Hallelujah, Amen

Our Journey of Unknowns...a sonnet

The unknown murmurs on the burnished brink

Slipping its gossamer from east to west

We cannot know what shapes its ether-pink

Though to-do lists and duty may suggest

The Weaver of each moment intercedes

Cupping His gracious will beneath our own

We spout our wants while He supplies our needs

Melding in moment-thread, unknown to known

And while the shaft of new day rends the deeps

And skylines re-appear, a circle-scope

Of east, south, west and north; His visage keeps

Vast eons anchored in His steadfast hope

We place our fears within His faithful hand

Trusting the God of sky and sea and land

Gladness, sadness, flow'r and shower merge

The darlings of His never-changing grace

Embark on tides of morning’s mercy-surge

Ignorant of the breadth of His embrace

For we will not escape His tender gaze

The sky, the land and sea are but the shell

Where shadows of His potent wonder splays

In whispered fringes of Heaven and hell

And though the unknown spreads its light-less veil

Across our tarnished visage; Faithful God

Releases this day’s moments from Love’s grail

His fount of Goodness nurtures soul and sod

We stuff out mouths; Hunger is not destroyed

The infant and the aged bear its void

The earth is lathered green in Spring’s caress

Before the sheen of winter binds its girth

Last year's unknowns are known; grief, happiness

Unfold and fold again, four-season's worth

Before another year falls to the crypt

Where Time; the fulcrum twixt unknown and known

Establishes in present; yet has slipped

The filament of centuries to stone

We bow beneath the Hand of Eden’s seal

The constellations also bow to Him

For none transcends the One who moves Time's wheel

The God of ages cups our wish and whim

Where known and unknown subsist, juxtaposed

The rose exists within the bud, still closed

© Janet Martin

Like Phantom Poetry

Tonight the darkness rolls across the day

A wave of cobalt over dismal gray

The twilight keens with tardy April snow

A memory of someone long ago

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost I touch its soulful melody

Up, up, into the frosty moonless dark

The echo drifts, love-song upon a spark

And soon its ballad fades into the air

Where April runs its fingers through my hair

And midnight folds the hour to its embrace

Expanding history’s ethereal space

How large the night of moonless minuet

Strange and remote, the ghostly silhouette

Of ravaged pine, where winter’s tireless gale

Returns in confused, mumbled madrigal

And naked willows weep, hungering for

Night-song to sweep the silver garden-floor

Tonight the quietude of April snow

Muffles the tread of stragglers as they go

Searching, as I for that elusive star

Where past resides and summer wishes are

And from the deep like phantom poetry

Almost, almost I feel you close to me

J~

On Autopilot

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write an auto poem. Auto could mean automobile, automatic, automaton, or any number of possibilities.

She turns her hands to auto-pilot
Wipes the counters, sweeps the floor
Folds the laundry while she travels
To the bliss of sun-swept shores
Her hands remain upon their chores

She turns her feet to auto-pilot
Sink to fridge to stove; repeat
While she treads the path of duty
Venice and Brazil compete
The greens in Ireland are sweet

When she is in auto-pilot
She has prayed her children home
Designed gardens and surprises
Traversed Austria and Rome
...or perhaps, written a poem

I wave to those on auto-pilot
Shaking mats, watering plants
They smile with envy as I wander
To the pier where sunbeams dance
MOM! DID YOU DO LAUNDRY? I NEED PANTS!

Janet:)

The Constanza Form...Rain-refrain and Seventeen

The Constanza; Poetic Bloomings invites us to try this form. (The error in this poem is my first lines are not an independent poem....the second stanza is the glitch)) The Constanza, created by Connie Marcum Wong, consists of five or more 3-line stanzas. Each line has a set meter of eight syllables. The first lines of all the stanzas can be read successively as an independent poem, with the rest of the poem weaved in to express a deeper meaning. The first lines convey a theme written in monorhyme, while the second and third lines of each stanza rhyme together.

Rain-refrain

She falls, silver; a sweeping sigh

From founts of low-flung pewter cloud

Drenching the winter-weary shroud

She sings; a melody where I

Am seized with a sweet-surging hurt

To bathe my hands in garden dirt

She sparkles; sequin-studded sky

Embellishing each blade of grass

With nature’s froth of liquid glass

She murmurs, ‘farmer, do not cry

God holds spring’s phial in His will

Un-clenching frost-bound ridge and rill’

She laughs; a sassy, splashy high

For in euphoric aftermath

Wild blooms ensconce the muddy path

She croons; a soulful lullaby

Beyond the porch her passion streams

As rain-song rivers kiss our dreams

© Janet Martin

Let's Try Again...

Seventeen...

My love; will you still love me true?

When youth and middle-age fall prey

To ticking clocks and locks of gray?

And will you murmur 'I love you'

As if we were still seventeen

Without a clue what 'love' will mean

When I am old, bent by love's due

Will you still kindly take my hand

And whisper oh, babe, ain't love grand?

Will we gaze down past's avenue

With hearts humble and meekly awed

That we remain, by grace of God?

When we are old, will love imbue

Each day with sweet and sacred truth

Renewing vows made in our youth?

Each step; will we be one or two

When we are old and frail and weak?

Will you still kiss my wrinkled cheek?

And will we whisper 'I love you'

When we are old; will we be mean

Or will we still be seventeen?

Janet~

The Now-factor

 (how can it be? It is always 'now' yet now is a constant transformation!)

You are always in the moment

Yet you probe the pedicle

Breathing buds into full beauty

Tuning autumn’s canticle

You are always in the moment

Not a flicker or a sigh

In the ethereal cohesion

Of a decade passing by

You abide, instant, eternal

Gentle, ruthless half-breath clone

Nudging daughters into women

In your moment-monotone

You are always ever-present

Past and future, what are they

But the gossamery essence

Turning raven locks to gray

You are always in the moment

Tell me then, how can it be

That a moment takes the future

Sealing it in history

What is your secret; century-weaver

Mouthed in muted moment-chime

For I cannot feel you passing

Metamorphosis of Time

© Janet Martin

I Love You, I Hate You (two-for-two-Tues.)

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• Image Source
• 
  
•  April Pad Challenge; Today's Prompt
• Write a love poem.
• Write an anti-love poem.

I seem to love you so

And easily fall prey

To fickle wishes, wants and whims

That you cajole my way

Yes, I must love you so

These second miles I run

To satisfy your restless eye

Declares my devotion

Though your attention span

Is pathetic at best

I hunger for the nuances

Of pleasures you suggest

But oh, I hate you so

The flesh is hard to please

And never fully satisfied

With my best loyalties

Oh, yes I hate you so

The way I bow to serve

Your flighty notions and desires

Disgust my burst of nerve

Oh, how I hate you so

You war against the One

Who whispers peace, and loves me so

In spite of what I’ve done

© Janet Martin

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:

the spirit indeed is willing,

but the flesh is weak. Matt. 26:41

 

Our 'Oughts'

 

He gave His Best for us

Then how much more ought we

To offer Him our utter-best

In meek humility

He gave His life for us

Then how much more ought we

To return our lives to Him

In service, thankfully

He gives His best to us

Love's grace; ought we not give

The best we have to Him who gave

His best so we may live?

© Janet Martin