Before the Poems...

Already then, I knew

That there was something more

To life than what we see on skin

Of moments as they pour

How else could walnut-leaf

Etched bold on cobalt sky

Kissed gold in late-day sultry sun

Hurt me so perfectly?

And how could babbling brook

Evoke, without a word

Irrevocable bliss-song

Within its silver splurge

Or how could jaunty breeze

Drunk on clover-pink bloom

Invite this little me to dance

In nature’s grand ball-room

…or this; weeping of wind

Drifting lost; aimlessly

Through winter’s stricken woodlot

Where a leaf-song used to be

…soft purple-misted dawn

Heady with dazzling dreams

Of summer-splashing recklessly

Through merry moment-streams

Already then I knew

When I was but a child

Something unwritten beckoned

In the air, driving me wild

© Janet Martin

When I was a child, on Saturday mornings before we were old enough to help, we were 'shooed' from the kitchen so Mother could give it it's weekly floor-scrub and wax. Those mornings sometimes seemed to last eternally, esp. in the cold winter when I didn't feel like waiting in the barn. But then I would 'traipse' all over the place. Some of those memories are etched in my mind. This morning suddenly I recalled standing in a woodlot, wondering what made it so different in the winter...ah, yes! the silence. This woodlot is mostly cleared away now, but it was there I fell in love; with violets, lilacs, apple-blossoms, forget-me-not and sun-dappled green. At our creek I discovered the thrill of brook-song; I can hear it still. Thank-you Mom:) and God.

The Way Life Goes

Sunlight-sparkle on the snow

That’s the way a life can go

Little ripple in a brook

Paragraph in time’s vast book

Little kiss and little love

Soon we fly to arms above

Like a petal on the breeze

Life; a wisp of memories

Half-breath whisper in our ear

So a life can disappear

Fragments slipping through our clasp

Gossamer we cannot grasp

Little you and little me

Pause before eternity

God is great and God is good

Help us live life as we should

© Janet Martin

Daydream Defiance

Here I will sit to revel a bit

In stubborn defiance

My lavender dream

Will fill the chill in a purple-blue thrill

Drenching my thought

With sweet summer-requiem

Here on this bench fond memories drench

Winter’s bold bluff

With sunflower guile

While ice-petal wrath sweeps my garden path

I hear the echo

Of bare feet and I smile

© Janet Martin

Only Love

What conquers evil, quenches hate?

What pales infinity above,

Beneath us, all around

Only one thing

Only love

What fights and wins with tenderness

And never fails in spite of us?

What exceeds thoughts circumference?

Only one thing

Only love

What is this thing of blood and dirt?

Unglamorous, its splattered glove

Yet yields a precious, perfect hurt?

Only one thing,

Only love

What fills lust’s futile wantonness

With promises of pain and grief?

What melts the cold and calloused heart

Dissolving chains of unbelief?

What is this thing whereby we die

Suffering its cross to prove

We cannot ever fully live

Without it; one thing

Only love

© Janet Martin

 What spurs the gardener to prune the rose

Or the farmer to till his field?

Love bears the pain because it shows

Not then, but in the yield

Image Source

Of Storm-song and Promise

Darkness relents; day’s argent surf rolls mute

Out to the melded fringe of land and sky

Where none its austere anthem can refute

As gales shiver our summer dreams awry

Beyond the window, frigid fathoms seethe

Parting ice lips in cold and cheerless mirth

Yet none restrains the potent pulse beneath

Of life held in the womb of mother earth

Where delicate wild anemone still sleeps

Forget-me-not and violet whisper quenched

Before the fragrant, purple river sweeps

Across the emerald vale of spring unclenched

Earth’s frozen scrim of winter-white is kissed

With visions of frothed pink and amethyst

Beyond the dappled pane we hunch to brace

The tides lashing our pallid skiff of skin

Clinging to promises of golden grace

Clad in a dashing zephyr’s welcome grin

Then, watch the screaming, scowling felon wilt

His rival threatens not with bully roar

But challenges with bits of sunshine spilt

In puddles warm against earth’s south-faced shore

Before it spreads, virile and ravishing

Across the plain, over hollow and hill

Melting beneath its lovely lavishing

Winter’s tenacity and waning will

And soon the still and sterile snowbound lane

Will smell of dust beneath a summer rain

The skeleton of naked apple tree

The maple and the willow, silent, strong

Suffer the span twixt snow and honey-bee

And bud-pods bursting with summer night-song

Outside the wind moans, searching for the choir

Of quivering aspen, poplar, elm and birch

He rakes the stark and unrelenting spire

The woodlot hushed like Monday-morning church

And so he wails across unfettered field

As sleet-tears sting our cheeks, our lips and eyes

His grief exchanged; raw, raging tempests wield

Their utmost in longing’s stormy disguise

A soloist; his passion amplifies

As a cappella storm-song fills the skies

© Janet Martin

Our thoughts are with those on the eastern sea-board once again. Be warm, Be safe.

We are snow-bound in a very broad region in Ontario today.

Thursday Thoughts on Things Re-discovered

Most people cannot resist

Freshly-baked cookies

Or love

***

If you ignore people long enough

Eventually they leave

If you ignore laundry hampers long enough

They don’t

***

Nothing warms the heart

Like a bowl of soup

Enjoyed with gusto

By a hungry lad

***

Sing a song of diligence

The fire will not die

If it is tended carefully

By love’s vigilant eye

***

When nothing else will do

But your voice

I pick up the phone

***

Ah yes, the garden glistens

Beneath a sheaf of snow

Yet perfect is the vision

Of dream-blooms as they grow

***

The Lord is my Shepherd

I shall not want

Unless I take my eyes from Him

Janet~

Double-edged Storm

On nights like tonight, when what was is not

When will does not thwart Wants’ vain, vexing guile

Then I succumb to your touch and I smile

A beggar for moments preserved in my thought

On nights like tonight its mutinous air

Cuts like the talons of a hungry beast

And there is no north, south, west or east

Beneath the hollow of thought’s sable stare

On nights like tonight, I cannot eclipse

The oceans that surge in the cup of my heart

Merging with waves that keen night-winds impart

In insolent kisses on thought’s vagrant lips

On nights like tonight as its rage is unfurled

An icy, white vengeance, a double-edged storm

I pull you against me; your whisper is warm

As thought against thought we wander the world

© Janet Martin

True Worship

We worship you Lord

Not only in song

Or verbal fluency

But Lord,

We worship as we serve

In love’s humility

© Janet Martin

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. John 4:23