A Mother's Touch

Once she warmed thick, thirsty towels

In the microwave

Just to hear the delighted gratitude

Of bubble-bathed toddler-grins

Now she runs her hands over taffeta,

Chiffon and linen

Wedding plans

Once she lingered long

Cradling new-born feet in her hands

Wondering

Where life would take them

Now she trips over shoes

Left on the mat inside the door

During their pit-stops

Once she faced forward

Touching with trepidation

Words like teenager and driver’s license

Now she looks back

Wondering at the haste

Of founded fears

And moment-spun years

Once she held their soft, untrained hands

Overcome with awe

At the potential in them

Beneath patient instruction and teaching

Now she looks down at her own

Realizing that in the reaching and releasing

They were teaching her

© Janet Martin

Thought-gold

Though you are far away from me tonight

Thought is not bound by miles of land or sea

And you are not so far away from me

I reach to touch you in the words I write

The henchman of an hour never sleeps

But snuffs each moment as it slips to naught

He is not able to embezzle thought

Nor can he reach to steal the charge it keeps

For thought shapes the persuasions of the heart

The heart can hold a myriad of hours

And though it seems that we are far apart

I touch you like the sun kisses the flowers

Love cradles in its thought the finer art

Of hope and prayer and all that this empowers

The pilferage of moments fills the clutch

Of days, then weeks to years to centuries

The proof of their passage is memories

And only thought this corridor can touch

Tonight you press against the dark incline

Of midnight’s keen yet muted eloquence

And I embrace thought’s tender recompense

Of moments that have fallen from the vine

Then you are not so far away from me

And Time, though measured in numeric stance

Is powerless to bind a memory

Or chain its feet, forbidding us to dance

The law of love and loss and poetry

Unites us in its everlasting trance

We shoulder cares; perhaps the spoil of toil

The heart though it may break, seals the caress

Of joy and sorrow’s valiant tenderness

While tear’s are but the off-spring of its moil

Tonight, though miles declare expanses vast

Twixt you and I; we know the truth of thought

It travels beyond measured chart or jot

We are not far apart; thought binds us fast

The entities that fill our fumbling hold

Fall uselessly beneath the gilded clime

Where hearts embrace and lovingly enfold

The fragments of a moment’s lilt and rhyme

In treasure-troves of precious thought-forged gold

Its coffers gleam with offerings of Time

© Janet Martin

Hunter or Hunted?

Image source

The hunter must a-hunting go

Say, what will be his prey?

He cannot snare with shaft and bow

A sunny summer day

So what will be his prey?

The hunter must a-hunting go

Pity the sluggard then

Who has no thirst to chase the glow

Of dreams common to men

Pity the sluggard then

The hunter must a-hunting go

Will we be hunter or his yield?

We cannot be a ‘nothing’ so

Pick up your weapon or your shield

For I hear footsteps in the field

© Janet Martin

Awesome Wonder...

(tonight was one of those 'awesome wonder' nights')

I have stood upon a shore

Where century-shaped breakers roar

And I have seen the winter yield

To summer’s sanguine clover field

I have held and I’ve let go

I’ve seen the melding ebb and flow

Of joy and sorrow intertwined

Beyond our mastery designed

I’ve seen the brawny bud unfold

To bleed its bloom in autumn gold

I’ve watched a child traverse the span

To see a boy become a man

I’ve stood beneath the twilight’s dirge

To watch the skyline Artist splurge

I’ve asked Him, “My God, what is man?

That You are mindful yet of him

I have lived to dream and dance

To taste the grace of second chance

And know for all not understood

The truth remains that God is good

© Janet Martin

Echo of Good-by

The rush of green has come again

The shores have shed their frozen main

The seas of winter, harsh and cold

Glimmer once more with bits of gold

Yet, still upon Spring’s verdure I

Can hear an echo of good-by

Good-by

Good-by

The pleasantries of bloom and breeze

Fall prey, as seasons must appease

Time’s fixed appeal, a phantom reel

Of dust to dust’s eternal seal

And oft upon the vesper I

Perceive the echo of good-by

Good-by

Good-by

Parting; is it sweet sorrow then?

This agony of mortal men

Is it love’s everlasting hope

Of something far beyond earth’s slope?

Within this mien of moments I

Embrace the echo of good-by

Good-by

Good-by

J~

Til we Meet Again Johnny Ried

Till We Meet Again...Doris Day

It's Today...

It’s today; the threads of yesterday can never be un-spun

Tomorrow is a canvas on which nothing can be done

But now, beneath our feet and hands, oh see its offering splay

The framework of accomplishment transpires; it’s today

Step bold and humbly to the runway of time’s offering

For soon its coffers will be emptied of its silk and string

But now unfurls the imminence of all we do and say

To each the same, a span of moments to employ; Today

The pattern of a lifetime is not woven in the morrow

The filament of yesterday we cannot steal or borrow

But now, the invitation rings from morning’s gold and gray

As mercy lends its bounty in another gift; Today

Do not despair or try to bear what we can never alter

The past and future are its own; beneath their weight we falter

But God above in gracious love imparts His strength and stay

And He will give us just enough for what we need; Today

© Janet Martin

It's Twilight

It’s twilight; the cerulean sweep of azure afternoon

Declares the glory of the Lord in soft magenta swoon

The billowed breadth of moments like a highway to the sky

Claims one more day of gathered fray into the by and by

It’s twilight; now the vesper of the sparrow and the lark

Compete and then grow softer as the purple sky grows dark

The seeds that we have sown today are transiently concealed

Until the certain harvest when its fruit will be revealed

It’s twilight; money-changers count their nickels and their dimes

The mother rocks her baby and the opaque hour climbs

Up to the pinnacle of night before the morrow slips

Across its ephemeral form with ether fingertips

It’s twilight; lovely is its languid farewell melody

As darkness spreads its being over land and sky and sea

Darling, I draw the shutters, dim the lights and bar the door

But cannot mute the murmur where ink-fraught oceans implore

© Janet Martin~

Sequel to It’s Midnight and It’s Morning

I like this song...

 

Twilight Is Stealing

 

Words: Aldine Silliman Kieffer
Music: Twilight Is Stealing | Benjamin Carl Unseld

 

 

Twilight is stealing, over the sea,
Shadows are stealing dark on the lea;
Borne on the night winds, voices of yore
Come from the far-off shore.

Voices of loved ones, songs of the past,
Still linger round me while life shall last;
Lonely I wander, sadly I roam,
Seeking that far-off home.

Come in the twilight, come, come to me!
Bringing some message, over the sea,
Cheering my pathway, while here I roam,
Seeking that far-off home.

Refrain:
Far away beyond the starlit skies,
Where the love-light never, never dies,
Gleameth a mansion, filled with delight,
Sweet happy home so bright!

Portrait of a Mother (re-post)

 

 

She leaves her youth upon the grass
Where all her happy children pass
She dons a robe of profound merit
God will show her how to wear it
Its filament is firm yet mild
Woven by fingers of a child
Marked by the tears of joy and strife 

And quickened years that form her life
Graciously she bows her head
To wear this cloak of meeker thread

While stages fill and man applauds
The march of fame and lesser gods
She has known the best there is
In childish hugs and good-night kiss
And she has seen love's fairest prize

Gleaming in her children’s eyes
No wild applause or acclamation
For the hand which holds a nation
Silently she bows her head
And trusts God for His faithful lead

Her children rise and call her blessed

To recognize earth's utter-best
As humbly she her will resigns
To Hands which brush her face with lines
While Vanity would stop and gaze
With pity on her love-lined face
She would do it all again
To know she has not loved in vain
For Vanity with all its charms
Can never fill a mother’s arms

No great award, no Hall of Fame
To reward this humble name
Yet there can never be another
Name, as honorable as Mother
So while the buxom hours pass
To shed their petals on the grass
She will thank God for the hours
Where she tended sweeter flowers
In a garden like no other
Reserved for one which we call Mother

Janet Martin