Lunar Hypnotism

A captive audience

Universal

Falls beneath your subtle spell

You sing your tune

In every language

To earth, wide-eyed and vulnerable

A maiden

Ever youthful

Casting your bewitching glance

To steal the hearts of poet's

In your soft, mesmeric trance

 © Janet

She looked so lonely as she stared through our window at dinner last eve...so I took her picture.

Poet's United Prompt

My Prayer for you

May God give you courage

May He keep you strong

May His Presence fill you

When pain steals your song

May His whisper within you

Be your power and might

And gently sustain you

When you cannot fight

May His goodness and mercy

Guide you through the vale

And comfort you always

For His love will not fail

© Janet

I'm off to visit my sister-in-law who has had many years of hospital visits

and suffering due to an accident where her body was severely broken after

being hit by a drunk driver. She is one of the most beautiful people I am blessed to know.

In spite of daily reasons not to, still she has forgiven him and lives with joy.

If you read this, and if you feel led to, would you pray a special prayer for Karen and her family?

God bless~

Contemplating Words

If I had to write I would quit

Though I must write

It is not the same thing

I have not yet decided whether my Muse

Is Beauty or the Beast

With words we bless and curse

The mess we make with words

Is wiped up…with words

The epitome of longing has no words

Words are not enough

when it comes to you

Let’s enjoy the silence

Together

Alone

Silence is golden

…but only if nurtured by words

Flattery is nothing but tainted noise.

My best words I am saving

For you

But they have not been invented

Yet

Kind words are winter’s roses

J~

Genesis of Seduction~

This week’s featured poetry form is a bit of a challenge. It is called GENESIS. It has been devised by Walt Wojtanik, and takes its name from the musical group by the same name. The form consists of three (the last configuration of the group had three members) six-lined stanzas each with the rhyme scheme A-B-A-C-A-B (“ABACAB’ was one of the group’s big hits). There is no syllable count or any set meter.

Purple petals spread across the emerald grass

Their fragrance wafting on springs virgin breeze

I fall prey to their suggestions as they pass

To be seduced by violets is a glorious thing

I must find my slippers made of glass

For I am surely a princess in moments as these

It is no anemic and casual glance

You toss to me from across the room

We touch each other in an invisible dance

To be seduced by a lover’s eyes is a guiltless fling

Is it the heart or the eye that stirs the bud of romance?

Beneath love’s tender gaze, timid lilies bloom

In twists and swirls, you taunt and tease

With legends of spilled ink

You breathe across vast centuries

To be seduced by poetry is the pinnacle of ecstasy

Arousing keen awareness of my meager capabilities

I open my mouth to your lips, and I drink and I drink

© Janet Martin

prompted by Walt at Poetic Bloomings

This Tie that Binds...A Marriage Poem

This tie that binds

Man cannot see

Nor cut its strands asunder

What God has joined

Will ever be

Until one passes yonder

The sacred promise

Two hearts make

In love’s most holy union

Will form a cord

Man cannot break

By any measure human

Two on earth

Say ‘I take thee’

As hallowed vows are spoken

Two on earth

And God makes three

A cord not quickly broken

This tie that binds

Oh, what great peace

To know man cannot sever

But death, will be

Its sad release

As love lives on forever

This tie that binds

Our grief, our joy

Its tenure will not falter

Though storms refine

But not destroy

The vow made at loves alter

This tie that binds

Man cannot see

Not part its strands asunder

What God has joined

Will ever be

His holy, sacred wonder

© Janet Martin

 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. 

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Eccles. 12:4

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Mark 10:9

Echoes...

We tell them

And tell them

And tell them again

It seems that we speak it in vain

Yet someday perhaps

When they hear themselves then

They will hear our voices echo again…

‘Put your shoes in the closet

Put your plate in the sink

Don’t leave your coat on the chair

Shut the door; if you dropped it

Then please pick it up

At least pretend that you care

Don’t wipe your hands

On the front of your shirt

Don’t wipe your mouth on your sleeve

If I am sweeping, don’t walk through my dirt

And when you ask for something ‘say please’

If I am talking please don’t interrupt

If I’m on the phone, likewise

If I’m on the next floor, don’t yell, walk up

And no, please do not roll your eyes

If you leave the room, then please turn out the light

If you use the washroom, please flush

If you brush your teeth, please rinse out the sink

And PLEASE, put away your toothbrush

Don’t talk with your mouth full

And if there’s folded laundry

In your bedrooms please put it away

Don’t forget your homework

And don’t forget Jesus

No, don’t you forget how to pray

Pull up those covers

Don’t let the bed-bugs bite

May sweet dreams keep you all the night through

Goodnight my dear precious

Yes, I’ll leave on the night-light

Goodnight, good-night, I love you’

Janet~

The Unnamed Longing

I long for a song to still with its tongue

The restless void inside of me

But the sputter of rain on the dark window-pane

Increases my melancholy

I wish I could run in the pink April sun

Like I did when I was a wee girl

But a hint of gray has stolen away

The prisms of a stained-glass world

I clench the desire, but cannot quench the fire

Of yearning deep in my chest

For time is a dancer of mysterious answers

Burning in aggrandized quest

I wish I could find that place in my mind

Where wisdom and folly collide

Then I could adjust my vision of dust

And soft in life’s waiting abide

I cannot console the thirst in my soul

I’m prone to the wanderings of man

But I have one hope, for when I cannot cope

I call out to God and He can

© Janet Martin

How Do I Thank Him?

How do I thank the One who formed

The earth and sky and sea

Then in redemption’s hour wore

A robe of blood for me

Not one small offering of worth

Had I to give to Him

But still his blood-drops bathed the earth

In victory’s diadem

How do I thank the One who taught

The willow how to weep

The bird its song, the bud to bloom

And filled the azure deep

With universes infinite

Beyond my meager scope

Then spread His limbs on roughened wood

And filled my soul with hope

How do I thank the One who gives

For my vast guilt His grace

On my behalf He wept and pled

With blood-drops on His face

How do I thank the One who tunes

The wind and rolling sea

He light’s the stars, the sun and moon

And paid sin’s debt for me

© Janet Martin

Granted...

I wish sometime, I’d turn around

And see you standing there

Not an illusion in my mind

Or whisper in my prayer

But in the form of flesh and blood

The longing of my sighs

Would unfold from my fainting thought

The azure of your eyes

And all the prayers borne on the wind

In twilight’s waning gleam

Would be ten fingers now, entwined

Beyond a transient dream

I wish sometime I’d turn around

To see you standing there

But night descends without a sound

I breathe another prayer

J~

White Moon Night

The moon is white, it’s half-shut eye

Discharges twilight’s deepened sigh

As incandescent radiance flows  

Across nature’s frigid repose

The beauty of fair summer’s hour

Lies muted in an unborn flower

Its hope which trembles in our breast

Inspires both labor and rest

In rigid stance the raven pine

Enhances the horizon-line

A still-life sketched against the hue

Of moonlight’s argent avenue

We lay aside our humble toil

To scan the tides of moonlit spoil

The grandeur of an ocean stirred

Sweeps our souls without a word

© Janet Martin

I opened my mouth to tell them to look at the beautiful white night…

Then I shut it. Someday they will discover its wonder for the first time,

And marvel at the miracle of it all…

Contemplating Fear...

I fear the future quiet:

I fear the quiet of a still and sterile kitchen

Where there is no sound but the refrigerators hum

Once a haven of lively discussion

Of jam spills and chatter and breakfast toast-crumbs

I fear loss:

Anticipation, as a new day is stirred

The memory of your laughter in my ear

The lure in the dance of written word

The pleasure of having you near

The sanity I once took for granted

And maybe the tear as well

Because Alzheimer’s has stolen the person

Long before death’s gentle knell

I fear for my child,

Who, without no or yes

Has received the inheritance

Of my stubbornness

There is the fear of the unknown

Or the loss of a child’s faith

As they begin to question

What once they believed

There is the fear of evil

Hidden in a guise

That is soothing and delightful

To undiscerning eyes

I fear, more than losing a child to death

Losing a child to this world.

I thought once that I feared growing old

And I guess, perhaps if the truth were told

I still do

I fear being poor…

Not seeing gold in the sun

Sapphire in the sky

A diamond in the dewdrop

Or perhaps, in your eye

The riches of wisdom

Traded for dross

The folly of temporal

Molding eternal loss

I fear not wanting what I have

As I stand at autumn’s door

Knowing I must be brave

For I cannot return to summer’s shore

...sometimes I fear the rustle of the newspaper
becoming the wall we don't know how to climb
having nothing left in common

but what once was
and the ache for it to return
once more

But when fear overtakes me, and darkens my day

I close my eyes, talk to God until my fears melt away

He takes my despair and anxiety

As He whispers, dear child, I will never leave thee.

© Janet Martin

I never dwell on my fears for fear that fear will overtake faith.

But I did stop to consider them as I contemplated the Poetic Bloomings prompt.

Hidden Terrors...yes, pun intended;)

http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/03/04/nothing-to-fear-but-fear-itself-prompt-45/

They leap from murky shadows

White heat dries my eyes as I try to run

With feet caught in quicksand

It is no use; my life is done

But as I brace myself for teeth meeting flesh

The bed jolts; I wake in a panting sweat

Sometimes they come at me

A black, lightning flash across the spacious yard

And I simply cannot move fast enough

Though a mile back I begin pedaling hard

It seems that their sixth sense knows

When there’s a bike-cyclist coming close

In a perfect world I could take a bike ride

And my heart would never race

Because everyone would keep their dogs tied

Denying them the thrill of the chase

Woof, woof, woof, my mouth goes dry

Who will be quicker, the dogs or I?

I really, really, REALLY HATE being chased by dogs.

When I was a girl I had to bike past a place where three big Dobermans

inhabited the front yard. It didn’t matter how silently I approached or how fast I was moving, they would give chase! I have remain terrified to this day! Yes it’s true. I am terrified of most dogs! Now you know…

Janet

Disguises

We pretend to wait out

the wall of tears

pouring from the awning

onto the sidewalk

Streetlights gleam

...fuzzy golden globes

against the onyx air

while we are warmed by

the touching of fingertips

prolonging the agony

of thought

drifting

like sheet music on the wind

Lost ballad of

an hour bent with

farewell

No one can tell

as the same rain

washes our cheeks

in salty grief

that you will turn left

while I turn right

No one really knows

what happens

on a rainy night

J~

Flash-back...edited

A glimmer from the stars above

It is a tender song of love
And sometimes it makes me cry
I hear upon its plaintive moan
Words like ‘gone’ and ‘missing you’

And in its rippling undertone
The night blue……
Ballad of the wind

Seems to me there’s going to be
A continual encore
Music of a rolling sea
Or waves upon a distant shore
And I’m thinking that this song
Can not find a way to end
I will listen all night long
It’s become a sort of friend…….
Ballad of the wind

It’s a chuckle and a sigh
A ripple, and a rush, a roar
It’s ‘hello darling’ and ‘good-bye’
But oh, I think it’s so much more
Its ‘do you really need to go?’
‘When will I see you again?’
I hear the music start to blow…….
In the ballad of the wind
Oh, ballad of the wind

It’s a lonesome lullaby
Crooning from the star-strewn hill
It’s a love song from the sky
Pleading when the night is still
I would dance a little while
On some cold and darkened plain
To the music of your smile
And the ballad of the wind
Oh, the ballad of the wind

Time-song

The exodus of winter

Becomes spring’s arrival

But we cannot see time’s nimble-soft feet

Or the spawning of moments

As they tumble and trickle

Translucent as wind-song that sallies and sweeps

In ageless anthems

Across ambling waters

Teasing the travel of childhood’s wee brook

Folding to history

Its innocent chatter

Winding through pasture and timber-lined nook

Moments form ages

Yet age is a moment

When weighed in the balance with eternity

Time rolls toward us

From ethereal oceans

Dissolving on shores of infinity

We cannot leap forward

To the unknown before us

Nor turn again to its measure when past

But oh, what a wondrous

Perpetual chorus

Flows from the grace of the First and the Last

Departure, arrival

Mystic paradigm

As springtime evolves into summer’s blue haze

Yet still moments spiral

The essence of time

Forming life’s minutes, then hours, then days

Spinner of seasons

And lifetimes and centuries

Joy and grief rival in pleasure perplexed

Moment by moment

The edge of eternity

Closes the gap twixt this life and the next

© Janet Martin

I looked at these old trees and the ageless brook,

existing in nothing

but a sequence of moments.

How gracious God is...He doesn't shove life at us

in one huge lump, but in tender little moments.

Wonderful nuggets of potential. Even this mighty tree began as a tiny seed.

The Other Guy

Today I was the other guy

I watched myself as I walked by,

Today I got a chance to see

What others saw as I watched me,

Today truth opened up my eyes

As I stood with the other guys

I received the words today,

That thoughtlessly I toss away,

As I stood with the other guys

And truth stared back into my eyes

Beneath the candor of my touch

I wasn’t sure I liked me much

I got my own advice today,

I could not turn and walk away,

As I stood with the other guys
And watched me through a stranger's eyes

I blush a little now in shame

As I hear me speak my name

I used to wish that I could see

Perhaps, what others thought of me,

But now as I am standing here

I wish that I could disappear

Today I opened up my eyes

As I stood with the other guys

Janet~

Another attempt at the Anaphora Poem

Yesterday's Girl

Don’t go, not yet, I’ll miss you so much

Don’t go: Oh why are you in such a rush

Don’t go; the music insists that we dance

Don’t go; I beg of you one second chance

Please stay; I reach to restrain your feet

Please stay; for the hour is tender and sweet

Please stay; but you turn with a skip and a twirl

I wave farewell to yesterday’s girl

Janet~

The Anaphora Poem

My Apolgy to my Writer's Group

I have discovered for the ump-teenth time

There is really no home for the poet of rhyme

And while I admit I have much to learn

There is a barred pasture for which I yearn

Where Tennyson, Long-fellow and Blake recline

Among all the great masters of rhythm and rhyme

My admiration runs deep for the artist of prose

The skill of their quill; the metaphorical rose

I strive to be brave enough to venture among

The haiku, cinquain, nonet, tanka song

But when I have wandered their courtyards sublime

I return once again to the pastures of rhyme

Beauty is in the eye of beholder, its true

I have understood as I beheld the senyru

And marveled at the tools of simplicity

Creating pure, breath-taking imagery

I bow my head, the truth now I know it

Dare I to call myself a poet?

Yet happily I gather words in my thought

Dither about for the elusive jot

I care not so much about status or title

The lure of words cannot keep my thought idle

Am I a poet or merely a shadow

Drifting in bliss through a wide open meadow?

So while some may gag at rhyme’s stringent plot

I have not learned how to un-rhyme my thought

Over and over I am lured by its dance

Yet drawn simultaneously by free-verse romance

So quietly I sit at the back of the room

Happy to observe poet’s in full bloom

© Janet Martin

I am blessed to be in a wonderful Writer's Group!

Glynis, I am not afraid of rejection

but I have not the slightest sense of direction.

Most publishers prefer the free verse, not rhyme

I think I was born in the wrong frame of time

So I must study prose's secret ingredient

For I have no free verse I consider expedient

to offer up to a publisher at this time.

You see, I tend to be a poet of rhyme:)

I'm posting this selfishly to ease my injured pride

before I see you tomorrow night...

sigh, I think sometimes
I think in rhymes...

Mount Kilimanjaro

 

Written for Poetic Bloomings prompt: Where the rubber meets the road

You didn’t tell me,

Though I came right away

When you told me

That they would take us

To the summit of

Mount Kilimanjaro

We climb away

Past the shadows

Flickering with wildebeest

And skulking hyena

Away from their whimpering

Childish cries

Above the moody landscape

Of burnt grass and bamboo slopes

Golden-red in the pining sun

Past the stench of rotting carcasses

To the coveted top

Of Mount Kilimanjaro

How I wanted to see it

That white square

Transforming to a coral sea

As the sun sets

Above a layered landscape

Of muted blue and green

You told me once

That something foreign

Occupied the space in you

Once filled with life

…but you didn’t tell me

You came up here

To Mount Kilimanjaro

To die

Janet

I was stunned the first time I read Hemingway’s

The Snow’s of Kilimanjaro.

Breath-notes in Life's Song

 Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson

They tumble in between us

Good-bye still warm upon the air

Expanding in each heart-beat

And I don’t think they are aware

Of my sentimental wishes

Borne upon a stringent breeze

As I reach but cannot touch

The moments shaping memories

J~

Perfect, Infallible Survival Kit

It has everything we will ever need

It is both Water and Living bread

It is the Way, the Truth, the Life

The tender Teacher in our strife

It is our refuge, strength and light

The sword and shield within the fight

It is life’s compass, it is powerful and true

Love’s covenant for me and you

It is beginning, it is end

It is our kind and dearest Friend

It is our rest and our Guide

A faultless Prophet at our side

It is our comfort, hope secure

Beyond all Time it shall endure

It bears us up on life’s cold sod

It is the faultless Word of God

© Janet Martin

Survival

Today I must survive on the bare necessities

Your eyes
your lips
your hands
your thoughts
and words
your touch

oh, what a beautiful survival kit
the dawn is still dark
there is no one here but us
I suggest desperate survival measures

J~

Morning without You

Dawn’s bolder intrusion pries

Blissful slumber from my eyes

I tug the warmth of sweet repose

Across my skin and hold you close

But consciousness pulls you from me

Dreams cannot bar reality

As morning light fingers the air

I hold you softly in a prayer

J~

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…    

Leap Day

 At IGWRT they ask these questions today...

What color is your morning?
What are the shapes of your day?
What are the smells of your evening?
What are the textures of your favorite piece of clothing?
What are the sounds you hear right now?
What nourishes you?
What do you see when you open your eyes and really look?

 Play by play on Leap Day unfolding...

Gray arms cleave to Mother Earth

Dawn offers a bleak embrace

As ice tears dash her frozen turf

Coffee sings amazing grace

Obliterating dull despair

In amber sunshine on my tongue

Dear daughter dangles from my chair

As she observes how ‘poem’ is done

And then she’s off in twirls and whirls

Of Sunkist orange and sock-feet glee

Thank-you God, for little girls

I inhale simplicity;

The scent of wood-smoke from the fire

The flail of axe as son splits wood

The arguments of sibling ire

Life is good, life is good

Weather man forecasts cold rain

Red flannel smiles, warm fingers touch

Chocolate cake pulled from the oven

I don’t mind the cold too much

Oom-pa-pa notes dip and dive

Piano lessons cannot wait

Oh, it’s good to be alive

‘Snow day’ mornings sure are great

© Janet Martin

I wrote this poem as the moments played out…

The kids have a 'snow day'...no school. 

I realized to keep up with Victoria as she flits about the house is a whole separate poem!

Matthew split the wood, started a fire, then I told him he may bake his favorite chocolate cake and we’ll have ‘leap day’ cake for supper.

Roots

To teach a child morality

With no Base for its stand

Is like trying to plant a tree

On shores of shifting sand

Our eyes behold but half the tree

Though towering are its reaches

It is the Base we cannot see

Securing storm-tossed branches

The whole of moral law consists

Not only by instruction

But by a hidden measuring stick

That justifies law’s judgment

How can we teach a child of love

And yet deny its Giver?

Love has a Source man cannot prove

Without a Higher Power

How can we teach morality

Or fool-proof absolutes

And yet ignore the Deity

That gives the Law its roots?

© Janet Martin 

As I watch the wind bending the trees I marvel at their strength...

...the trunk never moves though the branches are thrashed in the gale.

And yet it is not the trunk which keeps it there. It is the part we cannot see.

The trees survival depends on the surety of the roots. If the roots are healthy and True the tree will stand.

It spawned a train of thought as I looked at my kids (snow day again) and I began to wonder how their 'roots' are developing. Will they hold fast in the storm's of life?

Time Enough or A Housewife Rebels

Time enough for mundane dues

The sun has flung a yellow wash

Across the earth; dull avenues

Transform beneath its gilded sash

And I must leave these bland confines

Of ginger-spice and lemon soap

Of laundry-poems with endless lines

The breeze, a gentle calliope

Strums eagerly the jeweled limb

It beckons to me from the air

As nature’s azure, lilting hymn

Seeps through the window to my chair

Where Duty with austere command

Points me to pots and pans and broom

But a kind stranger tugs my hand

And lures me to earth’s grand ballroom

Where now silk threads have teased the sun

To dim her golden smile a bit

For soon another day is gone

And soon the evening star is lit

For even now the pale white ghost

Of crescent moon dangles aloft

Before the sun has thought to coast

Beneath the western skyline’s croft

Time enough for mundane dues

Today offers no repeat chance

On lengthened shadow avenues

Kind stranger, may I have this dance?

© Janet Martin

…and so we did

On Waiting...

We cannot rush the unfolding of a flower

Or improve upon its flawless, fragile bloom

We cannot hasten minutes through an hour

To by-pass lessons in life’s waiting room

We cannot hurry seasons or extend them

The naked tree must wait for spring’s consent

We cannot form God’s preordained perfection

But we can trust and wait…and be content

© Janet Martin

 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage,
and he shall strengthen your heart:
 wait, I say, on the LORD. Ps. 27:14

I Wonder...

If I am the only ‘Jesus’

That some will ever see

I wonder what they think of Him

As they meet Him through me

If I profess to take His name

Wherever I may go

I wonder if they think of Him

As One they’d like to know

Janet~

Like Pipe-smoke on a Sultry Summer's Eve

You weave

through my senses

I’m entranced

by your lips
as they brush

my thought
in an ethereal kiss

and memories murmur,

a spiraling blush

into the dense
warm twilight hush

like pipe-smoke

on a sultry summer's eve
your presence
evokes
memories

softly, you weave

your way to me

over cumbersome answers

with questions never breathed,

truth cementing
fact into place

Still, I remain
touching your face

reluctant to call it a day

though moments pelt

the deepening silver-gray
like snowflakes melt
they fade away

into history’s expanding clutch
without tangible touch

Oh, it’s strange

how thought can stray

needing no map

to guide its way
across oceans
of twilight nothingness
to you...

J~

 http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

Mini-vacation

There are no maps

To direct me

No highways to follow

No hills to climb

But I can find you

With my eyes closed

Destinies of the heart

Are traveled

Through the mind

J~

The Onset of Things to Come

The dawn has spread, four hours deep

Across the thinning sky

Illusive ghosts of midnight creep

Beyond its waning eye

And on the cusp of things to come

With mystic fingertips

God’s grace unfolds a sacred bloom

As morning parts its lips

Inhale the nectar of His hope

Love bleeds miraculously

As Time exhales a transient scope

Of opportunity

And on the cusp of things to come

Another day begins

Mercy imparts from lofty Throne

Forgiveness for our sins

Beneath our feet a stepping-stone

Of moments yields its path

Leading into life’s vast unknown

From history’s aftermath

Ephemeral vapor on Time’s tongue

This brief reality

What was

What is

And is to come

Before

Eternity

© Janet Martin

Abiding Treasure

The beauty of a word remains

Long after youth’s ephemeral dance

Or its passive and pleasant glance

The beauty of a word remains

Speak to me that treasure then

Far better it than transient fray

For when I am old and gray

I will smile with pleasure, then

Some strive for fame and fortune’s gold

Dross does not leave the spirit stirred

But oh, the splendor of a word

Is such a wondrous thing to hold

The beauty of a word remains

Long after youth’s ephemeral gasp

It will soothe our wanton clasp

The beauty of a word remains

J~

Fulfilled

Lord, let me never want for naught

The things that you have deemed not mine

In every moment, deed and thought

Not for a neighbor's blessing pine

Lord, teach me how to live and love

And never disregard my lot

Because of what I do not have

As in some greener field I sought

A thousand, thousand blessings, Lord

Daily pass before my gaze

In every thought, action and word

May I live to give You praise

© Janet~

My Mother

Queen of the mending basket

And stretching a dollar

And loving ten children

Each the best

My mother

Eye of an artist

Heart of a poet

Hands of a farmer

Patience of Job

My mother

The butcher, the baker

The tireless meal-maker

The gardener, landscaper

The seamstress and quilter

The tutor and teacher,

The nurse, the maid

The most beloved

Mother

Her name is Grace~

© Janet Martin

I'm thinking about my mom today (snow-day with MUCH noise)

and I am realizing once again what an amazing mom I had as I grew up,

and wondering how she did it....often humming as she cooked supper.

She is still amazing...(almost 70) and tirelessly serving wherever there is a need.

Invincible One-horse Power

Come freezing rain, sleet, snow
One-horse power will always go.

Janet~
 
I just snapped this photo as they passed by...completely unhindered by a hyped-up
-not-really-happening in the amounts forecasted,  snow-day.
It's business as usual for this horse:)

Storm-cloud Sonnet

He unfurls his talons, sharpens his sting

Vampire lunging at bold, unclad throats

He inhales misguided whispers of spring

Spewing his fury in icy-sharp notes

The wanton field ‘neath noon’s azure sonnet

Trees that were dreaming of lacy, green dress

Hills primed for frocks and pretty spring bonnets

Succumb to thrusts of his frigid caress

Visions of blossom and bloom now preside

Somewhere beneath the white veil of a bride

…and now the landscape is a white-capped sea

Sailors don mufflers and bright woolen toques

Somewhere summer waits, over argent lea

Brimming with gardens and chatter of brooks

We will not suffer too long at the prow

Bucking chill rivers on highway and street

Spring is the conqueror of all things snow

This frozen ocean is bound for defeat

Smile at the north wind with blue-puckered mouth

He will fall prey to fair maids of the south

This is the season of warm quilts and books

Then let winds grumble with thick, heavy jowls

Miracles stir in the snow-laden nooks

Quite undeterred by its bully-white howls

Noise is the mask of a fool’s emptiness

Flinging steel teardrops against cheek and glass

Soon its wild tantrum will cease its distress

Mustering threats that dissolve on the grass

This is the season of fire-side bliss

Hot-chocolate-marshmallow, sticky-sweet kiss

© Janet Martin

Song: Storms Never Last

Well...

If I have lived a laughter-gilded mile

And grieved so I may learn its worth

To comfort another on this short road

To eternity

Then I have lived well

If I have learned to see beyond sight

And hear beyond sound

To the heart of nature

And child

Then I have learned well

If I have loved beyond pleasure
And returned, not empty-handed
But wiser and kinder
To myself and others
Then I have loved well

If I can rest in peace

Knowing I leave no enemies

Scarred by thoughtless word

Or deed

Then I may die well

 © Janet Martin

Random Haiku

The Chestnut

Prickly exterior

Time breaks through its hardened shell

Smooth, genteel heart

0~0~0~

Winter Wind

Icy white fingers

Clawing at noon’s mellow smile

Melting in his kiss

0~0~0~

Song: Like Red on a Rose...

The Rose…

Soft magenta folds

Bejeweled with crystal dew

Spills musky fragrance

J~