Ode to the Year

Farewell; though you were barren but a year ago

You have borne your ordinance of victory and woe

Into the urn of no return I place your memory

There is no future in the past of nevermore will be

Farewell; the passion I perceived when first I touched your gown

Has fallen where the autumn trees have laid their burnished crown

You teased into fruition my clenched dreams of yesterday

While, softly with your other hand you stole its gleam away

Farewell; your fringe is fading, cold, gold pool against the west

Your virgin garment splattered with my crass, clumsy caress

Though fain I still would kiss your feet, you slip into the blue

The pain of love is bittersweet; where is the proof of you?

Farewell; upon the wind you ride, obscure and potent force

While we await with baited hope your forerunners discourse

Within past’s permanence you seal your four-season embrace

And never turn to kiss the farewell teardrops from my face

Farewell; oh tender gift of grace from life's Giver above
Into bygones vast ethereal place is but yesterday's love
And from compassion's bowers hallowed mercy floods the sphere
As He imparts from hope's ramparts, to us, another year

© Janet Martin

Monumental...Moment

(It was so still this morning I could almost hear it...)

Open your eyes

Do you see it?

Slipping from frost-gilded bough

Monumental breath-fortune

Here in the little ‘now’

Open your hand

Do you feel it?

No? Yet it’s there somehow

Sealing within it life’s offering

Held in the little’ now’

Open your ears

Do you hear it?

Dripping from hope-haloed prow?

Notes in a love-song of moments

Shaped in the little now

Open your mouth

Do you taste it?

Bittersweet afterglow

Reaching, receiving, releasing

All in the little ‘now’

© Janet Martin

I know…I’ve spoken of ‘the little now’ before, but

It is the only thing of worth we hold

Yet we often over-look it somehow

Because it seems so very small

We simply call it ‘now’.

Home Sweet Home

Beyond those doors and windows

Within those humble walls

Are childhood’s precious shadows

And memory-tender halls

Life’s brick and mortar dwelling

If shared in unity

Is Love’s soft-glimpsed fore-telling

Of what Heaven will be

Lord, in this little journey

Wherever we may roam

May our hearts forever be

Love’s gracious home sweet home

Janet Martin~ 

We all travel this time of year, don't we?

even if simply in thought,

back to what once was...

Above is a picture of my childhood home

Hand in Hand

 

Hand in hand with Him I go

Though fear and grief and ill wind blow

His promises will lead me home

Hand in hand, Dear Lord, I come

Hand in hand, He leads me on

Through earth’s dark night to Heaven’s dawn

His rod and staff conquers this dust

So hand in hand, in Him I trust

Hand in hand, Lord, hold me near

Lest I become burdened with fear

Remind me of to Whom I cling

Hand in hand with Christ the King

© Janet Martin

Mit Jesus (a Pennsylvania Dutch Poem of Hope)

Mit Jesus bin ich imma frei

Ich brauch ke sarriah maucha

Vile Eahea is imma neagsht debai

Fa mie node tsu bedrauchta

Mit Jesus is ma goot fasargged

Eahea liebed uns vie ke anna

Un laft mit uns bis unsa Arb

In vaeg net liecht fashtanna

Mit Jesus, hut ma huffening

De veld is net unsa himmel

Des is da shtrove un ielauding

Tsu Sie fa imma un imma

© Janet Martin

Translation...  With Jesus

With Jesus we are always free

We do not need to fear or worry

Because He is always near

Our need to behold

With Jesus we are well taken care of

He loves us like no other

And walks with us to our Inheritance

In ways not easily understood

With Jesus we have hope

This world is not our heaven

This is our strife and invitation

To His forever and ever

Here We Are...

 

Here we are, keen with fresh hope

As old and new converge

The old, sealed in yesteryear’s grope

The new, a gleaming surge

Here we are; in spite of life

We resolve once again

To fight anew this little strife

Of gladness, sadness, pain

Here we are; the portal where

We stood one year ago

Now blemished with our scattered care

A scarred and marred plateau

Here we are; with nothing much

But to resolve once more

To laugh, love, learn beneath life’s touch

To God’s forevermore

© Janet Martin

As I read this (please consider reading it if you want a worthwhile smile yet much to seriously ponder and remember) I found myself thinking...yes, here we are once again. I don't really 'do' New Year's Resolutions and yet it seems this is always a portal where we ponder life thus far and resolve to do better and not give up.

Happy New Year, all!

Of Corridors to Eternity

Time is so much more

Than a jesting of moments

Grazing earth’s shore

Time, for all it can ever be

Is but the corridor

To eternity

Time is a gift whereby we procure

The hour we make our calling

And election sure

Time, a transient vapor door

Leading us into

Forevermore

© Janet Martin

Almost...a Sonnet

Almost I feel you like it used to be

Perched on the brink of both future and past

Watching the twilight sweep over the lea

Shadows beginning to lower their masts

Almost I hear the murmur of the waves

Rushing, receding, holding, letting go

Pushing life’s moments to aerial graves

Without depleting their subaqueous flow

Almost I taste your whisper on my lips

Trembling as when I welcomed your first touch

Almost I reach with wanton fingertips

Into the sky for things hands cannot clutch

Almost I feel what once surely had been

Save for the miles and the years in between

Striving for self is grossest vanity

Time is insistent, thus I must turn loose

The wants God never intended for me

Lest they become an invisible noose

Here on the edge of morrow’s yesterday

I dare not covet what no longer is

The heart is both hunter and tenuous prey

I do not plead for one last farewell kiss

Yet, no one will suffer for me, your good-bye

Or weep wrenching tears of beautiful love

And now as twilight devours the sky

You slip from me like a hand from a glove

Forgive me, dear Lord, I am surely a fool

Beggar and king must adhere to Time’s rule

Darling, almost I feel the warmth of your sigh

Soft on my skin where time renders its mark

Somewhere the sea, like a lover’s lullaby

Croons its endearments to us through the dark

Parting is beautiful sorrow, they say

I’d choose a humbler delight in your arms

Almost I cannot relinquish this day

Though I have danced, reveling in its charms

It simply expands the missing of you

As history claims its vulnerable gasp

Almost, I cannot bear this shade of blue

Prying your silver swan-song from my grasp

Almost I hear you cajoling its sheen

Save for the ocean of moments between

J~

Poetic Bloomings invites us to share our favorite in-form form to close out the year.
Mine is the Sonnet.