Of Shorelines, Seas and Sailors...some Sonnets

You lean against the silence; deep inside

Your plaintive sigh aches in dawn’s pristine hush

Where colors of a rising, falling tide

Fills winter’s stricken stance with summer’s rush

Tracing the outline of thought’s shadow-land

The bloom and bracken sway in buxom breeze

Along a bank where footprints in its sand

Have washed upon a shore of memories

There is no proof of moments I may seek

But for its whisper gleaming on my cheek

***

I am not discontent; Time has no rules

But one; it takes and gives in the same breath

While hope unravels from its lofty spools

And dodd’ring dream succumbs to its last death

The crimson morning rends the slumb’ring deep

Where faith and fantasy, their duels wage

And we beneath their vigil laugh and weep

Across the twinkle of Time’s vapor stage

Replenishing with virgin hope the stream

Reaching to seize the dreamer from her dream

***

Moment by moment, like a pink platoon

Dawn’s squadron marches to its ordained height

Where gold and azure vertex of high-noon

Drops from its pinnacle into the night

And we, caught twixt its future and the past

Where silences are filled with memory’s sigh

Ponder leviathan moments mercy-cast

Dripping from heaven to the by-and-by

While we glean from its effervescent tide

The drops that form an ocean deep inside

***

The aftermath of moments sweeps a shore

That we are each the lone spectator of

Gazing at life’s bygone forevermore

Fraught with framed fragments of longing and love

Borne in the limbo of mortality

This surge of moments cannot pause or cease

As we, the sailors on its silver sea

Point our prows toward heaven’s release

Recognizing He who holds the cup

Whereon we sail and moment’s tears fill up

© Janet Martin  

 The Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness. 1 Samuel 26;23

This day is climbing with quiet haste
Filled with moments too precious to waste

A Little Rusty

Darling, are you still awake?

And will you venture out with me

Into the tumult of a night

Stark still with frigid clarity

Where breath hangs frozen and our step

Creaks loudly in the bitter cold

The giddy flame upon the hearth

Invites us from our midnight stroll

But we decline its luring grin

To listen to blue solitude

Ignite a fire deep within

Akin to passions of our youth

…darling let’s practice if we can

The thrill of being young again

© Janet~

The Sunday Whirl

Monday Musings while Cross-country Skiing

Life does not ask

From any man

But this; to do

The best he can

***

Fulfillment comes each day we live

Not by what we amass, but give

***

It is not those without visual sight

Who are truly and dubiously blind

But those who seek without delight

For things they never find

***

I searched for joy

And it found me

When I learned to live

Thankfully

***

We all are human

And must admit

That the best of us

Are hardly fit

To point and judge

Of us, the worst

We ought to examine

Ourselves first

***

Sometimes you try to tell me how you feel

Forgive me for not listening

Now, how I long to reach to you and steal

The un-shed tear sadly glistening…

***

Don’t sugar-coat the truth or lies

Both are immune to its disguise

***

Our children are taught

Not just by what they’re told

They learn with keen perception

By what they behold

Vanilla-frosted World

Winter flung wide her cupboards

And to the earth unfurled

In soft, snow-sugar aftermath

A vanilla-frosted world

In heaps of silent splendor

Unfathomed morsels drop

And now each lowly fencepost

Is a lustrous lollipop

…and now we all are children

Fleet-foot and fancy-free

As winter spills its wonder

In vanilla-frosted glee

© Janet Martin

Inspired by my daughter as she shouted, 'Look. The world is covered in vanilla frosting!'

Of Hunger and Hauntings

(I first saw this picture last winter and it has haunted me...)

Lord, give us a heart for the hungry...

A vulture watches a starving child [1993]

“The prize-winning image: A vulture watches a starving child in southern Sudan, March 1, 1993.
Carter’s winning photo shows a heart-breaking scene of a starving child collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to a food center during a famine in the Sudan in 1993. In the background, a vulture stalks the emaciated child.

Carter was part of a group of four fearless photojournalists known as the “Bang Bang Club” who traveled throughout South Africa capturing the atrocities committed during apartheid.
Haunted by the horrific images from Sudan, Carter committed suicide in 1994 soon after receiving the award.”

'Don’t slink away now

With your head slightly bowed

While the taste of my blood

Smears your indulgent lips

Don’t splatter vain words

With your greed-polished swords

And cry ‘Lord, have mercy’

As my suffering drips

To your gaze in red pools

While a circus of fools

Sadly wags their heads

In feigned piety

As hunger and hurt

Lie with me in the dirt

Pitiful comrades

To my misery'

© Janet Martin

Of Glimpses...

 

Upon earth’s four-season duress

We can do but one small thing

One foot and then the other, love

And what these gathered steps will bring

In sundry shapes of joy and strife

Will be a little thing called life

This little thing that we call life

Spills moment-petals on a stage

Where eventide and dawn are rife

With mortal grievance of the age

And yet, against your shoulder, love

I sense a heaven up above

They say that heaven’s gate is sealed

Until we cross that dreaded tide

And only then will be revealed

The glories of ‘the other side’

But oh my love, between us two

I’ve glimpsed its bliss when I’m with you

© Janet Martin

Painting Daylight

The sun came up, dazzled the earth for approx. 15 minutes, then slipped behind a bank of clouds...

Ruby whisper fans the air

Darkness melts beneath a sigh

Ravishing the eastern sky

Morning trembles like a prayer

Night recedes; its sable span

Brims with kind proof of heaven’s grace

As nameless pigments interlace

And we cry out, ‘oh, what is man?’

Oh, what is man that He should please

Our gaze with wonders such as this?

Filling night’s void with mercy’s kiss

On grand, unfathomed galaxies

Where ruby whispers swell, expand

As we behold with awestruck heart

The Master of celestial art

Painting daylight across the land

© Janet Martin

Heart-treasure

Don’t cover me with sympathetic eyes

‘Poor housewife bound to kitchen sink and broom’

These are but mechanics of a room

They do not speak of home’s sweet paradise

The housewife, though her coffers boast no gold

Does not despise her role of unsung bliss

For she is paid in sticky toast-crumb kiss

And treasures that only a heart can hold

No PhD or credits deck the walls

But joy and happiness are not of these

Pink mitten waves and mother-memories

Echo within love’s fingerprinted halls

Oh humble haven, sweet and simply spun

She counts her blessings, not of worldly worth

Yet her wealth is the fairest of the earth

As from her door her happy children run

© Janet Martin

My hubby chuckled as he watched my eyes well with tears (tears of simple contentment) as Victoria waved vigorously from the bus window; a tradition since my oldest kids left on the school bus-there was always someone to take up the wave…and I said thank-you to him for allowing me to be at home. These are treasure I wouldn’t trade for the world. I told him that I really don’t care if there are no tropical vacations, (because a single income is strained to the max every month, and he apologizes sometimes for all we cannot do). I don’t care if we lack in ‘stuff’. By the grace of God we have enough.