A Room Beneath a Sky...

There is a room where she can go
The music there is soft and low
Like gentle raindrops on a breeze
A room of treasured memories

Here a new-born baby cries
With mother’s midnight lullabies
‘gainst cheeks so smooth and soft as silk
And warmth of baby oil and milk

Or childish lips, eager and red
Are asking, is it morning yet?
Before school buses could dictate
The meaning of early or late

She sees the dreams of a young bride
Align her gaze with time’s swift stride
As her once young and carefree lad
Begins to look a lot like dad

And daddy’s love begins to show
In silver etchings on his brow
The tears that once he held inside
He no longer tries to hide

There is a room where she can go
To let the tears and memories flow
The walls are lined with works of art
And held within a mother’s heart

Janet Martin~

My ten-year-old daughter still waves from the bus after she is seated…
This morning I’m not sure if she noticed that I had come out to the porch with my coffee
instead of remaining at my post inside the window. She was waving frantically, as was I, but I don’t think she saw me…and suddenly it became for me a picture of moments…
The fact that the glorious red, morning sky was the prelude to a very rainy Monday amplified my nostalgic frame of mind.

Hidden Master-piece

you dipped your pen into the skies
and stole the tint from midnight eyes
transferring with deft, silent skill
the torment of your poet’s quill
to guarded palettes of the heart
where I, recipient of your art
resign myself to fettered years
as I behold your blue ink tears

time has no swift design on you
you paint the surface of the moon
in un-named shades of misery
while merry-wishers wave in glee
my paper smile is worn and thin
the thought of you as raw-edged tin
but poetry preserves, endears
the permanence of blue ink tears

someday this sea of buried art
like crumpled oceans in my heart
will lie beneath the earth with me
in un-penned vaults of poetry
untainted by mortal’s vile tongue
who dare to paint sapphire with dung
I’ll hold for all eternal years
a masterpiece of blue ink tears

J~

Fearless Passion

Only God sees the true colors of our soul
Others may perceive through our words what they will
Should we dare to expose hints of our uttermost parts
Still, only God knows the hidden depths of our hearts

Only God knows the truth behind words we may pen
Words shaped by thought and life’s experience
Release to the wind bits of poetry
Revelation of living's sweet mystery

Only God understands completely
Let's close our eyes then, and bleed fearlessly
Spilling forth passion held deep in our souls
Man sees but half; only God knows the whole

Janet Martin

Autumn's Overture

The thickened breeze flows through the trees
Like rush of distant stream
The marigold, audacious, bold
Relinquishes her dream
In wistful tones the willow moans
And sheds her amber tears
As moments run beneath the sun
In fantasy and fears

The sumac fire and cricket choir
Collaborate to bring
A grand postlude to flowers subdued
With promises of spring
Magenta dusk and zephyr brusque
A dissonant duet
Add harmony in minor key
To blue-tinged silhouette

The poplar sighs ‘neath painted skies
The day grows deep and still
Dark fingers strum the fields of corn
And sweep the somber hill
A kaleidoscope of grief and hope
Fills earth’s great banquet hall
As summer dims in nature’s hymns
In overtures of fall

The fullness of fair summer’s love
Is strewn in silent field
Epitome of misery
And passions mirthful yield
The restless bliss of Autumn’s kiss
Haunts wood and shaded dell
A melody of reverie
In summer’s grand farewell

Janet Martin

Tonight while I was running this poem sort of wrote itself...
as something to give my mind rhythm and yet absorb the beauty around me.
the wind rushing through the poplars, sounding like a distant water-fall. the ever-present cricket song thinning, but still prevalent as the night fell in cool blue acapella.

In this quiet I run, reminisce, regret, review, resolve, renew and reach!

Thread of Hope

Don’t tell me you love me
as you thrust your fingertips
into wounds, raw and bleeding.

The verve of youth’s passion
has slipped down a corridor
through which I no longer seem to fit

and ideals huddle on opal-tinted hills
as flocks of paper-mache sheep,
Muse is the shepherd…

…too far from me, as I yearn
for pasture’s I cannot see
and a face in the mirror that cannot be

the echo of selfish words
hovers as an omen of doom
in a room heavy with silence

yet, in this pall of sorrow
I find a thread of hope
to strengthen me…

for we are never too old to learn
or to try again
or to whisper, ‘I’m sorry’.

Janet~


http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

In Between

We walked through that field together
You and I
Urged by the restless weather
And the shifting sky
Desiring nothing but the warmth of each other
As our hands touched; that’s all
In this middle season of no longer summer
And not yet fall

The trees were poised for their grand disrobing
The chill on the breeze
Roused our minds toward dancing firelight
And evening and poetry
As we passed rows of corn stretching for miles
Like ragged infantry
And flowers relaxing their fullest smiles
Content to sleep peacefully

The bright-cheeked orchards groaned
As we meandered by
The vast emptiness of waiting moaned
As we lay beneath its sky
A sky leaning ever toward the tug of winter
But we disregard it all
As we lie in a field of no longer summer
But not yet fall

Janet Martin

Ode to a Rainy Late-Summer's Eve (edited re-post)

The cold rain hastes the ending of a day
The dark pine moans within its weeping knell
The landscape dims in folds of cobalt-gray
Beneath the tolling of the evening bell

The absence of the lusty cricket choir
Magnifies the musky sense of gloom
Hovering o’er the garden’s silent bower
Heavy with the parting of its bloom

Now fades the sky-line in the gathering eve
And now the dark and daylight intertwine
Until the dark prevails; light slips beneath
The edge of dusk on the horizon line

The night lies dormant in this solitude
Save for the leaf clinging with muted breath
To sodden arm of birch or maple wood
Before it sleeps in cradles of the earth

The cold rain hastes the ending of the day
Profluent sonnet drifting o’er the lee
As remnant sighs of summer slip away
To grace the silent shores of memory


Janet Martin

Snack-time

You held them to me
I snatched them in haste
But your words of flattery
Left a stale after-taste

You kindly offered
Some much-needed advice
Truth may first taste bitter
But the ending is nice

I’d rather snack
On truth’s celery
Than a great Big Mac
Of flattery

Janet Martin

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/09/midnight-snack-002.html?m=0

When We Look Up

With downcast eye we see life’s grief
Its wretchedness and dirt
We see throngs blind with unbelief
Imprisoned by their hurt
We see dark cradles of despair
The hopelessness of sin
It robs our trembling lips of prayer
Lord, where can we begin?

In loathsome corridors of filth
The groveling captive lie
Doom lurks above in silent stealth
Until at last they die
Cold sorrow hovers like a shroud
The darkness closes in
We lift our voices, cry aloud
Lord, where can we begin…?

…and as we lift our distraught eyes
Above the hopelessness
Morning breaks across the skies
In shades of faithfulness
He lights the dawn to rise upon
The rich man and the poor
As He cries out to everyone
‘Behold, I am the Door’

He makes the blinded eye to see
Beyond the grief and hurt
And draws our gaze to bloom and tree
Sprouting from the dirt
As we cry, where do we begin?
And lift our eyes; undone
He lets the glorious Light shine in
As we behold the Son

Janet Martin~

There are places and seasons in life
where it is hard to see the beauty unless we look up.

Now no one can look at the sun,
bright as it is in the skies
after the wind has swept them clean.
22 Out of the north he comes in golden splendor;
God comes in awesome majesty.
23 The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
24 Therefore, people revere him,
for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart? Job 37:21-24

Autumn's Approach

She lies in wait of things to come
Beneath a cool, blue moon
The trembling of imminent dawn
Breathes on the dark-rimmed dune
Where currents of an unseen tide
Have claimed fair summer’s boast
As burnished fingers brush aside
Her eager, verdant ghost

The lavish plume of brush and bloom
Don webs of impearled silk
The broken bud of June's perfume
Has bled its honeyed milk
And in the pausing atmosphere
A murm’ring purple chill
Creeps silently into her tear
Spawned by time’s perfect will

The pastureland of summer’s bliss
Is naught but trodden dirt
Spring's cheek that drew her lover’s kiss
Is streaked with beauty’s hurt
The palms that opened to release
Impatient, rushing dreams
Have seen the fruit of its increase
Like leaves upon a stream

She lies in wait of deeper hope
In fall’s extravagance
A song of gilded calliope
And echoes of a dance
That passed too quickly and too soon
In hours sweet and wild
Seeds float on summer's fading tune
She turns to see her child

Janet Martin~

Sometimes I find the title the most challenging part of a poem.
First I had- In Waiting
Then I thought maybe Middle-aged Mother (or woman) would open the reader’s mind immediately to the two tones in the poem,
But then I wanted the reader to see it for themselves so I chose Autumn’s Approach.
This morning it is cold and I felt ‘The Approach’ on more than one level;)

Elusive Muse

Tonight she falls
Heavy and flat
Like rain
Striking my face
An inert pall
Spreading its mat
Of sodden leaves
Across the place
Where once we met
In love and ease
Before tight-lipped silence
Snatched her,
Smothering
Supple form and grace
She, as reluctant as I
To venture
Alone into this
Cold, dark abyss
Where just the night before
We danced recklessly
Beneath the candor
Of the harvest moon
Disregarding propriety
And things
For the simplicity of a kiss
In a midnight afternoon
But now,
The emptiness rings
With perpetual echoing
Of footsteps fading
Into the autumn mist


J~