Conception of Misconception...

Poetic Bloomings invites us to try the the memento form  today.

In lack of honest, uttered word

Or the ineptness of

Their mien

In truths too seldom breathed or heard

Lost somewhere in self-love

Between

…the moment when I should have said

Those words that I chose not

To say

Before assumptions in your head

Consume your misled thought

Today

© Janet Martin

Of Destinies in the Rain

The darkness is cloaked in a mantle of rain

Out on the streets in sluggish duress

Late night stragglers suffer its cheerless caress

Pushing through its staccato refrain

Just to make it home in time to peek

At babies snuggled warmly in their cots

And soon the rain begins to soothe their thoughts

Running teardrop kisses down their cheeks

Washing away the ragged robe of cares

For surely there can be no greater joy

Than to behold the soundly-slumbering girl or boy

And to enfold them in our goodnight prayers

© Janet Martin

Meeting-place

 

He meets us

Not where we ought to be

Or in visions

Faint and far

But when we ask

Then God meets us

Exactly

Where

We

Are

He does not meet us

If and when

We earn

A silver star

But if we call

He meets us then

Exactly

As 

We 

Are

 

© Janet Martin

The Known in our Unknowns

Dear Father, I must place my hand in Thine

For oh, You know I do not know the way

A new day breathes on the horizon-line

And what a-waits, God, only You can say

The unknown like a mighty, rolling sea

On which the sailor and his ship must sail

Conceals within its depths life’s mystery

Our vessels without You, oh God are frail

But if You place Your hand beneath the tide

Then we will make it to the other side

Dear Father, keep us in Your constant care

Mortality cannot dissuade the course

Of trials that we all must surely bear

Within life’s storm; it’s cold and bitter force

Would surely toss us to merciless deeps

Where we would sink beneath fear’s murky wave

But with You, God, we trust the One who keeps

His uttered word; God, You alone can save

And in the comfort of Your promises

We press ahead into the misted tress

Dear Father, Captain of our battered bark

And Master of the currents that converge

Protect us from the demons of the dark

And shed Your Light across life’s little surge

The reward of love’s humble diligence

Will someday in Your arms be gratified

So Father, take our hands and lead us thence

Knowing in You our want is satisfied

And though the unknown trembles in the air

Dear Father, oh we know that You are there

© Janet Martin

For J&R K. Please continue to pray for the family which I constantly plead prayer for...they have sent us a letter today confirming their deepest fears and need our prayers more than ever before as they face drastic and sudden unknowns. I do not have the permission or freedom, due to their safety to tell the details of their story, but they are packing as we speak and trusting God to lead.
Here are a few of their specific prayer requests;
You can be praying for:
- saying goodbyes, there are many dear ones whom we will terribly miss and we can only pray that God will meet them wherever they are in their journey with Him
- for the details of packing up 4 years of life here, what to keep, sell, give away etc.
- for our aching hearts, it is hard to say goodbye to a place that we have come to dearly love

And they close with this verse:
 

When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous has an everlasting foundation.
Proverbs 10:25

Intimacy of Ink

 

With you

The intimate

Possibility

And desire

Of what may transpire

Keeps me returning

Again,

Again

For the burning yearning

Of its hidden fire

Spawns intricate fantasy

An unrestrained intimacy

In obscure romances

And beautiful dances

Flowing enchantingly

A perpetual ecstasy

In the bittersweet

Melody

Of 
The Pen
and The Poetry

© Janet~

Winter Wandering of Feet and Mind

Across the frozen field of brittle plume

Raw, ragged mumbles grumble, tumble cold

They wander through earth’s barren living-room

Like wastrels searching for their squandered gold

Bronze shroud of milkweed shivers, robbed of silk

Flung fecklessly in autumn wantonness  

Now sunlight, pale as sallow honeyed milk

Spills impotently on winter’s duress

While we, trespassers on its powdered hush

Caught in the vortex of longing and love

Pause on the fringe of muted underbrush

To drink the echoes trickling from above

Of green leaf sigh and murmured melodies

Borne in the bantering of summer’s breeze

***

The fallow, in its brief sabbatical

Inspires farmers; his anxieties  

Don eager dreams; his passion virginal

Despite its annual perplexities

And as the wind sashays and pirouettes

Across the still and stricken country-side

Where furrows sleep beneath the silhouettes

Of evergreen against the eventide

And as the farmer nods beside the hearth

Of flick’ring flame while blizzards deck the fir

Somewhere within his chest as in the earth

The nucleus of spring begins to stir

Beneath life’s disappointment and its doubt

Tender belief and hope begins to sprout

***

The woodland does not cast judgment on us

Or render its assumptions as full proof

Of our ineptness; here kind moments pause

As we bow beneath limb and snow-scrim roof

To worship without barriers of time

Or the distraction of man’s shallow ploy

Woodlot cathedral, sacred and sublime

We praise its Maker with unguarded joy

The hour of strife’s turmoil will subside

We battle its forces beneath, above

Though gods of self are never satisfied

Our One True God simply desires our love

Here on the palm of argent hinterland

I hear Him whisper in the winter-land

© Janet Martin

Yesterday's wide open afternoon was the perfect canvas for thinking and skiing as far and fast or slow as the heart desired:) It seemed like even the wind was taking a sabbatical; all was calm and still...the calm before freezing-rain-storm.

Ice Tears

She weeps,

Weighting the plush hush of winter’s girth

In silvery grief against the earth

Ice tears from Mother Nature’s eye

Ellipses dripping from the sky

Where we would fling our poetry

But for the gray melancholy

As glassy shard emotion rends

A sea of white indifference

© Janet Martin

...a light freezing rain is coating everything in a brittle glaze. The field is full of ice-flowers.

 

Behold...

Behold, the orb of burnished gold

Heralding a new day

Behold, the earth bathed in pure garb

Of sin-stains washed away

Behold, the chains of night are gone

And He makes all things new

Behold the trembling of the dawn

Gilding earth’s avenue

Behold the glory of the Lord

Rending dark ether veil

For He has promised in His word

His mercy will not fail

Behold, His day of joy a-waits

Behold His patient love

Gleams from the the port of heaven’s gates

To man from God above

Behold the testament of hope

Streaming from unbarred lea

Behold, His grace bathing earth's slope

In virgin purity

Behold, behold, the glorious Light
Behold, behold the One
He draws the dawn across the night
Behold, behold the Son

© Janet Martin

  

Country-girl Request

Thoughts while hiking through fields last week, where one can sing at the top of one's voice and only God, the wood-creatures and the wind can hear:) I drew on the memory of some summer-walks as well, for this poem

Oh, do not take me from this wonderland

Of azure dome and rippling stream of sedge

Of bloom and bee-song dripping from the hedge

Where God alone nurtures its unchained strand

Oh, do not take me from this throbbing stage

Where night-wind croons a winsome lullaby

Or murmurs a reverent soliloquy

As cricket-cadence ripples from brush-sage

Oh, let me dream on earth’s four-season swell

Dancing with zephyrs drifting from the south

Welcoming winter’s sunbeam in my mouth

Laughing in arms of hinterland and dell

Oh, let me worship the Creator God

Not from cold altars of concrete and steel

But here in humble gladness let me kneel

Upon a plot of wide open-space sod

© Janet Martin

Every so often Jim (hubby) says he would be ready to move into a nearby town. He knows that I am not! (and he's not really, he admits, but likes to see what kind of a reaction he might provoke.:)

When All is Said and Done

 

 When all is said and done...

When all is said an’ done, my luve

And we come near this journey’s end

When we have little left to prove

In clamoring for boasts of men

Will we, when all is said and tried

As twilight edges to the deep

Will we, my luve, be satisified

When we submit to that last sleep?

When all is said and done, my luve

And we are nothing but their tears

As petals whither on a grave

And bygones echo in their ears

Oh, will it be a kind caress

The cadence of that silent song

As tenderly they reminisce

My luve, when all is said an’ done?

When all is said and done, my luve

And swallows skim the vernal crest

Where thence we’ll rest; then tender youth

Will rise to greet life’s luring quest

Shod with the immortality

That slips away beneath the sun

As they advance toward the lea

My luve, when all is said and done

© Janet Martin

I am at a stage in life where my ears are filled with grand hopes and dreams of my own children and their friends as they ‘plan’. Yesterday I chuckled quietly as I listened to their well-laid ‘dreams’. Life, the great Teacher patiently and subtly plies her touch.

I felt like adding a teeny 'Burns' flavor to the poem this morning in memory of him. He was born on Jan. 25. 1759. In my mind there is no other poet quite like Robert Burns.

From my book- Songs from Robert Burns here is a fav...

Now Westlin Winds
(Robert Burns)

Now westlin winds, and slaught'ring guns
Bring August's pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather;
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
The moon shines bright, as I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.

The Pairtrick lo'es the fruitfu' fells;
The Plover lo'es the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lanely dells;
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Thro' lofty groves, the Cushat roves,
The path o'man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The Sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,
The flutt'ring, gorg pinion!

But Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms o' Nature:
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And ilka happy creature.

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shines clearly;
I'll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I lo'e thee dearly:
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!

Moonlight Madness

…and sometimes when the night is still

When doubt has pushed against my will

Drenching my spirit with winds ill

Until I fain would curse the quill

I hear you whisper quietly

And somewhere deep inside of me

I’m bolstered by an aching need

For oh, a poet I must be

…and sometimes when the full-moon smiles

Expanding Time’s insistent miles

And when the vaunt of thought beguiles

Spawning keen creature wants awhile

I wrestle with conflicting bliss

The agony of almost kissed

Where perfect words slip to the mist

Invisible and taunting twist

…and sometimes when the night is still

I slip your whisper to my quill

Tracing your tear against my will

While the moon sinks beneath the hill

Before I lay me down to sleep

Or stars fade to the azure deep

I laugh, I pray, I moan, I weep

A poet has a charge to keep

© Janet~

Sonnet of Time's Surging Sea...

Borne from an ether realm, tumultuous tide

Rippling and raging, half-breath ecstasy

Rushing, receding, dark and light collide

Where heaven reaches to embrace the sea

Darling, youth’s kiss fades cold upon the cheek

And where we danced barefoot upon its shore

The breakers crash; cold, foaming crest is bleak

Where summer’s silver sparkle soothed its roar

Yet, as its heaving, shifting billows roll

Hope buoys love’s deep longing in the soul

Subtle, the potent power of this surge

Rankling within the vessel of the heart

My dear, within your arms I sense the urge

Of change tuning the ethereal rampart

And all the darling moments we caress

Like waves, spilling across the sun-warmed beach

Cannot be captured, soon the emptiness

Of echoes fills our frantic, futile reach

Yet, like a pearl within the oysters shell

Time will reveal its treasure; all is well

Impressionistic skylines taunt and lure

We cannot touch its elusive plateau

Nor can our straining, groping grasp secure

Life’s rising, falling arrant ebb and flow

Darling, we tremble in the moment-splurge

Of salty tear startling love’s ling’ring kiss

Upon Time’s lilting lay a mournful dirge

Hovers beyond Spring’s brief, burgeoning bliss

Yet in the subtle surge from mystic deep

We find in its debris, treasures to keep

© Janet Martin

The combination of old music, memories and photos filled me with the sense of standing on last summer’s beach, battered by the surge of invisible waves.

J~

Life's Simple Things

I ask not for wealth

Or the riches of kings

But for a heart that treasures

Life’s simple things

I pray for contentment

In what each hour brings

And for the pure pleasure

Of life’s simple things

True happiness dwells

In bejeweled offerings

Of sweet moment-measure

In life’s simple things

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on the Transpiring and Expiring of Moments

 

To dredge the past in search of its measure

Is but to forfeit this moment-treasure

***

To pine for the wine in tomorrow’s vine

Is to waste the taste of this moment’s haste

***

Darling, the amazement and astonishment

Which grand architecture induces

Fills me with wild wonder and delight…

Yet, its wonderful wonderment

Pales in weak excuses

Against your heartbeat in the still of the night

***

Intangible trickle

Vast vaporous sea

Time is a twinkle

In eternity

***

Taste the moment on your lip

Oh, and do not let it slip

Into the blue, transpired in vain

For it will not return again

***

What is our calling

Brother to brother?

Why, it is but this

To love one another

***

Sometimes thought’s echo sparks within me

A longing for hours that used to be

But then I remember,

Today’s moment-splendor

Is shaping tomorrow’s memory

***

A sigh, a gasp

Is but the cast

Of moments melting

In the past

Take heed, my love

At what they teach

For soon they slip

Beyond our reach

***

Hold my hand, darling

Love is lonely alone

Each day is a pitfall

Or a stepping-stone

***

Life is a lover

The bliss of its kiss

Is rendered in caresses

Not of what was, but what is

***

Take a moment

To taste the moment

Dissolved

In a moment

***

When you hold me like this

Sweet moment-glance

I’m filled with the urge

To sing and dance

Because ours is such

A tempestuous romance

You offer, but once

Each moment-chance

© Janet Martin

Of Ripples and Rowing

Darkness dissolves soundlessly into time’s transient flow

The sun spills forth her golden glee in rivers on the snow

The sailor of this stormy strand is drawn into its stream

Row; row your boat toward The Land where hope’s promises gleam

Hark! Hear the muted moments roar as minutes slip away

Crashing upon a mystic shore in waves of yesterday

Treasure this tender, temporal tide; the ebb and flow of life

‘tis but the rising, falling ride of living’s joy and strife

For soon the diamond-dazzled sweep of morning’s gilded gleam

Will vanish to the midnight deep; a ripple on life’s stream

© Janet Martin

For Sure and For Certain

Life is a vale filled with sunshine and hurting

Of unknowns that we must trod

But one thing we know for sure and for certain

Its journey will lead us to God

We cannot see beyond today’s curtain

The mystery tuning earth’s sod

But one truth abides for sure and for certain

Someday we will stand before God

It’s hard to prepare for the unknowns of living

Or know all the whys of Love’s rod

But life is the hour to prepare for our dying

Where we know that we will meet God

Closing our eyes does not change our position

Souls do not sleep in the sod

Ignoring fact does not change what is certain

Someday we will bow before God

© Janet Martin

Winter Sonnet of the Summer-heart

Blow then, oh mistral of the barren deep

Torment the frozen landscape with your wrath

And seal the womb where summer lilies sleep

‘Neath echoes of a dusty, garden path

Splay on the earth your frigid spite and scorn

Well, well you know that you cannot allay

The overtures of spring-tides swelling morn

Where songbirds herald the dawning of the day

The quill cannot dispense a warmer breeze

Or paint the dainty danseuse on the snow

As you employ cold winter’s maladies

Where hellions of January blow

But we cling to the proof of centuries

Soon you must go where all your kindred go

***

Blow then, for numbered are your numbing brawls

The purple pansy and the daffodil

Will soon reply to Mother Nature’s calls

Brushing your grudges from the ridge and rill

For April, with a guiltless damsel’s smile

Will kiss the brooding bluster from your mouth

As you relinquish to her gentle guile

Your tempest for the zephyr of the south

The mellow-yellow noon of lustrous June

The emerald rhapsody of middle-May

The aura of April’s first ardent swoon

Gleams like a rainbow on your frosted fray

Before the lure of cerulean croon

Will melt your brusque and bully scowl away

***

Blow then, oh merchant of ice-gilded glee

Harassing ocher hills in hoary rage

Screaming in sleet-spiked mutinous melee

Shivering cold, across earth's glacial stage

For all your predecessors testify

That soon the hour of your squall is spent

And soon the frozen fury in your eye

Will soften, slowly soften and relent

To the fair maiden with the lingering glance

And when she reaches for your waning will

You rush toward her begging for a dance

The trellis, heavy with mid-winter chill

Will  bear green buds burgeoning with romance

Where honey-bees return to drink their fill

© Janet Martin

Unrestrained...

 Poet's United is contemplating Fences

It does no good

Whether steel or wood

Or entwined with summer’s most fragrant bloom

Whether passing through clover

Or holding would-be lover

Or soldered in turrets of wrought-iron gloom

It is no use

No chain-link ruse

Or rampart to the bluest blue

Can ever restrain

Or begin to contain

This rambling, roving thought of you…

J~

Don't Fence Me In...

Be Aware...the Sunday Whirl on Wednesday

Beware; lest we no longer see

The wealth that spills from filaments

Not made with hands; the sea, the lands

The air and its rare firmaments

God does not charge the world at large

For every gift that he imbues

Of rain-drop pearl, and ice-art swirl

Of linen-cloud strewn avenues

But He requires that we desire

To care for His created things

For to disdain earth’s glorious plain

Is to disdain His offerings

And if within our bone-cell-skin

We do not sense this divine grace

Then, when He knocks, will the cold rocks

Call out to His tender embrace?

The sticky mess of selfishness

Confuses and deceives because

We do not see with clarity

The sacred charge He gave to us

© Janet Martin

I found the word 'sticky' to be a bit of a stickler:)

 

Colombian Comrade

It's Alive! Poetic Bloomings weekly prompt

Glance around you and pick something that is lifeless (husbands DON’T count) and personify it. Breathe life into it and make it the hero of your poem this week!

Can there be too much of you, darling?

I suppose only time can tell

You’ve been with me for a long time, dear

And oh, you know me well

Full-bodied, faithful companion

You never disappoint

Rousing easily life’s passion in me

My slumb’ring senses you anoint

Ravishing Colombian lover

Bold, brawny fruit of desire

Rushing through me like an ebony sea

Keening a beautiful fire

While all of life’s vexing indictments

Its pestering perplexities

Dissolve in your glow like the sun-drenched snow

And other minorities

Can there be too much of you, darling?

Life would be cold without you

So I’ll take my chances for your kiss enhances

Everything else I must do

Darling, you know how to please me

Your pleasure I cannot decline

Good morning kiss of Colombian bliss

Coffee, dearest coffee of mine

© Janet Martin

The Tyburn

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt the Tyburn form.

The TYBURN is a six line poem consisting of 2, 2, 2, 2, 9, 9 syllables.
The first four lines rhyme and are all descriptive words. The last two lines rhyme and incorporate the first, second, third, and fourth lines as the 5th through 8th syllables.
More instruction: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Tyburn-Poem

 

Very

Merry

Cherry

Sherry

A very merry day, don’t you think?

Warmed by a third cherry, sherry drink

***

Rushing

Gushing

Blushing

Hushing

Life’s moments; a rushing, gushing stream

Its mem’ries a blushing, hushing gleam 

Janet~

A challenging form. Yes, the first one 'twists' the rules a little:)

Wonder-drenched...

 

The dawn is drenched in grace un-quenched

As oceans of His mercy swell

From eons of immortal love

In shades that tongue can never tell

Now we lift up our fragile cup

Oh, what is man that God should fill

Our wayward wants while heaven flaunts

But whispers of His wondrous will?

Though sorrow-streams and broken dreams

Have laid their grief upon our brow

And though we strain beneath life’s pain

Humbly beneath His touch we bow

For this is He who died for me

That rends the dark with molten sun

We cannot know His thought, and so

We whisper, not my will be done

The dawn is drenched in hope unclenched

God is not dead, not does he sleep

Unfathomed vaults His Hand exalts

As morning spills across its deep

© Janet Martin

‘Mom, your boots are squeaking’, laughs Victoria, as we watch His wonder unfold in 22 below temps.

Now an hour later...