My 'Love-prayer'

May love never grow sable

Nor the song in the heart

Sitting at the same table

Yet oceans apart

May warmth never vanish

From our fingertips

May gentleness garnish

A smile on our lips

May whispers of passion

Laughter and desire

Kindle a faithful

And perpetual fire

May we touch each other

Without and within

Not existing together

Like cold mannequins

Lord, teach us to love

From the depths of our hearts

Lest we sit at the same table

Yet oceans apart

Janet Martin

Choices

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/10/midnight-snack-006.html

Snack #2...

Beneath ivory exterior

She knows she's still there

Lies spill from the mirror

In a petulant stare

In youth’s out-stretched verdure

It is easy to dance

Earth’s ballroom a meadow

Of infinite chance

She hears the austerity

Of fall ‘neath her feet

The fruit of maturity

Is bittersweet

Girl becomes woman

At least in her skin

Will she be the dancer

Or grief’s mannequin?

Janet Martin

A Question of 'Impotence...'

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/10/midnight-snack-006.html

The stiffness of your moves, my dear

Compels me to inquire

Have you lost your agility

Or simply the desire?

Janet~

Realizations

We cannot

Return

Re-visit

Re-do

Recapture

Replace

Recreate

Renew

Redeem

Refuse

Restore

Re-design

Reject

Repair

Rearrange

Refine

Reconstruct

Reshape

Remove

Re-live

Retrace

Rewrite

Replenish

Retrieve

Reclaim

Reinstate

Revise

Re-cast

One solitary moment

Of our past

We can simply

Remember

Janet Martin

The most valuable gift we ever will hold is the present…

Let us not waste it...

The previous poem turned me to considering the 're-s' in our life...

and most of them connect to the past...remember, recall,recount, recollect, reminisce, review, regret...

'See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5:15-16

Not so in Life

Steps can be re-traced

And we can return once more

To re-visit nostalgia's hilltop

Or stand on a favored shore

But, not so in life

We cannot re-live one moment

Its prisms slip into the sky

Miles or footsteps can be retraced

To re-capture the seed of a sigh

Not so in life

Life has one clear direction

Time does not flow back

Though we pause in retrospection

To review its weathered track

…we can only keep moving forward

As moments keep slipping by

Places can be returned to again

…not so in life

Janet Martin

“Mom, just remember” cautions Victoria without turning her head,

“as far as we go this way, we have to go back!”

I was going to take a picture of her walking when up pops her hand with a reminder for that mom who might forget things like hours and distance in the great out-doors of autumn…and then I thought ‘yes, on a trail we get to come back, re-trace our steps-not so in life’. I'm so thankful, not only on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of my life, that we serve a loving God of grace and mercy.

Beginnings...

You no longer wear the softness of a child

I look at you, not down

But straight into your eye

Yet, I do not resist the urge

To hug you when I can

Your arms are long and awkward…

…the beginnings of a man

You ask questions spurred by deeper thought

Gone is the ceaseless spring of childish gush

The hand of time is nudging you along

Suddenly I sense its hurried push

And when did you begin to blush?

The proof of fading innocence

The bud of adolescence

I cannot see the brink on which you’re poised

But I can hear it in

The timbre of your voice

When began the deepening of its tone

Or the ruddiness beneath your tan?

Will you remain forever just a boy?

Or will you seek wisdom and become a man?

Janet Martin

Next year Matt will be hiking on Thanksgiving with our youth group.

This year's hike for me was bittersweet. Time is in such a hurry!

Moon Stories

She is too weary now

To ponder life’s deeper virtues

The ‘what’ and the ‘how’

The ‘should have’ or ‘want to’

So she slips her arm

Around the little girl

And together,

On the edge

Of a silent world

They sit and listen to the moon

Janet~

Tonight I asked Victoria to come and sit on the porch with me

And listen to the moon. (she told me she could hear what he said)…

The Touch

With languorous sigh we laid beneath its shade

But now its awning spills upon my chair

As sunshine through its naked limb is splayed

Skeletal fingers claw the stringent air

Empty as the vain musings of a fool

The lush verdant umbrella of July

Unravels threads from nature’s giant spool

Releasing summer’s flower to the sky

Miniature acrobats, they dip and swirl

Cradled upon the lips of memory

And I am once again a little girl

Bathed in the withered teardrops of a tree

To weep for bygone joy is no disgrace

Beauty out-lines this tender note of grief

And as I press its sorrow to my face

I feel the touch of God upon a leaf

Janet Martin