Let It Be...Winter!

And just like that, January 2022 is a memory!

Wow! Winter months really do seem to pass far

too swiftly to be fretted over!

(My truck-driver husband definitely begs to differ😅)

The distance between dawn and dusk 

dissolving ever-so swiftly...

We will soon be warmed with wonder

Where the orchard stark and still

Will burst with pale chiffon plunder

Of first blossom’s pastel frill

Where the creek, now sleek as satin

Will lure bare feet to its brink

And the children will laughin’

And the calf learnin’ to drink

And the mother will be singin’

In a world of blush and jade

And the garden will be ringin’

With the peal of hoe and spade

And the meadow will be gleamin’

With the aftermath of white

Where the whole world will be beamin’

With a poet’s sheer delight

Then, let winter be the willow

Bronze brush-stroked on brooding blue

Let it be a sequined pillow

The landscape of spartan hue

The midday third round of scrabble

While a vault of stars is spilled

While the birds twitter and squabble

Over feeders freshly filled

Let it be the woodstove’s glory

Days; the height of home-sweet-home

The vicarious life through story

-books; frost-fretwork of a poem

Let it be the bluff and bluster

Of Old Man Winter’s ‘hell-o-o-o ‘

Let it be the joy we muster

As he flusters plans with snow

Let it be the love of lamplight

Cup of tea and fireside chair

Knee-deep trek through rose-swept twilight

Autumn melted on the air

Let it be the wind berating

Dusk's unruffled shadow-piers

Poised between seasons in waiting

And the waft of yesteryears

Let it be the love of knowing

Every day is gone too soon

Reduced to a pale fringe glowing

Crisp dark singed with crescent moon

Let it be the rush of oceans

Tossed, white-glossed across the lea

Where Time’s salty spray is frozen

In a fray/frame of memory

© Janet Martin

Beautiful Pause...

Mystery guest (ID help welcome!)

A bird expert has suggested that it looks like 

a female Brown-headed Cowbird!

Thank-you!

Mourning Dove

Downy Woodpecker

Juncos 

Goldfinch and chickadee

The nuthatch wouldn't sit still long enough

for me to get a clear shot...

...and the cardinal got away before I could get a photo!

A feathered flurry of delight

Brings laughter to an afternoon

Soft-pillowed in billows of white

As music notes in nature’s tune

Are muffled by the gale that sweeps

Across the countryside and lane

Where summer songs wait, sound asleep

Beneath a snowflake counterpane

…and it is beautiful to pause

To ‘look at the birds of the air’

And feel a bit better because

Of Who bestows to them, kind care

And to remember what He said,

'Are you not of more worth than they?'

And trust Him for our daily bread

And every other come-what-may

© Janet Martin

Matt.10:31

Do not fear therefore; 

you are of more value than many sparrows.

...then, just as I finished posting I looked up

and lo and behold, I espied a flash of red!

Mr. Cardinal was back

(a bit of a rarity at our feeders)

 but all I could capture

 was the top of his head and few tail-feathers😅

oh, and the nuthatch seems more relaxed this morning too😊

One of the first country songs I recall from my early teen years!

There's a Bluebird on my Windowsill Wilf Carter

 

God Sees The Little Sparrow Fall

(one of the first songs I learned as a child)

His Eye Is on the Sparrow

Ah, Winter's Day...

Winter day played a

 muted melody of perfection on yonder hills today...

Ah, winter day,

thy artist’s tray

Though sparser than in mid-July

Still steals our gaze

with nature’s way

while heaven plays earth’s lullaby

with stars that waft

silver and soft

to settle on the slum’bring sills

of barren trees

and memories

of lusher leas and greener hills

until the dark

snuffs daylight’s spark

and drapes a velvet navy spread

across the world

with stars unfurled

beneath our feet and overhead

© Janet Martin 

A Wild Winter Morning Poem

 

Gone is yesterday morning's pristine perfection!

This morning the world is wild and wooly!!

Today dawn does not slip her feet into slippers, soft-misted gold 

She roars across the eastern ridge and shakes a snowflake-frenzied wold 

And bids us bundle up to brave her biting notoriety 

Or keep home-sweet-home fires stoked, and kettles readied to pour tea 

This morning mettle meets with might of swirling, seething, white-star storm 

It seems the east released a wild beast of fury in finest form 

She seizes tree-tops, eaves and sashes, shaking earth with howling rage 

While blazing trails of sweet nostalgia through the smiles/isles of middle-age 

Gone is the crystal gallery showcasing Jack Frost’s feather-strokes 

Where we all stood agog and gazed with amazed hearts caught in our throats 

Now parkas, mitts, scarves, hats and boots put on their puffy fashion-show 

As bundled ‘models’ trundle, shovel, forge their way through drifts of snow 

Good Morning, Old Man Winter, making your boreal presence known 

As cold and cozy duel in a boxing ring of skin and bone 

As we become more thankful for the four walls, we call home sweet home 

And cherish joys like buttered toast, a cup of tea, a winter poem 

© Janet Martin 

Is it tomorrow now? asked little Girl

Yes! I said. It is yesterday's tomorrow!

Yesterday seemed to her to be full of promises of what is happening 'tomorrow'.

such as, on Friday we always have a popcorn party,

and today is extra special because if the weather allows two little girls 

soon joining the childcare routine, are coming for a visit!

As much as we are able let us remember to be glad and rejoice

in this day the Lord has made.

Ps.118:24

Reason or Wonder Origami

There comes a point in one's 'travels'

or wet-snow-laden-ski-clump-clump

where we eventually put the camera away and simply wonder/worship.

But I did get some snow-mementos before doing so!

Took to the slopes for a while yesterday, 

well, maybe slopes is a bit exaggerated but hills and dells isn't😀

and I stood in the *illusion of 'the middle of nowhere' (I could still hear cars)

and sang How Great Thou Art at the top of my lusty rusty range to

the only One who could possibly hear me 

because beauty such as fresh snowfall 

will woo one to do such things!

Each hill and rill and dell and frond 

And crook and nook and brook and pond 

And lingering leaf and laud-less limb 

Manifests and showcases Him 

How glorious, the cloth unfurled 

To gild and cloak the naked world 

No dowdy rags to drape earth’s bars 

But a cape of sequins and stars 

How manifold and wonder-wild 

The world extols the day God smiled 

And flung into eternity 

Creation’s sacred ‘let there be’ 

How beautiful God’s perfect plan 

Where we have ruined all we can 

While His supreme authority 

Safeguards creation’s majesty 

Where bud and seed heed the design 

That breeds the tendrils of the vine 

And feeds the creatures in the care 

Of He who tends time’s thoroughfare 

And bends the bough that bears the fruit 

And grants the offspring to the root 

And fills each season with fresh ways 

To fold Reason to humble praise 

© Janet Martin 

*my sister wrote in a Christmas letter 

how one Sunday in autumn they hiked along the river and old railway 

until "it certainly felt like the middle of nowhere but

the sound of distant traffic reminded her that it was but an illusion"

How often if we rely on 'feeling'

do we become disillusioned!

Better to rely on what we know, not see!

Psalm 90:2

Before the mountains were born 

or you brought forth the whole world, 

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Here is a one of my favourite versions of

one of my favourite hymns!

How Great Thou Art

The Onions Are Sprouting!

The onions are sprouting

Thus hope usurps doubting

Where we feared perhaps spring would lose her fair way

Where landscapes are pillowed

With white-capes soft billowed

Like waves made of marshmallow crème and star-fray

High-ho merry maiden

With pots and pans laden

With fresh-chopped ingredients ready for soup

Soon fresh garden salad

Will tickle the palate

Soon all this white mayhem will melt underfoot

Then sing without sorrow

In some soon tomorrow

The field’s frozen furrow will turn like a page

The seed in the packet

Will spill from its jacket

The bloom in the bud will break free of its cage

The onions are sprouting

This humble gourd shouting

From dark cellar corners of bright sunny hours

Then grin at this hinter

Teasing Old Man Winter

With tender green tendrils; the prelude to flowers

© Janet Martin

Thursday-what's-for-Supper was loosely based on this recipe...

(I added black beans, fresh veggies, soy sauce and omitted one can of soup) 

 Last night's supper left-overs are perfect for today's savoury snow-day soup!

Winter, We Love-You-Love-You-Not Song

Winter, wake with wizened whispers of the hoary plume

Budded belvederes a-slumber in earth’s dormant womb

Woo, if but with frigid fretwork of frost filigree

The invasion of a network primed with petal-spree

Will, with ev’ry gale you muster, Beginnings beneath

Nearer with each bluster draws the daisy-dusted heath

Winter, warm us, not with kisses, but with bliss of this;

Always after your brouhaha, surely springtime Is

Teeming glimpse of Eden pulsing where winter, knee-deep

Warms the nucleus of nature with its icy sweep

While the throes of thermal stitching itch our swaddled skin

While we weather Weather, waiting for spring to begin

Winter, stir in us the common sense to feel your thrill

No other season is privy to the shades you spill

Where white wears a world of subtle colours in its gloss

(To try to describe it always leaves words at a loss)

Shimmering with glimmers like an ocean glazed with stars

Still-life waves, blue-capped, surge, picturesque, o’er prism bars

Winter, weave your wonders but keep your time-frame in mind

After you have wowed us with white, would you be so kind

As to take your leave before we weary of your ways

While we press our faces to sweet dreams of summer days

While we ooh and a-ah at what we bank on… (pard the pun)

Winter, you will lose yourself in the kiss of the sun

© Janet Martin

Sense-ations

The roof-tops touch the sky

The sky grazes the street

And in each snowflake skimming by

I sense the dance of feet

The pine-tree minstrel plays

Soft, spectral violins

And in the serenade it splays

I sense a song of grins

Winter’s rowdy rogues brawl

On plush and pulsing seams

Where, even in the thickest squall

I sense the rush of streams

This tantrum none can quell

Or tame the tempest's will

Yet on the wild and frigid fell

I sense a daffodil

White, rolls the countryside

White tolls most ev’rything

Still, even in this white-world wide

I sense the green of spring

© Janet Martin