wakes in us a sanguine splurge of soon-emerging thrills

Like brooks bursting with babble, like hills strewn with daffodils

Like gardens ringing with reintroductions of bare feet

Like robins singing in the raindrops dancing on the street

March makes us gently gladder for fine weather yet to come

As Old Man Winter’s numbered days are dwindling one by one

We feel warm welcomes grasp our souls, we glimpse rose-gilded gates

Beneath earth’s blanket full of holes, spring’s world of wonder waits

© Janet Martin

March wakes in us a sanguine splurge of soon-emerging thrills

Like brooks bursting with babble,

We feel warm welcomes grasp our souls, we glimpse rose-gilded gates

Beneath earth’s blanket full of holes, spring’s world of wonder waits