Thursday, December 22, 2011

Ode to December



The grapevine o’er the lintel
Has lost its musky fare
The plot that is my garden
Returns an icy stare
The barefoot boy of summer
Sleeps soundly in his bed
Lulled by a song of winter
Through stark trees overhead

The ship waits in the mooring
For screaming gales to pass
No breeze or warm tide luring
From shores of wind-swept grass
On furrowed field of daisy
December woos her mate
Where once the breeze was lazy
And blooms declared love’s fate

No tiny bud or blossom
To clothe the barren limb
Upon earth’s frigid bosom
The little day grows dim
Night draws its cobalt awning
Before daydreams are through
As deeper shades of evening
Transform white plains to blue

The dusty lanes of summer
The long, slow afternoon
Have fled to kinder pastures
Beneath a warmer moon
The sun-drenched haunts of August
Don winter's testing shawl
While on its gleaming canvas
A thousand memories fall

Dance to the song of snow-flakes
And hold your loved ones near
Three seasons worth of toiling
Have traced another year
Dance to the tune of memories
In winter's frigid bliss
For soon her frosty candor
Will melt in Spring's soft kiss


Janet~

Thoughts on Solitary...


http://poetryjaam.blogspot.com/

The whole world over
We hold one solitary thing in common
…this moment

The only things ever accomplished were done,
Not in yesterday or tomorrow
But in that solitary gift of today

Only one, only one
Do not waste it away
Only one life
To work and to play
Only one, only one
What a beautiful gift
Tell me my friend
Are you cherishing it?
Only one, only one
Quickly it is done
What will they say of us
When we are gone?


There is a torch for tomorrow
And all generation to come
A solitary Light in our sorrow
The Light that will guide us Home

Few are the things that are changeless
But God sent His precious Son
And now by the light of Jesus love
Safely He’ll guide us Home

How great is the love of the Father
That He sent His own flesh and blood
That all who call upon Him
Will be called the sons of God

Earth has many boasts to offer
But none can compare in worth
To the solitary love of the Father
Who sent His Son to this earth

Janet~

Praise Him...Jesus is the solitary reason for the season!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

To My Poet Friends...


It’s difficult sometimes to spell in words
The heart of all those thoughts we deeply feel
But I must try, for you have kindly stirred
My soul with honesty and thoughts surreal
Once I assumed a friend is one we meet
Then learn to cherish, love and trust with time
But I have known a friendship, rich and sweet
Nurtured by the magic of a rhyme

A poet’s heart is more than flesh and blood
It sees beyond perimeters of sight
It races at the mention of a word
Defining it within the dead of night
I’ve held you close to me within a pen
Yet felt you tear the longing from my chest
By words that you have woven in a poem
To strike the chord of grief and tenderness

You, my friend, have taught me how to fly
To scoff at fear wielding its scornful threat
You, my friend, have taught me how to cry
And how to dance and twirl and pirouette
Anticipation wakes with me at dawn
It trembles in each moment’s soft embrace
For who can know the poem your whispers spawn
Beneath the touch of lips in cyber-space

It’s difficult sometimes, to spell in words
Thoughts too profound for letters formed in ink
But in night’s deepest quiet I have heard
A tiny glimpse of what you feel and think
So in this Christmas season I extend
A prayer to you for happiness and cheer
Merry Christmas, my dear poet-friends
God bless you now and through the coming year

Janet

If you visit this blog faithfully you are a poet at heart
And I want to say thank-you for your love and your time,
For your words of encouragement, for your acceptance of rhyme,
Thank-you for your friendship in blog-sphere
Merry Christmas to you
And a Happy New Year!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Escapade on a Wintery Night


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iriaMK5T8cA&feature=endscrhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifeen&NR=1

Be mine tonight
We’ll share our coffee
No, let’s make it tea
Fit for royalty
As the moonlight exposes
Tree tops stenciled
In its glow
And we skirt their penciled
Sketches in the snow
A thermos, though not as dainty
As a hand-painted china cup
Keeps our tea piping
Until the sun comes up
And that old cabin
Boarded up for winter
Cannot speak of two wanderers
Or crackling firelight
Or the fantasy of a bear-skin rug
As we inhale its comfort
And understand each other
Without one uttered word
Although we talked all night...

J~

Heaven's Threshold has Red, Chipped Paint


I did not envision heaven’s threshold
With chipped and worn red paint
I always pictured it in gold
It’s vigil by a saint

I thought the stream beside its tread
Would be crystal, sublime
I see a river flow instead
A river known as Time

Across its brink dash children’s feet
With muddy-gilded trace
And mother is the one to greet
To let go, to embrace

I did not envision heaven’s stair
With red paint, chipped and worn
But I have held an angel there
With wing, bruised, tired or torn

And I have seen the face of God
Though I am not a saint
Heaven’s threshold warms earth’s sod
With chipped and worn, red paint

Janet

Heaven’s threshold needs paint…
But how do you close off the step
over which every hello and good-bye
to and from home passes…
worn paint on the launching pad to life…

Hollow Eyes


I cannot remember them individually
But collectively still they leap
From rain-drenched screens
Or sudden recollection
Dark and austere
Each rigid gaze
Pointing the dreamer with yellow braids
To the strait and narrow

Countenance is more powerful than speech
Those eyes staring, glaring
Judgment formed by visual discourse
Their peripheral blotted
By statutes of scribbled ink
And fear-riddled intonations
Dissuading wanderers and dreamers
From sure damnation

Look neither left nor right then
Fear clutches the seeker
As loveless eyes extol doom
Discounting grace for works
And blindness as an acceptable plight
If fortified by the law
While the chill of hollow stares
Numbs the soul

Janet~

Do you see them?...all those faces in the picture.

This picture was posted on one of the prompt sites last week.
I saved it but was unable 'find' its voice or 'eyes' immediately,
yet I felt its tug, powerful and memsmerizing....

A Night of Thoughts


Dare we to venture out into the night?
The twilight deepened many hours ago
Yet, to be entertained by Orion’s light
Is far superior to mans earthbound show
The silence murmurs loud, a thousand thoughts
And as I slip my hand across the years
I feel it reach within my heart of hearts
In sonnets born of laughter, pain and tears
How can we keep this night from fading fast?
Sharply the present wars against the past

The mind contains a broad and boundless stage
Where images of hope and grief implore
Upon its girth our dreams and passions rage
As unedited moments deck the floor
There is no script for longing or remorse
And who can tell which fuels the sudden tear
Thought against thought, a soundless intercourse
Yet all consuming in its faith or fear
Are we together now or worlds apart?
Thought spares no sacred mercy for the heart

Dare we to venture out into the night?
Dare we to vex the laws of solitude?
Will midnight render turmoil or respite?
Is darkness day’s swan-song or dawn’s prelude?
Statistics are a stark, material chart
No Hubble telescope can pierce thoughts shell
Or clarify the measure of the heart
Its secret sorrows it can never tell
Thought cannot don a fraudulent disguise
As God alone beholds its truths; its lies

Against the heartbeat of night's tranquil breast
We lay aside our masks of bravery
While some claim its nocturnal brow to rest
Some revel in its vulnerability
Beyond the skyline or beneath the soil
Thought cannot be restrained by rule or rod
A builder or a scavenger of spoil
It escapes all visage but that of God
And yet in every act that we engage
Thought opens up the curtain to its stage


Janet

Monday, December 19, 2011

A Wish Come True...but ever Renewed


http://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/christmas-a-week-away-prompt-34/

I should wish to keep contentment…

…to know it is enough

to have what I am holding

and not what I have sought

I should like to know contentment

is worth more than temporal gold

and clasping you in sentiment

is love’s wondrous way to hold

you close when you are far way

and I should wish to be

contented, here, right now, today

and let tomorrow be

for it will come when it will come

its cares with it will wait

Within the arms of home sweet home

Contentment’s law is sweet

I don’t want to be distracted

By the things I do not have

Or dare to take for-granted, life

With one foot in the grave

And I will be content to simply

Have and hold this moment

To pine for what I do not have

Is foolishness and torment

Merry Christmas, darling

Oh, I know that I’ve been blessed

And may its sweet contentment be

The thing I cherish best

J~