Pondering Love

 

Love

Or the lack thereof

Touches everything

We think

Or say

Or do

Or see

To find it

We must give it

Love loves

Voluntarily

And never stops to tally

Its suffering

Or its cost

And only when we

Please ourselves

Is its wonder lost

© Janet Martin

Love is not a season

but each February

for a little while

We seem to find good reason

To ponder its grand wonder

And smile

It’s that time of year; pondering love.

 Each February I attempt to ponder its wonder. This will be the focus of the next few weeks if mind and Muse co-operate. Tell someone you love them today...and why they are special to you! Don't wait. Tomorrow may be too late. I just told Victoria I love her. I love that she NEVER grumbles and I love how her smile lights up the room. So she says 'look, Mom, and flashes a grin, simultaneously hitting the light switch'. :) Yes, I love her silliness too.

May you have a love-ly day.

Mistral-music

Blow then, oh frigid gale of howling song

Sweep over argent landscapes petrified

Across blue tree-limbs splayed upon the lawn

Cajole the winter-stricken countryside

Unleash your silver gusto; evergreen

Bows low beneath the tempo of your tune

And over all the earth a gilded sheen

Rivals the opulence of emerald June

Blow then, for every season has its day

A splash, a dash and then it drifts away

The deluge of your gripping overture

Though startling in it raw, ruthless release

Depletes its stores of winter-white verdure

The world is tranquil in snow-muffled peace

The kiss of Father Time is not reserved

For flesh and blood; seasons succumb beneath

His touch; the remnant of its mien preserved

In memories of alabaster sheath

Thus we do not despise your vulgar thrust

For soon your venom dies; dust unto dust

Tonight your song lunges against the sill

It moans outside the door, a lonesome wail

Oh, I would let you in but for your chill

So you remain, a wild and wandering gale

With renewed passion you employ your wrath

And we are at the mercy of its lay

Beneath your shroud the brook and garden-path

Wait patiently for Spring’s imminent day

Then fling your melody into the air

You are the harbinger of breezes fair

© Janet Martin 

Tonight the song rises and falls, from flurry to calm.

Song for a Winter's Night -Gordon Lightfoot 
 J~

Of the Wonder of Words

Words; such quaint and curious things

Like ink-shaped puppets on a string

They draw from us life’s darling sighs

Or fill the dark in curs-ed cries

Painting mind-pictures in the air

They form our worry and our prayer

The wander-lust of wonder stirred

And spilled in ink-jots shaping word

Word; the poet’s rebel-lure

The sermon wee lad must endure

The good, the bad, the bitter-sweet

In endless possibility

A palette of infinite vaunt

They hurt and heal, they soothe and taunt

The mien of thought spoken and heard

Empowered by this thing called word

Foolish and wise access alike

The freedom to this verbal might

And in the syllables we choose

We will reveal thought’s hidden hues

We ought to ponder carefully

Which ones to keep or to set free

For they fall fast and undeterred

In dynamite drops formed in words

Word; language of lip or pen

To inspire, teach or mislead men

Therefore we must give earnest heed

To what we read, think, write thence read

For in this little ink-swirl jot

Lies both the bud and bloom of thought

A seed of potent power incurred

In architecture of a word

© Janet Martin

 "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."
- Luke 6:45

 "I like good strong words that mean something."
- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

 "The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."
- Thomas Jefferson

 Watch your thoughts, they become your words
Watch your words, they become your actions
Watch your actions, they become your habits
Watch your habits, they become your character
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny."
- Anonymous

 "A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day."
- Emily Dickinson ("A Word is Dead")

 "Words may show a man's wit, but actions his meaning."
- Benjamin Franklin

Of Snowflakes and Grace

It is assuredly so

In shades of virgin snow

Our scarlet robes of sin are cleansed

In love’s redeeming flow

Ah grace, how can this be?

That One should so love me

The Son of God, by His own blood

Washes our sin-stains clean

It is most surely so

Thus, by His grace I go

Our ruddy guilt by Lamb’s blood spilt

Is washed as white as snow

© Janet Martin

The stark and pleading landscape is covered in a blanket of spotless snow...

That's what God's promise is for us... "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

 Isa. 1:18

Snow-song

Rollicking, frolicking, feathery fray

Blanketing evergreen, umber and gray

Embellishing fences and skeletal limb

Swirling and whirling celestial hymn

Cotton-soft canticle, mute melody

Tumbling from chambers of infinity

Spiraling splendor decking land and lake

God’s wonder captured in every flake

Dizzying dazzling, soundless madrigal

Heaven’s extravagance sweeping hill and dell

Choir of cherubs tumbling to the earth

Calling to children in merry-white mirth

Dauntless, dancing choristers spilling their glee

Flinging their anthems, footloose, fancy-free

Rollicking, frolicking, feathery lay

This is the song of a winter snow-day

© Janet Martin

Yes, its a snow-day, no school.

 

From two days of almost non-stop rain melting any snow that had accumulated to

winter making up for lost time...

 

On Diligence

In this era of instant gratification

And presumed recompense

We seem to discredit

Humble diligence

Its pay-off is patient

Its battle is long

Yet, in its commitment

The weak become strong

We ought not to grow weary

In doing our best

For only the diligent

Truly pass life’s test

© Janet Martin

The lesson I taught to Grades 5&6 this past Sunday in Sunday School was on diligence. It spoke to me on so many levels.

Transient Lament

…then, let the dark fret in icy lament

And rage against the far side of the glass

These minstrels pelting frigid limb and grass

Are merely nature’s restless discontent

And like the wantonness of winter-thought

They too shall pass; a twinkle in the eye

Soon we will laugh beneath warm summer sky

Or bask in oceans of for-get-me-not

It is not far to winter’s other side

Moments melt heedless, one into the next

A year veiled in soft half-breath pretext

Slips easily into Time’s thrumming tide

And all the gleaming, potent fantasies

Of better days to come that we desire

While sitting snug beside the flickering fire

Will soon be wafting in the purple autumn breeze

Janet~

Flower-Power

 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?  Matthew 6:28-30





He who denies
God and His awesome power
Has never fully beheld
The heart of a flower

Pink, gold or purple
Magenta or white
All are precious
In His sight

He who desires
To see God's wondrous power
Needs simply to ponder
The art of a flower

Janet ~

Thank-you Megan, for bringing color into a very bleary, dreary gray day:)

Thank-you Nantucket Daffodil for a splash of spring-dreaming! Love that galvanized planter.

Thank-you Kateri, for sharing your beautiful blooms~