Well-armed Stranger

Now yesterday has etched its shadow soft upon a street

It wanders through a wonderland where grief and joy compete

Moments that no one can exhume like scattered petals lie

Silk remnant of Time’s fullest bloom asleep beneath the sky

And new upon the orbit of untried and untrod way

Thus we embark; the dark relents emerging as Today

We’ve never met before and yet mindless we recognize

Your gentle chuckle like old folklore teasing far-off skies

Familiar yet stranger striding without backward glance

Over  highlighted agonies in ease and confidence

Ah, Maestro of moments, soon you set to memory

Those clandestine collections that only the mind can see

My, my, but you’re a heart-throb shedding colors to the dust

Rendering seeds of happiness; harvest is up to us

Suffused with free surprises you unfold from formless deep

To spill gold light in footsteps where your predecessors sleep

And where you etched your shadow soft upon thought’s palisade

You come, armed from somewhere aloft with mem’ries yet unmade

© Janet Martin

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...

Caught in the Becoming of You...

PAD Challenge two-for-two-Tues:

• Write a realism poem. A poem that is rooted in the real world. Or…
• Write a magical poem. A poem that incorporates magical or fantastical elements

No abracadabra will bring you to me

No wand can rearrange history

Nor can I fold with a wink of my eye

Miles gaping cold between you and I

No spell can force from your lips thought unheard

Laughter and love are not tricked into word

Black-scarlet cape, the illusionist’s cloak

Cannot obliterate horrors we spoke

Night is a deep velvet hat, but the years

Cannot reverse where its dark disappears

Thought-blood of sorrow is not red, but blue

Its potent river unscathed by voodoo

You are unreachable, no hex or charm

No metamorphosis manifests form

Ethereal harbor of mystic appeal

Time’s transformation from real to surreal

I’ve never touched you and yet you become

My every whisper and deed I have done

Darling, you tease me with echoes; your kiss

Ravaging eons of what no longer is

I cannot gather you nor hypnotize

That which is bent on streamlining your sighs

Yet here in my hand your threads tremble, gold-gray

Waiting to weave your corpus; Yesterday

© Janet Martin

All That We Have Is Today

Time is a treasure we cannot steal or borrow

And we do not know what will happen tomorrow

Ever the fortune that no one can tell

All that we have is Today; spend it well

Time is the patriarch of bygone years

No one can cage it; it just disappears

Ethereal Presence without form or face

Yet ever and always Today; gift of grace

Mute moment-merchant; no barterer he

Tick-tock allotment of favor; full, free

To beggar and baron alike will befall

Time’s equal portion, Today; that is all

Time is a breath-by-breath measure of grace

Who can foretell it or its steps retrace?

Century-boast yet its breadth none can say

All that we have of its thread is Today

© Janet Martin

Concealed and Revealed (Two-for-two Tuesday)

1. Writer's Digest PAD Challenge Day 5:
2. Write a concealed poem. Could be about a concealed weapon, concealing emotions, concealing intentions, etc. Cover it up and write about it.
3. Write an unconcealed poem. Okay, take everything from the first prompt and uncover it. Reveal everything that’s hidden.

(okay, this attempt is a bit of a cheat;) I'd like to try for real later but we'll see. Most of what is to happen Today  is still concealed and won't be revealed until after it is done!;)

You come, concealed in a chalice of sunshine

Or in silver sparkle of rain, or dull gray

Though we may claw at your heaven-spun binding,

You remain stoic in your stance of Today

Who can unravel the thread of moment?

You are not hastened yet we cannot keep

One string as you slip from garment to garment

Ever reborn in the night while we sleep

Seraphic sparkle of mercy, your measure

Spills from the heavens to melt midnight’s veil

Who can foretell the fullness of your treasure?

Baron and beggar drink from the same grail

You come; and none can foretell your disclosure

Swathed in a raiment of hope from above

Only God sees beneath your mute composure

And He knows Today is a gift of His love

© Janet Martin

Unconcealed…

By the time we know you fully

You have softly slipped away

Lulled in the lenient beauty

Of forever’s yesterday

By the time we've stripped your pockets

And spent each breath of your worth

You've dissolved into the darkness

Over edges of the earth

Then we can peruse your fortune
As Today empties its hold

For Yesterday fills wisdom's  coffers

With what Today will unfold

© Janet Martin

Of Tomorrow's, Today's and...Eternity(there's no plural in Eternity)

When we wake, what was tomorrow

Now has become our today

Moments of ‘past-present’ drifting

An intangible foray

Now eyes open and tomorrow

Spawns a fresh and mystic page

While yesterday’s tomorrow gleams

Beneath our feet; an open stage

...where life’s unknowns spill in moments

Moment-mysteries unfold

Writing memories and memoirs

In its ink of gray and gold

And soon again eyes close in slumber

…tomorrow becomes today

Kaleidoscope of pain and pleasure

Slipping into yesterday

When we wake, what was tomorrow

Is today; so it will be

Until we waken in the morning

Of God’s vast eternity

© Janet Martin

Life is that thread between yesterday and eternity .

As I was drifting off to sleep last night I remember thinking ‘when I wake up it will be tomorrow’…and in my semi-wake state a picture flashed through my thought of what it might possibly be like when we open our eyes one last time…Forever.

Most Valuable Gift

Today is the most important day

That ever there will come to be

Yesterday has passed away

Tomorrow is a fantasy

For every deed that man has wrought

Or every lesson, come what may

Of living’s trial and error lot

Is taught in what we call Today

Yesterday sleeps in Time’s grave

Tomorrow is a mystery

Today is all we’ll ever have

Before it folds to history

Today, above all else we hold

Is Love’s most precious, priceless gift

Of Heaven’s charge in moment-gold

Before to past’s vast sea they drift

© Janet Martin

Beautiful Yesterday...

 This is the swing of my childhood...how I did love to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue...

Though moments may sweep

Temporal pleasure away

I keep my beautiful

Yesterday

Time cannot take

This treasure from me

Kept in the locket

Of memory

Tides ebb and flow

And nothing can stay

But the joy of a

Beautiful yesterday

Today is an offering

Caught in time's decay

Tomorrow it will be

Our yesterday

Lord, teach us to cherish

This moment-sway

Creating a new beautiful

Yesterday

© Janet Martin

Of Reluctant Relinquishments...

…and so then, when the sun comes up

Glazing with gold the dangling leaf

And the dew-lipped earth; a silver cup

Mirrors its eons of passion and grief

When the song-bird flits from its shady perch

To herald the morn awakening fair

From maple and willow, from elm and birch

They warble and fill the virgin air

With their song; you will not be here

…and just because I taste your name

Where once your kisses filled my mouth

And just because all seems the same

Against my east, west, north and south

And just because there is no grave

On which to shed my silent screams

And just because the heart is brave

In spite of torn and tattered dreams

That once we shared; you will not be here

…and all the ‘something mores’ we crave

If the raw, raging truth were told

And all the blessings that we have

Will not keep us from growing old

And all the ‘never mores’ we knew

Meld into fabrics of the heart

Where they remain, an avenue

Strewn recklessly with precious art

Called memories; you will not be here

…but you will be where all the rest

Like you have gone to fill the past

Briefly my love, you were the best

But now your void is iron-cast

I held you closely and we danced

But quietly you slipped away

Without a tender backward glance

You disappeared into the gray

And come what may you will never be here again

...for you are Yesterday

© Janet Martin

Righteous Brothers; Unchained Melody
J~