...As We Dance

Darling, oh come and dance with me

For time offers no guarantee

Today will soon be yesterday

And that’s how lifetimes slip away

See how fleet years of painted hope

Whisper upon the purple slope

Feel the breath-kiss of moments pass

A murmur on time’s trampled grass

Darling, how can we bear to waste

Love-moments as they glide in haste

Across the ball-room of the earth

Where seasons spill their meager mirth?

The cold wind broods upon the stones

In blue and moody undertones

The blush of youth, the crown of age

Will settle ‘neath time’s silver sage

Longing and loss and love impart

Their want in oceans of the heart

Fulfillment is a mystic glance

Bestowed in moments as we dance

© Janet Martin

Save the last dance for me...J~

Time's Ever-hastening Season

With hope’s fresh hint in coral tint

Night’s deep begins to soften

On earth’s dark palm where all is calm

We sense the urge of morning

The raven tree etched flawlessly

On canvasses of heaven

Has laid its crown of glory on

Time’s ever-hastening season

Into the clutch of mortal touch

Unsullied moments murmur

From God to man, from heart to hand

Fall, winter, spring and summer

Then, as they slip from fingertip

To scripts of unknown reason

We recognize ‘neath life’s disguise

Time’s ever-hastening season

Upon the slope of virgin hope

A new day stirs our slumber

From heaven’s keep the moments weep

Like fall leaves without number

As we embrace the Hand of Grace

Imbued with Divine Reason

His love imparts from heav’n-ramparts

Time’s ever-hastening season

This tent of woe; it must forego

The mansions up in glory

From birth to death, each gifted breath

Is writing our life-story

As through our grasp brief moments pass

Beyond our feeble reason

From dawn to Dawn we journey on

Time’s ever-hastening season

 Janet Martin

An Evening Prayer

 In St. Jacobs, Ont. the church bells peal out across the town, those precious, timeless hymns. (at 12:00 noon and 6:00 p.m.)

Dear Lord, before I lay me down to sleep

A thousand thoughts un-uttered press and plead

And though my soul is safe within Thy keep

And though I know Thou knowest every need

I have of Thee;  let me not seek slumber’s release

Without first lifting up my heart to Thee

In humble gratitude; Thy mercies never cease

In spite of vile, wretched humanity

In spite of mankind’s crass ingratitude

In spite of our vanity and lust

Each morning still Thy mercy is renewed

And love forgives our scrimmages of dust

Like dazzling dew, grace spills its mystery

In rampant glory on earth’s dark facade

Thou dost not leave us fumbling hopelessly

Lighting the Way that leads to Thee, oh God

Seasons do not resist Thee nor rebel

Nature submits to Thy holy command

Time labors on earth’s harsh four-season swell

And man will choose to trust or test the Hand

That holds all things in pure, perfect control

And though we do not do the good we should

Still, Thou hast made a way for every soul

To be saved by the power in Thy blood

The rich, the poor, Lord, none escapes Thy gaze

There is no good or evil hid from Thee

Though we will never understand Thy ways

Lord, teach us how to trust unwaveringly

And Lord, before I lay me down to sleep

I pray that all would come to know Thy love

And rest assured within Thy tender keep

Until we meet in glory-lands above

© Janet Martin

 

When My Joy-cup Was Full

…and so you slip from me

Over an ethereal brink

I place your memory

In thoughts of stilted ink

The hour where we laughed

And held each others smile

Has hastened down a misty path

Where echoes tune its mile

The folds of history

Shimmer with smiles and tears

Preserved where none can see

The aftermath of years

Yet, as I sense the power

Of Time’s keen moment-pull

I thank God for the hour

When my joy-cup was full

© Janet Martin

Today was a great day of family as my mom and her daughters (us sisters) enjoyed a day of being 'tourists' in our local town of St. Jacobs, Ontario, Canada. The above pictures are glimpses of this town as it 'used to be'. An artist is 'rebuilding the town' .

Beautiful Dance

You come to me gently

Yet with purposed intention

I covet your candor

And fear your perception

But as you embrace me

I do not refuse

Your kiss to my hunger

An invisible noose

You crease every silence

With naught but your stare

I close my eyes darling,

Yet, I know you are there

I wait for your whisper

You tenderly taunt

For you know you are master

Of my infinite want

Sensuous sorrow

Benevolent bliss

Darling, I never

Have danced quite like this

Oh, how you move me

In pure passion stirred

Beautiful dance

Of the Muse and the word

© Janet Martin

The Darkling Day...

Yellow leaves dive past my windowsill
Like drunken finches pitching to their rest
They pile in pungent layers on the hill
Where musty patchwork quilts a sodden nest
Two seasons worth the chill-wind starves and fasts
Its vigor now turns vulgar, desperate; harsh
It tugs in bullish rage fall’s flimsy mast
And decks with gold, the street, the field, the marsh
As cattails shiver in its iron wrath
The milk-weed spills to sea a silver path

Stark silence threads stripped limbs, exposed and bare
Betrayed by tresses, scattered and wind-blown
If glory to the woman is her hair
Then beauty to the tree must be its gown
The lowered sky offers no modest shroud
But rather it enhances her distress
A backdrop dark; of tumbled glow’ring cloud
Appropriates the ruddy wind’s caress
It sets against the cold horizon-line
Her petrified, yet delicate design

The pasture boasts a shrug of startled green
A folly of ephemeral disguise
Brief is the comfort of deception’s sheen
Too soon beneath an argent sheet it lies
Yellow leaves tumble to earth's ready tomb
Swift, phantom fingers pluck ragged remains
None shall escape the purple-knuckled plume
Of grumbling gale  and raw November rains
As they succumb to winter’s calliope
Waiting for Spring in womb's of quiet hope

© Janet Martin

Of a Mother's Uncertainties

That’s how they leave

In little pink mitten waves

And baby-teeth grins

To doors closing softly at midnight

Tiptoeing and dancing

Through an autumn

Disappearing way too fast

All the while

They smile

And I,

Uncertain of what else to do
Smile back

© Janet Martin

...she can laugh at the days to come. Prov. 31:25

Ink Ignition...another Fibonacci

another Fibonacci

Mute

Pen

Until

Restless Muse

Rouses the still quill

Igniting ink to poetry

© Janet Martin