Friday, November 16, 2012

November Song



 (There is nothing that replaces the beauty first-hand, but if you click on the image and right-click view image
you will be able to enjoy a larger frame of His marvelous beauty in creation) I took these while I was out on my run this morning...well the way back turned into a walk and WOW-click and run...:)

The golden rod is white now
Queen Ann accepts her crown
And every humble stalk and blade
Is clad in dazzling gown

The blue-jay shrieks his valor
In woodlands stripped and still
Where nature spins wild splendor
Beneath its frost-tipped quill

And nature’s great Creator
Stuns the spectator’s gaze
As every meek and lowly leaf
Is kissed with heaven’s glaze

Our dolor preconception
Of drab November’s girth
Is stunned in awe; perfection
Gleams from the quiet earth

© Janet Martin

The frost-tipped beauty rendered one speechless this morning...
 
 The day dawned, gleaming in silver-rose blush...
November; spectacular beneath heaven's brush





Then, Get on With it...



 Poetics Aside Prompt: Use the last line of yesterday’s poem for the first line of today’s poem.



And then,
Get on with it…
When you have begged forgiveness
…do not return again, again
To grieve those despised failures
Preserving self-pity’s pain
But learn from it and move on
For this, my dear is life
We dance, we slip and stumble
Within its joy and strife
And we would be proud; boastful
Without truth reminding us
That there is none who have not erred
So do not sulk, or pine or fuss
But simply learn its lesson
Ask forgiveness, reflect a bit
But then, my dear, forgive yourself
And just get on with it…

© Janet Martin

So Others May See You

Poetics Aside Prompt: Use the last line of yesterday’s poem for the first line of today’s poem.





Oh God, you give us Life
And for our hatred Love
Into the darkness of our minds

Scoff at our holy claim
For they have not yet come to know

Oh God, we are not judges
But You alone can see
You behold the heart of me

And I have but one prayer Lord
That I lift up to You
May You behold a heart of love


© Janet Martin

Last night my son and I were having a conversation as he was battling with feelings of being judged unfairly by what another person assumed, and we came to the conclusion that all we can give in return is forgiveness and grace, the thing we hope to receive when we err because without meaning to we all are guilty of assumptions or judgments occasionally. But it is love and only love that we are called to do.
 


Thursday, November 15, 2012

Of Verbal Exchanges



 Poetics Aside Prompt: Write a tradeoff poem. Could be an exchange, forfeit, or swap.



We could stand here an hour and bicker
Raising our protest loud
Exchanging brand-new one line insults
That would make the devil proud
We could dredge up past follies and failures
Perhaps even curse a bit
Or we could simply say, I’m sorry
And then ‘get on with it’

© Janet Martin

Incomprehensible Trade-off

Poetics Aside Prompt: Write a tradeoff poem. Could be an exchange, forfeit, or swap.




In place of our guilt- redemption
In place of our longing- hope
In place of our wretched sin-stains
You wash us white as snow
In place of darkness and depression
You fill us with marvelous Light
In place of death and damnation
Oh God, you give us Life

© Janet Martin
 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

You Are but He IS...





You are no respecter of persons
In the tropics,
At the Arctic
And all points in-between
You indulge the pauper
The preacher, the child
The writer of songs
Or the queen
How subtly you bleed your presence
Through the laughter of a crowd
And when they’ve gone home
In the silence
You are there
Crooning, ruthless and proud
With never an invitation
And never a stuttered caress
You thrive in the hollow of wanting
You are
Loneliness

There is One who does not leave us hopeless
To grovel in longings despair
He covers the earth with a whisper
And draws us to Him in a prayer
He breathes through the power of darkness
And pierces our grief with His hope
He is the great Father of comfort
When in fear’s dark valley we grope
And He will not leave nor forsake us
Wherever on earth we may trod
He is a faithful companion
He IS God


© Janet Martin  

Stuck

Poetics Aside Prompt: Write a stuck poem. Write about the struggle or the inability to move. Maybe you’re stuck in traffic, in a bad job, or a relationship.





Oh what a vexing dilemma
Stuck madly in the middle of thought
For that wily old Muse
Has relinquished her dues
That long after midnight I sought

But now in the middle of morning
I’m hit with a mystic sort of thud
As from out of nowhere
She spangles the air
While I’m stuck elbow-deep in dish suds

Oh, what a glorious dilemma
Stuck twixt fantasy and mundane
Yet, I should sing the blues
For that wily old Muse
Drives this housewife completely insane

© Janet Martin

Of Echoes and Endings





The boast of the meadowland renders its mirth
Where June’s leaf-song lullaby covers the earth
Red mountain-ash garnet gleams bold on the air
A garnish to limbs; cold and scraggly and bare
The skyline is stripped of its verdant appeal
But keen winds are eager with refurbished zeal
Moaning through the woodland in ghostly lament
Victor of the tatters in autumn’s raiment
Yet still slips its haunting into Time’s great urn
Of triumph and trouble never to return
The echoes of summer and silence compete
Where innocence, progress and Providence meet


 
The belles of first autumn fall prey to the hour
Their beauty lies broken beneath wooded bower
Time; are you tyrant or mercy’s masquerade?
As fortune and folly beneath us are laid
And we, stumbling vessels of longing and lust
Tread on our future of dust unto dust
For we like the leaf, soon will render this clay
And only the soul will escape Time’s decay
But hope clings to Hope, as earth’s somnolent girth
A-waits the redemption of spring’s glad re-birth
And though for a moment the fallow is bleak
We trust in the promises buried beneath



The echo of summer may torment our tears
The dance of an hour soon shapes sudden years
The gasp of the flower falls into the dirt
Destiny consumes both life’s joy and its hurt
The reed, stiff, forlorn, braces for winter’s cold
The heart, tattered, torn must still bear to grow old
While kind wisdom kisses the grief in our sighs
And Beauty bestows her most coveted prize
For Time’s phantom power can never possess
The well-spring of love, hope and happiness
Spring, summer, autumn, winter; glaze the sod
On our waltz to the grave; on our journey to God

© Janet Martin