The Color of Extra-ordinary

There are no 'ordinaries' on a sunny spring day

Polished with azure and honey-kissed hue

Even the mundane is grandiose because

The color of 'extra' is spring-sky's gold-on-blue

There are no ordinaries on a green May day

Dappled with violet-song wooing our feet

Duty is pleasure where spring's artist doles

The color of 'extra' in sun-warm-and-sweet

Janet Martin~

Spring's Loveliness

She spills to earth such lovely things

The birth of leaf like new-born wings

Of butterfly from dark cocoon

Unfolding in delicate swoon

She frolics, splashing on the hill

Gold diadem of daffodil

And from the swamp of mud and musk

Spring-peepers herald the silver dusk

She sprinkles violets on the slope

In fragrant metaphors of hope

She unfurls purple lilac-stars

And fill the woods with choristers

The quarry far beneath mute sod

Is ripe with miracles from God

And then one night a gentle sheen

Drapes stricken soil in verdant green

It seems that none can shun her call

Of sun-clad feet and blossom shawl

She grins from cups of tulip-grace

Ah, spring has such a lovely face

© Janet Martin

This is the Hour

This is the hour

Where April’s last shower

Has spilled its endearments to spring’s breathless bud

And this is the chapter

Where May’s buoyant laughter

Kisses the landscape in emerald flood

We sign our pardon

In bare feet and gardens

Instant forgiveness for winter’s long stay

For this is the hour

Of sunshine and flower

As April’s last shower slips up and away

© Janet Martin

It's as if May knew we were expecting the opposite of April's lingering showers! We have four days of sunshine in the forecast!

Of Being a Mother

• April's final PAD challenge; Two-for-two Tuesday
• Write a finished poem.
• Write a never finished poem.

It's the unendingness of it all that is staggering
Burden and beauty tenderly entwine
Soon little hands tug away from our reaching
Tendrils of new bloom twisting from the vine
And often we wander within the heart's pondering
Over the years that flow seamless and brief
Learning that labor-pain is but the dawning
Of love's keen travail in its tender-sweet grief
Vigilant caring and joy like no other
This is the labor of being a mother

First motherhood; virgin unawareness
Eager and ignorant; hope undefiled
Wails, now dependent on this girl-child woman
Laughing and weeping, she cradles her child
And we are forever in our bosom severed
We will never be who we were before
As fear and faith rival where innocence trembles
And motherhood places its wreath on our door
High, holy calling unlike any other
This is the charge of being a mother

Ecstasy, agony, holding, releasing
Heaven's allotment placed into our care
Tenderly teaching within our reaching
And earnest beseeching from hands clasped in prayer
For in the magnitude of love's great vocation
God  will not leave us like sheep in the wild
The Shepherd of mortal is faithful and patient
He holds the mother as she holds her child
Granting His mercy unlike any other
This is the comfort of being a mother

Janet Martin

I could never forgive myself for some of my mothering mistakes, but for the knowing that God forgives.

Of Renewed Aspiration

We touch our feet once more

To Time’s familiar way

Of ticking clocks and charted walks

And living’s scattered fray

The mist of life’s unknowns

May veil the hour’s will

But God beholds its ether folds

The pleasant and the ill

We touch our feet upon

Hope’s path of trampled dirt

For God abides where fear resides

In living’s lonesome hurt

Before the purple dusk

Enshrouds this little day

I pray that we live thankfully

And trust God for its way

© Janet Martin

Unnamed Elements

In onyx oceans of night you impress

Soft on my pillow and deep in my heart

Whispers of something I cannot caress

Murmur of yearning’s intangible art

Spring rends the air with desire and dreaming

Summer exhales to the garden its bloom

Autumn dons tresses of bronze-gilded gleaming

Darling, is winter heaven’s waiting room?

I cannot name this unspoken design

Where having and holding and hoping align

Time is a troubadour, ruthless and keen

Ageless, yet in its allotment of years

It unravels hours from gossamer skein

Kissing our faces with laughter and tears

We cannot see its outstretched fingers clasp

The delicate thread of mortality

Fading to naught; an ephemeral gasp

Before we step into eternity

But deeper than utterance in the heart’s crypt

Love pens its longing in thought’s shadow-script

Darkness cannot veil haunting heart-hunger

Arms cannot hold midnight moments of mist

We chased the wind too, when we were younger

For unnamed tidings that do not exist

Now, though our will in finest apparel

Touts golden wisdom, humbly we concede

Having and holding is the shallow temporal

Before heaven satisfies our last need

Darling, I love you and there is no shame

In bearing love’s longings that we cannot name

© Janet Martin

I am unable to upload photos right now due to technical problems.

Unrivaled Element

Love gives in gentle grace

What things cannot possess

For things are cold and commonplace

Against love’s kind caress

Its armistice endures

Unrivaled element

Of motive, perfect, patient, pure

And self-irrelevant

Love does not lose its nerve

Nor clings to greedy gain

Love gives and shares without reserve

From selfless founts within

Oh Lord, how great You are

Lord, there is none like you

You see the intent of our hearts

Yet love us through and through

© Janet Martin

Life's Bittersweet

So it goes, the river flows

In ripples to the sea

And moments course in half-breath force

Into eternity

Spring’s darling sheen of virgin green

Is nothing but the bud

Of autumn-rust to dormant dust

And leaf-song to the mud

…so it goes; Time will compose

And tenderly descry

With soundless beat Life’s Bittersweet

Of hello and good-bye

© Janet Martin