Friend or Foe

If you look to pin-point my faults and flaws

You will find quite a few, I fear

But if you are looking my way because

You want a friend, I am here

***

The critical eye is greedy and cruel

Preying on weakness and dirt

He fills his plate with envy and hate

And a scoop of gossip for dessert

***

Love knows we are not perfect

Yet is willing to suffer a bit

To get to the flower, it suffers our thorns

And love’s us in spite of it

***

Life has a myriad of things it will send

But none takes the place of a really good friend

***

A really good friend is life’s most cherished gift   

When burdens grow heavy friends give us a lift

They know without asking what they need to do

Life’s burdens are lighter when carried by two

***

I do not ask for wealth of gold

But simply this, a hand to hold

And when I come to this life’s end

I’d like to know I was a friend

© Janet Martin

Morning Prayer

Lord, let me look

Not into the morrow

Straining to suffer

A shadow of naught

Sufficient this day

Is its joy and sorrow

Life’s benevolence

Tenderly wrought

Lord, let me seek

Not tomorrow’s treasure

Of provision, strength

But oh Lord, I pray

Open my eyes

To love’s moment-measure

And render to me

What I need today

Lord, let me trust

Not buckling beneath

Burdens of worry

Trouble and despair

But Lord, let me journey

One foot then the other

Content in the moment

Because You are there

© Janet Martin

It's a Beautiful Life

The ebbing and flowing of night-morning brings

Mistrals of change wielding Time’s subtle knife

Carving the familiar with new-normal things

But still, it’s a beautiful life

Heart-fringes grow ragged, tenderly tuned

To ripples disguised in life’s surface-borne strife

Keening awareness of moment-drops spooned

Into the cup of a beautiful life

Babies reach, rush to an unformed allure

Soon son or daughter becomes husband, wife

Discovering in time love’s fierce tug-of-war

Shaping this beautiful life

Spring, summer, autumn to winter once more

Moments spill potent and ruthless and rife

Life-song of heart-throbs bleeding on vague shores

Silver-soft echo of a beautiful life

The rising and falling of Time’s gavel brings

Heart-wrenching changes beneath its grim knife

But still in the discourse of its sufferings

Oh, it’s a beautiful life

© Janet Martin

 Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it. Prov. 12:25

Let's cover this day

Layer over layer

With the rarest refrains ever heard

Let's spill on its gray

The tender-sweet showers

Of beautiful, kind, loving words

On some days we need to look a little harder, but its there; The Beauty.

Dreaming of Spring

And now we lean to that invisible scrim

Whispering thoughts of sweet sun-flavored things

Fingering visions of pastel-petal limb

As we begin dreaming of spring

Crocus, hyacinth, tulip, daffodil

Dapple our daydreams with glad offering

Arabesque zephyrs infuse the chilled rill

As we begin dreaming of spring

Wee girls in sun dresses and boys in bare feet

Stir in our smiles tender reminiscing

As swift-surging hours silent circuits repeat

And we begin dreaming of spring

Dawn spills its puddles of pink on the snow

Soon we will hear its music splashing

In rain-drop eight-notes where now grim gales blow

As we begin dreaming of spring

© Janet Martin

We are under another big-storm watch...

On Life, Legacies , Writing and Reckoning

The chapters that by day we write

Are soon over-taken by night

Against the crimson of the west

Its toil and spoil is laid to rest

Yet in the cascade of an hour

We plant the seed of weed or flower

The by and by of which we speak

Brushes its kiss upon our cheek

Perceptions of its distant day

Hover, a soft half-breath away

Where choice and freedom bears its yield

As fruits of our loves are revealed

Beneath the discourse of the sun

Another little day is done

Its ebb and flowing melody

Draws us toward eternity

And we do well to keep in mind

The legacy we leave behind

The fulcrum of this little life

Though riddled now with blood-shed strife

Leads us into unfathomed deeps

Where this ephemeral body sleeps

The soul is not restrained by sod

But journeys on to meet with God

© Janet Martin

While we were admiring the sunset, the traffic suddenly came to an abrupt halt! we realized how swiftly one can be here, then gone through the sunset to the Great Beyond. Thankfully, there were no bent bumpers and everyone was wearing their seat-belts.

Three Sonnets on Love

How nearly, dearly, joy and grief align

Mystic alloy of pain and ecstasy

A synchronized employment, pure, divine

Love; comfort and heart-wrenching agony

The droids of lust will never know its kiss

Infatuation cannot grasp its role

Of fingertips evoking static-bliss

While rending deep the crypts of heart and soul

And oft, we soldiers of languid lament

Are startled by its potent catalyst

Candid compulsion of unrivaled strength

A hurricane born from the purple mist

Gently and graciously patience extols

Love’s miracle of fingertips and souls

***

Love, wherefore art thou free to all and yet

We choose to spurn your pearl for painted dirt?

Self is master of ‘forgive but not forget’

Clinging to shards of misgiving and hurt

Love; nothing exceeds your hierarchy

Though lesser ranks may seek to dethrone you

You never fail; we fail you brazenly

But you remain faultless to see us through

The echelons of mortal-might deflate

Our vengeful scrimmages of trodden dust

Grow weary; the craftsmen of cruel hate

Will never satisfy the lords of lust

But Love, in spite of promises of pain

Inspires us to love and love again

***

Love’s tender truth drifts on Time’s moment-tide

Evoking thoughts of wordless wonderment

The windswept centuries all have relied

On thee, oh Love of God-breathed filament

As tarnished evidences testify

That love and only love will never fail

And yet its quiet witness we defy

To test anew its gracious, Holy Grail

Oh Love, you whisper while the demons scream

And comfort even in your mourning hour

Your song, a soft and bittersweet requiem

Blood-notes of rare, redeeming pow’r

Oh love, how keen the kindness you extol

Redemption’s kiss reaches within the soul

© Janet Martin

 Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?

Kahlil Gibran  on Joy and Sorrow

The Law of Love

Sometimes it’s easy to bear and decipher

Love’s laws perplexing the mind

But sometimes it’s hard, oh, so hard to remember

That love suffers long, and is kind

That nature of mortal is not geared to hunger

Or search for discomforts to find

The nature of love is unlike any other

For love suffers long and is kind

We do not love for selfish indulgence

Such love is sensual and blind

True love forgives and does not keep a record

Yes, love suffers long and is kind

The recompense of its mind-boggling mystery

Is not casually learned or defined

But repeats this truth , as proven through history

Love suffers long and is kind

© Janet Martin

Unbroken (a Wedding Poem)

How long this oath? We do not know

When death this troth shall sever

From this day forth, but this we know

In life it is forever

What God has joined no flesh can part

Or draw its bonds asunder

Husband and wife, joined hand and heart

Pure, immaculate wonder

For better, worse, in sickness, health

To reverence, honor, cherish

To keep these vows above all else

And never let love perish

For love is life’s most sacred trust

Its charge, faithful and tender

To always put the other first

Proving its holy splendor

From this day forth and for all life

This pledge will be a token

Of love forever; husband, wife

Until death parts, unbroken

© Janet Martin

February Fantasies

It would be fine to wander and squander

A dew-drenched, daisy-strewn dazzling new day

And fritter the glitter of freshly-strung moments

Into the nonchalant meadows of May

It would be grand to guilt-freely amble

Through giddy violet-for-get-me-not dell

Heedless of hours wielding a grim gavel

Over the vagrant and fragrant spring swell

It would be splendid to soak in sun-puddles

Teased by the zephyr of sassy-sweet mouth

Splashed with potion wrought by April’s ocean

Dancing with vagabond winds from the south

It would be sweet to languish in bare feet

Appeasing and pleasing thought’s wanderlust

With treasure of pleasure in middle-May measure

Teasing our traipsing through daydreams of dust

It would be thrilling if moments were willing

To pause in the spilling of green-golden-blue flow

To dangle in spangles of spring-ribbon tangles

Or float on the froth of pink-apple-bloom snow

Somewhere the splendor of buds, buxom, tender

Startles the drifter on his footloose way

We cannot hurry winter’s fretting flurry

Every February must have its day

© Janet Martin

Travail of a Poem...a sonnet

 

When your hour comes there’s an ache surreal

Where thought cannot quell the urge you beseech

Grasping at whispers just beyond my reach

I close my eyes, leaning to your appeal

As unformed longing groans, moans for release

Borne on a surge of pleading mystery

Pain, pleasure and purpose blend intimately

Stoking a measure of formless increase

For your invocation of throbbing travail

Rushes in torrents through bulwarks of flesh

Testing heart-levees, boldly you enmesh

Your ethereal murmurs beneath skin’s frail veil

I tremble for, pray, who am I to spell

The poem to shape your relentless swell?

Somewhere within wanton fathoms converge

The startling summons of consonants lash

Nature of mortal and immortal clash

Yet who would rally to stifle the surge

Of word that is willing to be much more

And hope that is yearning to spill in rhyme?

I cannot argue with trifles like Time

Where oceans of unwoven lines implore

Man is not born to appease his own want

Or drift like a bateau without port or goal

Though lackadaisical havens may taunt

We are the vessels that harbor a soul

Earnestly then, we bend into the gale

Trusting the Hand on our helm to prevail

The fruit of our toil is more dear and sweet

When we have endured its labor and fear

What is life’s spoil but a day or a year?

A pulse of moments that never repeat

Humbly we bow, not because we are weak

But because in weakness Love intercedes

Succoring mortal and immortal needs

The pen would fall like a tear on the cheek

Save for the comfort that somewhere, somehow

Far down the age its extolment remains

To smile to the one who thirsts for the rains

Found in the ink-drops that earnestly flow

Shaping the whispers of comfort and Home

Wrapped in the tender-sweet arms of a poem

© Janet Martin

It's no use...one cannot fight the urge of a poem:)

Winter Thaw (an edited re-post)

No gold complexion
warms the table
Only gray
 Its modest pall

cloaks the dawn

 as wind-song

falls away

 and through staid trees
tear- melodies
splatter the face of earth  

as she swallows 

drab snow-flake seas
in her gracious mouth
Gripping winds recoil and ponder
This dashing, splashing
gray array

surging from earth's south-east corner
perplexing winter's 

Stiff foray

Janet~

Planting Miracles

Inspired by the Image Source here; Check it out to see a whole lot of Miracles!

We do not see

The breadth of its reaches

Or witness the fullness

Of immortal sod

But each deed of love

Is a seed in its garden

The bud of a miracle

Tended by God

© Janet Martin

Of Wishes...

 

I wish I could spill on paper

All those thoughts I cannot tell

In one tiny little lifetime

Full of love and longing’s swell

I wish I could gather on it

All those pieces of my heart

Shattered, scattered on lost moments

In fragmented, broken art

I wish I could find the ocean

That has claimed those quiet tears

Of love’s bittersweet emotion

Shed in secret through life’s years

I wish I could show you, darling

Love's rare intangible fray

What a little leap of lifetime

Never tells me how to say

© Janet Martin

Twilight Rhapsody

 

Beneath his moody murmur and caress

Softly she comes surrendering her lilt

Of azure glance and golden sun-flecked dress

To lie where cobalt shadow-song is spilt

All day he waited as her overture

Wove mystery to history; but now

He drapes his crushing longing over her

And smooths life’s ruthless laugh-lines from her brow

Out past the fields where tree-tops touch the sky

The vesper croons its burnished lullaby

The wheel from which her gossamer is spun

Replenishes its thread with somber hues

The filament of moments in the sun

Deepens to shrouds of midnight-tinted blues

Yet, he does not excuse his solemn trance

But softly wraps her in his muted hush

He gathers her into a gentle dance

Kissing her wantonness; horizons blush

As on the fringe of yesterday and dawn

A molten glow erupts; then it is gone

Beneath the vault where love and life unfold

She lays aside her tattered, tear-stained gown

Relinquishing her being to his hold

How tenderly he watches her lie down

The hour of her gallantries subside

Within the candor of his raw embrace

Somewhere the fringe of earth and sky collide

But darkness spills its sigh across her face

And now against his brawny chest she sleeps

He strums the air as star-song fills the deeps

© Janet Martin

Those 'What-if' Bullies

 Image Source

The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet and tender bliss

Unless we stray and tread the path

Of monster-shaped, ruthless ‘what-ifs’

The what-ifs’ lunge and jeer and leer

Leaping from unexpected dips

A bully-whisper in our ear

Quenching the laughter on our lips

Oh, we do well to guard our thought

Forbidding it to wander where

These demons wait to mutilate

Our hope with visions of despair

And in thought’s quiet solitude

When what-ifs threaten their torment

How sweet to know that God is good

We walk in moments He has sent

The what-ifs that will come to be

Must first pass through His hands above

To dwell in ‘what-if’ misery

Is thus to doubt His faithful love

The solitude of quiet thought

Can be a sweet, tranquil retreat

If we surrender what is not

And place our ‘what-ifs’ at Love’s feet

© Janet Martin

 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isa. 41:10

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Deut. 31:6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight. Prov. 3: 5-6

The In-betweens

Darling, when I am missing you

And there is nothing I can do

To push the minutes from the hour

Or rush the bud to spill its flow’r

Or pluck from far cloud-studded sea

The wonderment of what will be

Then darling, I embrace the sheen

Of moments in the in-between

Moments and hours disappear

How soon they shape another year

The echo of its memories

Soft ripples on thought’s phantom seas

I kiss your whisper in the air

Climbing time’s ephemeral stair

To what will be from what has been

Riveting these hours in between

And in this in between I know

That soon its transient scene, like snow

Will melt into the distant blue

So darling, when I’m missing you

I do not haste the brooding clock

Or chase life’s moments down the walk

But tenderly embrace the keen

And fleeting space of  'in between'

© Janet Martin

Mercy-flood

He reaches from His throne on high

To brush the night-time from the sky

The hand of love that never fails

Bearing the imprint of those nails

Does not ignore us in our plight

But fans the deep with Morning Light

His love beholds earth’s troubled slope

He rends the dark with Living Hope

For when we were dead in our sin

He raised us up to live with Him

Rejoice; the Son pierces the gloom

And saves us from death’s darkest doom

He lavishes on sinful men

His grace and washes sinners clean

For mortal flesh could never save

The soul from death’s eternal grave

But oh, the love His mercy gives

As man beholds the cross and lives

He reaches from His throne on high

To soothe the tear-drop in our eye

And like the sword pierced Him that day

As crimson floods washed guilt away

Now He pierces fear’s darkest night

Love bleeds across the earth in Light

© Janet Martin

Imagine if one day there was no Light, and one morning nothing to pierce the night…

Often, as the sun break through night’s dark bonds it reminds me of the Son breaking through our darkness flooding it with marvelous Light.

 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Eph. 2:4-9

I Write This Poem for...Us

I write this poem for you, my dear

For you are young and cannot hear

The rush of moments as they fly

Waning the gap twixt earth and sky

I write this poem for you, my love

To brush life’s gray with bits of mauve

Lest through it’s daily grind we pass

Like solemn shadows on the grass

I write this poem so we may see

Life’s Author and His poetry

Lest blindly we traverse this stage

And never pause to read the page

© Janet Martin 

Heaven's poetry spills from an infinite page...

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Ps.19:1

Heart-matters

 

Man looks upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

We cannot see the hidden part

For only God looks on the heart

We judge a man by what we see

Of pride or of humility

And we may fool with careful art

The eyes that cannot see the heart

But fools will trust a fool’s disguise

Forgetting that the true man lies

Not in appearance’s vain part

But in the measure of the heart

We look upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

But God sees far beyond the skin

For He beholds the heart within

© Janet Martin

Image Source

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7

Ink-travel

 

Where will we travel today, my dear friend

Before dusk-blue shadows are cast?

Will we push toward life’s elusive ‘next-bend?’

Or return by your touch, to the past?

Will we, by the vexing persuasion of ink

Ponder the cold facts that exist?

Or will we succumb and slip over the brink

To arms of loved ones, dearly missed?

Will we probe the oracles shaping our want?

Or want nothing but what we hold?

Will we by the power of word-whispered jaunt

Revel where the moon blazes cold?

Darling, I love you for I cannot tell

Wherever or how we might go

And thought is an ocean that no hand can quell

Nor tether its free-falling flow

We are capable my love, of the worst

Just as we are of life’s best

Ah poet, ah pen, are we graciously cursed

Or dearly and divinely blessed?

A pen is a vehicle we all can afford

What blessing it then surely must be

That we traverse fathoms with nothing but word

Spilling into poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Home-makers, Mamas and Glory-days

 Image Source:

We do not tip the glamor Richter-scale

Of fashion, fortune or front-page applause

Yet we embrace, like heaven’s Holy Grail

Each humble task of love’s domestic cause

There are no halls of fame or monuments

To honor dish-soap hands of mama-smiles

No recognition for the hours spent

Of washed and folded, scrubbed and polished miles

We do not labor for crass platitude

Or trophies to acknowledge our pain

But oh, the childish grin of gratitude

Endears to us what some view as mundane

There are no banners waving in the air

For she who, for the thousandth time has served

Supper at six and no one really cares

Yet she toils not for recompense deserved

She toils to see her happy children smile

To nurture tenderly her patch of sod

Not for the wealth of fortune’s fleeting guile

But to make home a little glimpse of God

© Janet Martin

The inspiration for this poem; 

Both of my daughters work at Long-term care facilities. Yesterday while exchanging stories, they agreed it is so touching to see some of the ladies with dementia rocking and patting dolls or folding and re-folding tea-towels or aprons; re-living their glory-days…

We watched the movie The Help yesterday.Wow! That's all I will say.

On the week-end one of my daughters commented on how I seem so happy and content just doing laundry and stuff...ah, if she only knew:) and I pray someday she may, Lord-willing:) It's not the laundry, the dishes, the cleaning, the 'stuff'; it's the LOVE!

The other evening after supper had been over  for a while suddenly 'sonny' mentions while passing through the kitchen, 'oh, by the way mom, thanks for supper. It was really good'.'

I dedicate this song to all mamas and daddies.

Vexation-proof

Sometimes a vast, vexatious void

Torments the foibles of our thought

Not with life’s precious proofs of joy

But with the tears of what is not

The vaunt of what is not can drain

The laughter from life’s cup we hold

And what we have we hold in vain

If we ignore its splash of gold

For what is not may never be

And what fills our cup today

Does not come with a guarantee

That it will never slip away

So, when that vast, vexatious vaunt

Threatens to drive us to despair

We ought to fold its tortured taunt

Between our fingers in a prayer

© Janet Martin

Yesterday, was Family Day in Ontario. A provincial holiday for families to focus on spending time together. We had a great day, minus 'daddy' who needed to leave so he could be back for plans next week-end. I needed to keep re-filling my 'cup' with reminders of what we have, and not what is not...folding the rest between my fingers.

Image Source

Of Moment-tears

Oh, I am not impatient now

To see the snow slip from the trees

For soon time’s fixed, tenacious flow

Will claim it to my memories

And I no longer beg the hour

To leap into fair middle-June

For I have seen its virgin-flower

Garnish the sweep of autumn’s swoon

And I have heard the echo of

A balled writ of things I love

In sanguine swell a tender tune

Tinctures the knell of harvest-moon

And I no longer fret the day

Or love’s moment-metered pretext

For who am I to dare to say

‘Tis worse or better than the next

For like the snowflake decks the ground

In myriads of gathered gasp

They melt away without a sound

Sand-sparkles slipping through our grasp

Leaving no timeless, tangent proof

And soon the hour that stood aloof

Descends; joy precedent to grief

Winter, the bud of spring’s relief

No, I no longer cling or clutch

To hour-rendered offerings

But treasure, while they grace my touch

Life’s trial-and-triumph sufferings

For who can tell what waits beyond

Raw gale or golden-gilded sweep?

The lily drifting on the pond

Does not divulge its murky deep

And we cannot expunge the wrought

Nor form the future in our thought

But it is ours to smile or weep

Time’s moment-tears we cannot keep

© Janet Martin

'I'm sick of this weather', said Matt, as he trudged out to wait for the bus this morning (the cold more bitter because his sister's bus was cancelled due to the rain-snow duet:) I don't care for this weather either but I no longer desire to rush moments; transparent tick-tocks ever nudging the fledgling nearer to the edge of the nest...