International Housewives' Day

Today is International Housewives’ Day

We will acknowledge the domestic ranks

For months and years and centuries

They have toiled with paltry thanks

Many are ignorant of her worth

They spurn the thought of mundane chores

Considered low-balls of the earth

Fit for cleaning drawers and floors

Orange rind from the coffee table

All the clutter as it falls

They think that she is merely able

To wash dishes, clothes or walls

But this is International Housewives’ Day

So we will shout her accolades

Eternity will owe her pay

For all the beauty she creates

She fills a home with simple joy

Not for monetary wealth

But for the love of girl or boy

For home and happiness and health

She toils in sweet obscurity

Subtracting nothing from her worth

No sting of shame encumbers she

For housewives are salt of the earth

Here’s to housewives the world over! Cheers!

© Janet Martin

Sunday Whirl

 

I Love July

I love July

Her cerulean eye

Embroidered gold

Against the green

I love the sweep

Of azure deep

The sultry fold

Of midday sheen

I love the blush

Of late-day hush

The garden brimming

With its laud

As seed and root

Become the fruit

In gracious giving

From our God

I love July

I laugh, I cry

I dance and hold

Its music near

For this I know

Too soon the glow

Of blue and gold

Will disappear

© Janet Martin

Perhaps It Is Nothing...

Perhaps it’s the perfection in the azure of blue

Or the way the clouds wander and tumble awry

That reminds me so keenly of how I miss you

And of how times slips so quietly by

Perhaps it’s the fabric of mid-summer bliss

Perfect and sheer and transient at best

Perhaps it’s her sultry and wanton caress

That stirs the missing you deep in my chest

Perhaps it is nothing; or everything lost

That suddenly clenches my innermost part

Perhaps it is simply surreal oceans tossed

In unfathomed reaches concealed in the heart

J~

Gracious Insufficiencies

Of things too near and dear to me

It seems I cannot speak

Or breathe its form in inept verbal art

I tremble, for the pen I hold

Is powerful, yet weak

Too weak to spell the silence of the heart

Though pulses throb with quiet want

To spill its candid draught

The pen obeys the movement of the hand

The words I crave dangle and taunt

Unformed within my thought

Sealed just beyond my beckoning demand

Perhaps there are no syllables

To shape our deeper pines

Is this life’s gracious insufficiency?

Perhaps it is enough for us

To read between the lines

And understand what word can never be

© Janet Martin

Of Certainties...

There is one Certainty that keeps uncertainties in check

We know not what a night or day will bring

For life’s uncertainties seem never to reside or rest

So to this One sure Certainty I cling

Though famine, flood, worry or woe plagues this frail, earthen sphere

Thrusting uncertainty across life’s road

And though the things we love soon change, decay or disappear

One Certainty remains to under goad

Nothing can separate us from His everlasting love

As we lift our uncertainties to Him

His promise leaps from vaults beneath and crowns the heavens above

It whispers in the hour growing dim

No height or depth, no life or death can separate mankind

From His great love affirmed within His Word

Uncertainties may twist and turn; a dark, demonic wind

But Certainty abides in Christ the Lord  

© Janet Martin

The Allotment of Bliss

Housewives…some see it as an allotment for the ignorant

And they spurn its humble sound

Spring to fall, months, then soon another year has spun around

Of scrubbing floors, tidying drawers, of laundry’s ceaseless chore

An eternity of subtracting hours, sting of ordinary…nothing more

But I love dishwater hands and brooms that dance

And shiny sparkling halls

I love baking bread and making beds or peanut-butter balls

I love the life

Of a contented housewife

A child upon my lap

The music of clean clothes on the line

As they flounce and flap

The rind of judgment makes me smile

I feel no animosity

I think I’ll wander outside for a while

With a book and a cup of tea

© Janet Martin

Sunday Whirl #64

Longing is a Tortured Serenade

Longing is a tortured serenade

Dripping from the spires of July

It hovers in the misty, midnight glade

And trembles in the breeze’s lowered sigh

I offer up a word of feeble thanks

To drown its melody of raging thirst

Fear resurrects its dark and devious ranks

Longing quivers like an arrow cursed

What was, what is, and what is yet to be

Fulfillment beats in half-breaths and eighth-notes

Moments unfold, now becomes history

Longing snuffs the thank-you in my throat

I close my eyes; its song is raw and low

Fear ravages the still and stringent air

Longing aches in rhythms sad and slow

Until my thank-you turns into a prayer

The tortured serenade becomes a hymn

Filling the emptiness in longing’s gaze

It dances on the whisper of the wind

Thanksgiving turns my longing into praise

© Janet Martin

 

A Mother's Uncertainties

 Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Uncertainties

Over the years

I am certain you’ve heard me

Easing my fears

In last minute reminders...

“Use your manners now

Don’t talk with your mouth full

Be gentle, be kind and be careful

Respect your teachers

And your classmates too

When someone offers you a ride

Please say thank-you

Let others go first

Don’t push and shove

Say excuse me when you want someone to move

Walk, don’t run in church or school halls

Don’t spend money carelessly

If you go to the mall

Don’t drive too fast

Give the teacher that note

The permission slips

And the thank-you I wrote

Don’t waste your food

Do what is good

Someone is watching when you think you're alone

So do as you know you should

Mind your ‘pleases’

And your ‘thank-yous’

It’s okay to say no

When it’s the wrong you refuse

Play the game fairly

Obey the Golden Rule

Drugs are poison

And they are not cool

Oh, and don’t drive too fast

Did I already say that?

Be careful…oh,

I’ve said that too

Many, many times, it’s true

Yes, I’m certain you’ve heard me

Over and over

But I am still quite uncertain

As to what you remember…

© Janet Martin