Is Peace Really Out of Reach?

Is there anything new under the sun?

Will ever we learn how to truly love?

Will ever there be a putting down of gun?

Love’s surest, purest part to prove

Blindly we gaze from north to south

Where autumn glory gilds its span

And while her goodness stuffs our mouths

We turn to slay our fellow-man

Will ever True Love that was spilt

On Calvary from Son of God

Vanquish the horror of our guilt

That seeps blood-red into earth’s sod

Is ever a battle truly won

Of anger, hatred, spite or wrath? 

There are no victors where the gun

Renders its deadly aftermath

Friend, enemy; are we not one

As we lie in a common grave

When our life-battle here is done

And only Love our souls can save?

Will foolish war and bickering

Forever taint this troubled berth

Of Time, ceaseless and quickening

Where love is ever its lone worth?

Is there anything new under the sun?

And will man’s striving ever cease?

Or, is earth the valley of the gun

And Heaven our hope of peace

As tiny droplets form a sea

And golden grains of sand, the beach

Ah, surely one by one thus we

Can form what now seems out of reach…

© Janet Martin

   

Of November...

Is it really there?

This sense of space we cannot bridge

Or is it the November air

Enveloping autumn’s ridge

It’s cold out here today

And I wish we were together

Is it loneliness I feel

Or just November’s weather?

Is nostalgia a color

Or just days we remember

I think it pulses

In shades of November

November has the reputation

Of being dull, dismal and bleak

I don’t really mind it darling

With your sigh against my cheek

© Janet Martin

A Little Fun with Left and Right

Poetics Aside Prompt: Left Poem/Right Poem

In this left-foot-right-foot journey

We are left with one certainty

The consequences of our action

And whatever that might be

Of wrong or right

***

You left because it was right

***

I write with my left hand

And eat with my right

Thereby to appease

Both appetites

 *** 

Left side or right

I do not care

Oh my darling, as long

As I know you are there

***

Some things are better left alone

Right where they are

***

Right after the words left my lips 

I wished they hadn’t

***

Oh God, You remain right where you are

Yet it seems you are not there

Is it I then, who has left?

***

The left-overs

Are right under

Your nose

***

Sweetheart, we have this left

In love’s pleasure and pain

The right to keep trying

Again and again

***

Right now

I left…

© Janet Martin

This Left-foot-right-foot Journey...

 Poetics Aside Prompt: Left/right Poem

We are not so different

Whether fearful or brave

Life is a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

No matter where on earth we be

Whether master or slave

Life is a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

Humanity has much in common

Not measured by the things we have

But by this left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

We are fellow-travelers

So let’s share what mercy gave

In our left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

…for we are not so different

 In this path of life we brave

On a left-foot-right-foot journey

From the cradle to the grave

© Janet Martin

Of Heaven's Patient Love

Grace spills its hues across the land

Dawn scales earth’s phantom brink

Above the sky the artist’s Hand

Airbrushes hope in pink

The dusk-postlude of yesterday

Has sealed its history

We fix our gaze on this new day

And what is yet to be

Dawn freely spills her virgin grace

From portals up above

As we are drawn to the embrace

Of heaven’s patient Love

© Janet Martin   

November's Madrigal

The wind is a beggar, aimless and forlorn

Nothing to torment but the frost-stricken corn

Its backdrop is gray now; the azure caress

Of summer is filled with November’s duress

The skyline is stripped of its autumn allure

Its boast lines dull gardens, the street and pasture

The song of the willow; a stiff-lipped requiem

Where summer-night lovers would tarry and dream

To the sigh of the bracken, the lilt of the brook

Now subtly silenced; each leaf-laden nook

A haven for poet’s or wander-lusts ploy

Teasing heavy hearts with its bittersweet joy

While over the meadow-land hovers a pall

Strumming the air with November’s madrigal

We tread the surface of each season’s lament

Pondering the haste of life’s tender torment

As winter’s harbinger roughly kisses our face

And nips our noses with reckless embrace

Ah, suture the vault from which mere moments flow

For even as they tease our thought, there they go

Melding to the landscape; a sun-shadow swell

In un-sculpted mind-frames of fall’s fond farewell

Broken buds scatter their demise at our feet

Resting where the circle of life is complete

We cannot retrieve from the crypt of the earth

The husk back to bloom, or the dead to re-birth

Yet, beauty unbiased sweeps this muted hall

Composing the dirge of November’s madrigal

The harvest is gathered; the furrow is plowed

The garden lies dormant beneath leafy shroud

The wind wanders heartless through woodlot and grove

Like a jilted lover still looking for love

And we stoke the fire dissuading the will

Of icy aggression and wintery chill

Wood-smoke spirals wistfully; chimney-flute swoon

The vesper snuffs daylight from late afternoon

As night draws its sable and somnolent veil

Over sallow, slumbering valley and dale

Biting tears spit from the glowering skies

Pelting earth’s sphere with its sleet-lullabies

Tucking the landscape beneath its gray shawl

While coldly crooning November’s madrigal

© Janet Martin

I was traipsing through November's outdoors for a few hours and I heard it. This Monday is the total opposite of last Monday's howling gale. Today is stark-still.

  then, suddenly I remembered that deer-hunting season started today so I decided to head home lest a trigger-happy 'young buck';)) mistakes me for 'Bambi'.

He Fills in the Gaps

He fills in the gaps

So many, it seems

The gaps twixt our holding

And having of dreams

It is not ours

To coax or demand

But to humbly surrender

Beneath Love’s gracious hand

His way is perfect

Our way is not

We cannot know

His reason or thought

But He is Love

And He is grace

Nothing on earth

Can take His place

…As He fills in the gaps

So many it seems

Twixt our holding

And having of dreams

© Janet Martin

Teri's comment in the previous poem inspired a thankful surge in my heart.

Words Are All We Have

We cannot wrench from the heart

Need

It is an inherited seed

But we can fill its hungry lair

With whispered thought

Turned into prayer

We cannot spell our thought but with this;

Word

Within its twisted ink the heart is stirred

Yet, there is One who hears our wordless sigh

Within a prayer

We spill its cry

We cannot stem longings restless

Tide

With things; they never fill the want inside

But we can shape

Our feeble plea

Into prayerful humility

We cannot tug from the unknown its

Veil

But we can trust in Love that will not fail

And as we reach into the seamless air

We can place our longing, need and hope

Within a prayer

© Janet Martin

‘Words, words, words’, I said yesterday, to no one in particular as I was listening to something. ‘Sometimes I get so tired of words’.

And without missing a beat Victoria pipes up, ‘but words are all we have!’

 (my silly little sunshine:)