Complete

We wash the dishes, polish sinks

Making living-quarters neat

We add the touch of blooms and such

But still, something is not complete

We do the laundry, fill the fridge

With healthy and good things to eat

And yet we sense a keen absence

Of something just not quite complete

We scrub the floors and fuss about

The mess left by way-faring feet

And almost there, we touch the air

Of something keen and incomplete

The front-door slams, someone calls ‘Mom’?

Ah yes, they say silence is sweet

I like the noise of girls and boys

Shaping what makes a home complete

Thank-you Lord, the daily war

Of cleaning-cooking-cares repeat

Yet, in the end they bind and blend

The joys that make a home complete

© Janet Martin

Last night at supper I tried recording the family in ‘lively conversation’ to put it mildly. I sort of missed the moment but it struck me how the completeness of living is not in its tidiness or quietness but in its noise and messes. I like being the listener to their debates/arguments; usually Matt versus sisters, something like-Why People Who Belch are Happier Than Those Who Don’t, etc…

Matt Versus Sisters (of course, at fifteen he enjoys few things more than driving his sisters CRAZY!)

Often, if hubby calls during the day and asks what I’m doing my answer will be something like, ‘oh, laundry, or cleaning or dishes’. ‘Again?’ he asks, ‘Is that all you do?’ No it’s not, but I do it a lot!

Of Happiness and Success...oh! and canned sausage

Success, for all its promises

Of comfort, luxury and bliss

Cannot, when all is said and done

Favor the heart with happiness

But happiness is that fair thing

Elusive to the hand of greed   

Its joy leaps from an obscure spring

Where love extends itself to need

The triumph of a life well-lived

And its rendition of success

Lies not in fortune’s vanity

But in the key to happiness

This key opens a precious vault

Filled, not with gold or silver boast

But with endowments visible

To those who’ve found what matters most

© Janet Martin

Sometimes happiness is a simple as sausage-on-a-bun with mustard!

...and sometimes God blesses us with the acquaintance of those who we know have found it and they seem to share it without realizing it; happiness.

We had a great day together. While I taught her of canning sausage she taught me of happiness; trust, joy, peace in spite of great unknowns as we chatted about families, marriage, love and souls; the everlasting-ness of souls bound to one of two destinies...and of how much God loves us and His desire is that not one soul should be lost.

Canned pork-sausage may not look so appealing but it is so great for a quick meal! Simply order your sausage in bulk. Spiral or place cut pieces in sterilized canning jar until full to the neck of the jar. Wipe jar-rim before placing sterilized lids on each one. Place in *Canner-pot. Cover with cold water and bring to a rolling boil. reduce heat to med. and steam for 3 hrs. Remove from heat.do not move jars while they are cooling. After they are sealed wash them and store jars in a cool, dry place.Meat will keep for months! Simply brown and serve. 

* Canner 

Summer and Poets

On canvasses of rolling green summer employs its will

On parchment unmarred and pristine a poet’s passions spill

Into the dell, on hill and field summer flings floral font

Against the knell of thought’s appeal a poet bleeds his vaunt

On moss and bracken tapestry summer releases rain

Across midnight serenity a poet frees his pain

As summer’s dawn breaks through the deep and day is new again

The poet rouses from his sleep to feed his hungry pen

  

On filament of sky and sod summer unfurls its mien

The poet sees the hand of God within earth’s mezzanine

And in the aftermath of summer all that will remain to see

Are the paths where poets wander searching for His poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Footprints, Fantasies and Forgetting

And so I went back there to stand

Where we had walked and talked that day

But the shadows in the sands

Of Time were strange, misshapen gray

The songs we listened to and danced

Like children on sweet summer’s shore

Seemed to have rendered their romance

To seasons and the ocean’s roar

And when I went back there tonight

In search of what we had that day

All I could find in the moonlight

Were footprints that had washed away

© Janet Martin

Cyber-Soulmates

Our paths cross

We never meet

Save for a dance

On cyber-street

Our eyes touch

A common place

Of poetry

In cyber-space

Our thoughts entwine

World’s apart

There’s no such thing

As a cyber-heart

Janet~

Thank-you for dropping by on this cyber-porch wherever and whoever in the world you are. I hope you are blessed and encouraged for we are in this life together.

Of Sea-songs and Life-shores or Life-songs and Sea-shores

Oh, tender place where we embrace

And trace the face of lithesome years

Oh, paradox of ticks and tocks

Pleasing, teasing thought’s atmospheres

Oh vesper-lay, soft you replay

The memories of home sweet home

Mind-madrigals as season’s pulse

A steady, silent metronome

Oh, chanting rhyme of rifting time

Of still-life eons you employ

Good-bye, hello, hold on, let go

An ebb and flow of grief and joy

Oh summer dusk of mist and musk

Rousing a phantom pantomime

Of clocks and locks, of ticks and tocks

Shaping a little thing called Time

Oh, subtle tide, how brief Time’s stride

How permanent its destiny

We touch the sand upon a strand

Leading to vast eternity

© Janet Martin

Why are we so reluctant to speak of the inevitable; eternity?

June

June; hearth of summer’s opulence

Of greenest greens and purest blues

Where daisy-gardens gild the fence

And garnish hillside avenues

June; luxury of summer’s glades

Before parched landscapes gasp and groan

Relenting to the warmer shades

Of gold and russet undertone

June; canopy of summer's mirth
Of butterfly and bloom-brushed slope
As from the pulsing vaults of earth
Nature exalts its Author's hope

June; rhapsody of wren and rose

In manuscripts written by God

For no mortal can quite compose

The poetry of sky and sod

© Janet Martin

Night-whisperer

The pink orb drops away, away

A killdeer trills its farewell lay

From meadow swathed in purple mist

Where wafts the scent of hay, dew-kissed

Softly the bluer ramparts lower

Closing the lids of child and flower

Folding to fast, eternal rest

Each moment cradled and caressed

As willow tree and zephyr sigh

A slow and sultry lullaby

Now thought grows long, tender and deep

Soon weariness will yield to sleep

As pliant hours pour their mien

In raven draught across the green

Over the crag and trampled grass

Night tips the darkness from its glass

And we borrow from wiser men

Words to sustain midnight’s mute pen

Straining to hear the words they speak

In whispered tears upon the cheek

© Janet Martin