Fishing For Answers

PROMPT #90. Ekphrastic Poetry – 2013 Photo Prompt #1

By Poetic Bloomings

If you had not left

then perhaps I would hear

more than the whisper

of time disappear

and I would hear gladly

those feet in the park

instead of standing

here sadly

fishing

in the dark

If you had not left

would the tide cease its crying?

would gray day

not murmur

the color of dying?

If you were still here

to cast, next to me

your beautful dream

would the sun

shine suddenly?

 ...or will this river swell

with the gathering of tears,

 of birch-leaf and moments

lost in yester-years?

If you had not left

would we fish together

and would every day

be

perfect weather?

Janet Martin~ 

*Photo credit: Keith R. Good.(Photos by Keith Good Facebook Community Page)

Poetry, Waiting to be Written

 (This morning it is gray rain-poetry; see below, so I chose a photo from earlier this week)

The dawn is imbibed with expectation

And diminishing deep

We are drunk with the elation

Wrought by sleep

As footsteps dash,

They slip and splash

Into its gilded room

The earth, a palace

We, the kings and queens

Of mercy’s bloom

To wish and dream another day

To live and laugh

And love and pray

And bear the virtue of its sway

Until Time’s bending tide

Breaks on the cove of twilight’s shore

And it is gone forevermore

Into the ditch with days of yore

Blessing and burden lie

Poetry flickers in each precious tick

Mortality trembles; a flame on life’s wick

Janet~

Rain-poetry; this NOT what our typical mid-January looks like.

 

Sunday Whirl: #91

 

Sacred Charge

 

We cannot put it down and walk away

For this is not a novel or a bloom

Plucked as we see the birthing of a day

Bursting in radiance on earth’s living-room

To render its allowances of grace

Before night seals its mien to memory

No, no, the tender honor we embrace

Remains; from now until eternity

As we behold, in awe-struck reverence

The magnitude of its deliverance

We suffer through its valley of travail

And then, as heaven draws its gate ajar

Lending to humble arms, in infant wail

The wonderment of things holy and far

We thus accept, not gifts of trivial worth

To treasure or dispose of as we choose

But, from the hands of God to lowly earth

He sends a charge that we cannot refuse

Of uttermost importance from above

A miracle of hope and life and love

This divine dispensation of His joy

Is staggering and sweet beyond compare

From this day forth the moments we employ

Have been transformed to bear life’s dearest care

And we will never be the same again

As we accept our heaven-tenured lot

Life’s fondest pleasure is love’s deepest pain

To teach a child is to by God be taught

This sacred charge is unlike any other

A newborn cries and we become…

A mother

© Janet Martin

Sometimes the tender brief, yet eternal magnitude of it all steals my breath...there is no quitting, no dismissal from this bitter-sweetest charge.

Of Hastening Hours...an edited re-post

 (I took this photo the other day; stubble-art)

Far too soon the lily sleeps
Beneath frost-gilded kiss
Where far too soon the red limb weeps
Her robe of summer's bliss
And far too soon blue shadows lie
Across the musky leaf
As Augusts’ burnished breezes die  
Like laughter tasting grief

Far too soon the autumn glow

Is snuffed 'neath winter’s shroud
Where nature’s garnered grudges blow
From darkened, bully-cloud
But just as summertime and fall
Must yield to winter’s will
Soon, soon we hear the robin's call
As spring sweeps o’er the hill

Far too soon the seasons come
And far too soon they rest
Far too soon my little home
Will be an empty nest
As far too soon the green and gold
Lies withered on the grass
And far too soon I’m getting old
As quickened seasons pass

© Janet Martin

Reluctant Revelations

 

Perhaps it’s a level

Of maturity

Realizations

Of what cannot be

Or perhaps it is simply

That I resisted

To accept what never

Really existed

Perhaps it is nothing

But an excuse

To redeem myself

From truths I refused

Perhaps I fell in love

Not with a thing

But with the enticement

Of what it might bring

Perhaps I really was

Foolish and bold

Or perhaps I am merely

Getting old

© Janet Martin

The Plight of Human Heart

Like the birthing of a brook

To the swelling of the sea

It’s tenure not of flesh and blood

Bleeds agonizing ecstasy

Borne earnestly in mortal fronds

Of trembling lip and timorous touch

An ocean held within the bonds

Of heartbeat, thought and prayer and such

From whence it springs, I cannot say

But oh, it steals my breath away

Violent, intense, reclusive, sweet

It keens the mute and morbid dark

Or rages where the floundering dream

Pines for its pure and virgin spark

Its mighty ethereal eons surge

Fulcrum of ageless misery

Yet author of love-song and dirge

And raw, unpolished poetry

From whence it swells, I do not know

But oh, it makes me miss you so

Does jasmine by the summer brook

Bear unbeknownst, its misery?

Or eagle on the rocky crag

Do they suffer such ecstasy?

Nay, I dare say such wordless want

Though whispered in the wandering wind

And murmured in the hidden haunt

Where poplar sighs and brook-songs blend

Must be endured in fleshed rampart

Longing; the plight of human heart

© Janet Martin 

Winter-brook

 (Sometimes I come here, just to listen...video is a little jerky at first but eventually 'smooths' out)

She tunes the hollow winter hush

In rushing, gushing glee

Laughing beneath thicket and brush

A prisoner set free

Where cattails drained her summer cup

Autumn’s release has filled her up

And now she spills her lullaby

Meandering out to the sky

Winter eases its rigid stance

And from its frozen swell

A lilting cadence of romance

Sweeps through the dormant dell

A surge of passion-perfect pitch

Embellishes the laud-less ditch

Of silenced wood-song’s dismal dirge

She sings with grief-abandoned urge

Now high, now low, hastening, slow

Enchanting melody

As splashing, dashing love-songs flow

In sonnets to the sea

Lest soon the northern gales entice

To seal her lay in shrouds of ice

She finds, somewhere, a lenient nook

To hum the hymn of winter-brook

© Janet Martin

Wonderful Wealth

‘Tis most surely

A glorious

Luxury

To be rich enough

To enjoy

Nature's beauty

© Janet Martin

‘The need and the suffering is so great here that they cannot see the beauty’

Words to a friend’s son who was in Ecuador last year and he commented on the breath-taking, inexpressible beauty of the mountainous landscape. He commented that, ‘at least they live in all this beauty’. To be rich enough to see and enjoy the beauty of creation is wealth, unspeakable wealth.

I often think of these words as I marvel at the gifts of nature and the awesome wonder of creation.