Of Pondering and Pinnacles...a Love Sonnet

 

Soundless, night sweeps its sable sea across

Blue winter dusk, and the world disappears

Beneath its wave; this day of toil and dross

Slips to the ocean of life’s rendered years

I strain to grasp its cadence on the breeze

Years taste like salt; their tears stinging my cheek

Or, is it the caress of memories

Telling those tender thoughts I cannot speak

Of love and longing, where its swan-song falls

In rippled echoes from the vaulted deep

Tripping through retrospect’s unguarded halls

Like vagabonds with no desire to sleep

They beckon and I yield to the romance

Of blue-bell burnished zephyrs and we dance

The night is warm; beneath its purple mist

The surging swell of ticking clocks subsides

There are no moments; time does not exist

Where we retrace the echo of its tides

I feel your whisper, soft against my face

The melody of moonlight gently spills

Against the shadow of thought’s keen embrace

Somewhere a dam breaks, disregarding wills

And while the lab’rer rests and dreamers dream

While winter prowls and howls outside their doors

We sail the crest of wild, uncharted streams

Marauders swept onto deserted shores

And on the banks of time’s unfettered bliss

Here we recall and touch those things we miss

Love does not fall away like tears and years

Or petals from the polestar of the rose

Its does not drift to nameless atmospheres

Dissolving in the breadth of moment-flows

We contemplate but cannot quantify

Its measurements of rhapsody and grief

Of passion-surges curtailing the sky

Or pain in swift, staggering disbelief

The dance of retrospect does not impart

One half without the other, smile and tear

Composes love-songs cradled in the heart

In canticles that only thought can hear

I hold you close but oh, I’ve come to know

Love’s pinnacle is in the letting go

© Janet Martin

Happy Valentine's Day
May it be love-ly in every way OXOX

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Love Out-poured (an edited re-post)

 

He could have sent a prophet
A servant, meek and low
To bear the curse of evil
And hatred's cruel blow
He could have sent a king of earth
A pauper or a priest
He had the means to place His worth
Within a mindless beast
He could have sent His angels
Legions to fill the sky
To spare Himself the anguish
Of watching His Son die
He could have, with one uttered word
Declared all man forgiven
He could have, from His visage stirred
The rocks to shout salvation
But He chose to put on flesh
The Sacred Son of Heaven
Became a servant unto men
In form, lowly and human
Upon a cross He gave Himself
A King and Royal Priest
And not one drop of love withheld
As death’s curse was released
He could have sent an army
To face the fiends of hell
But He loved us so completely
That He sent Himself

Janet

Inspired by Isa. 53 and Phil. 2: 5-11

~The more we love others, the more of ourselves we give.
~Love is fulfilled in its out-pouring.
~Love speaks in a clear voice
not by words, but by choice.

Pictures...

Pictures; they just sit and stare
And they never say a word
Frozen in an image where
Hearts and memories are stirred

I pause to wipe a tender tear

Oh, it’s almost like you’re here

The night wind moans, a melody
Where arabesque thought-whispers fall
I can feel you here with me
It’s like you never left at all
I reach to touch your smiling face
No one will ever take your place

Pictures, they just sit and stare
Silver-soft echoes from the past
It's almost  more than I can bear

Yet, still I reach to hold you fast
For there are no words left to speak
My tear falls on your paper cheek

Janet~

Symbols of Love (an edited re-post)

We choose red wine, sweet chocolate, a rose
Candle-light dinner, soft music, nice clothes
We choose things of comfort, delightful and new
 In our best efforts to say, ‘I love you’

He chose a crown made of thorns, not the rose
Some nails and a cross are the symbols He chose

Clad in His blood, pierced, suffering, He cried
“Father, forgive them,” then... He died

Janet~

In Loving Hands

 

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt the Ovillajo form

Beyond my faith or fear-filled eyes

The unknown lies

Its moments shaped like precious sands   

In loving hands

Before they are released, the staff and rod

Of Father God

To test and try our grasp of dust

To teach us how to hope and trust

In One who holds our moments first

The unknown lies in loving hands of Father God

© Janet Martin

Holding Up Hands

 

We gather to lift them

To Jehovah God today

Strengthen the feeble hands, oh Lord
And steady the knees that give way

As Aaron and Hur held Moses

Until the battle had been won

We hold them in our pleading words

Crying ‘Thy will be done’

© Janet Martin

For J&R.

Of Love's Kind Learning and Kaleidescopes

 

Oh my love, it seems we cannot

Return to starry-eyed youth

Or exchange for bliss of ignorance

Wisdom’s un-embellished truth

Oh my love, now we are older

And the thing that we have learned

Is merely this; quadrille of nature’s

Seasons past can’t be returned

And the moment we are holding

Even now slips to Time’s crypt

As we hear our voices pondering

When and how these decades slipped

Oh my love, we journey forward

What is past is nothing now

But the shards of love's kind learning

Etched into its afterglow

…where scattered tumbles, triumphs, stumbles

Pattern; a kaleidoscope

Within our thought, its gilded shadows

Images of hurt and hope

Oh my love, humbly we gather

From the chaff strewn at our feet

The pearl of wisdom we have garnered

In love’s learning; bitter-sweet

© Janet Martin

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Touch Me...a Love in Marriage Poem

 

Touch me

Touch me with your eyes

The gap twixt you and I

Trembles with the fullness

Of love’s hard truths realized

Experience; years in learning

Kindles a keener spark

For love is more than reckless

Stolen kisses in the dark

Touch me

Touch me with your thought

Past warmth of pulsing skin

To the person, not of flesh

That I am from within

For time, a patient teacher

Wields love’s refining tool

And we are willing students

Testing, breaking every rule

Touch me

Oh, touch me with your hands

There is no restriction

No restraint or reprimand

In love’s pure invitation

Of passion’s purposed honor

Reserved implicitly

For one unto the other

Shared only twixt me and thee

Touch me

Darling, touch me with your lips

And whisper word for word

The hunger in your finger-tips

And longing’s oceans stirred

Then kiss me, kiss me slowly

Where inhibitions hide

Kiss away the willfulness

Protecting foolish pride

Touch me

Touch me with your loving smile

The kind that understands

The beauty of love’s chapters

Etched into enduring hands

Committed to its promise

That joined us heart to heart

'to love each other faithfully

until death do us part'

© Janet Martin