Green

Many a month may boast its fare

And flaunt their robes of splendor

But I have yet to wander where

There is a robe more tender

Than June with coat of evergreen

In vivid shade or lazy

From woodland haunts of emerald sheen

To fields of dew and daisy

The rolling hills in splendor reign

Above lush dell and hollow

I hear their whispers soft and green

They taunt with trails to follow

Into the crooning underbrush

Of cool green shadows sighing

Beneath the sweeping, languid hush

Of willow-branches crying

Winter, oh take your dazzling white

Autumn, regale your glory

Those crimson hillsides flaming bright

Today, do nothing for me

Today I’ll rest in summer’s arms

Of June’s resplendent treasure

Of glorious green in countless forms

 Expanding without measure

 Janet~

Megan reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago. Thank-you Megan, for your interest and for sharing it:) We can revel in June for 2 more days!This years it looks like a lush,green July as well, due to an abundance of rain!

Stolen Flowers

These are some of the flower-stands that we passed when we were out and about today.

  

Keeping from God what is not ours

Is like gazing with pride at stolen flowers

(Right now the roadside stands are brimming with blooms; drop your money in container provided and pick a bouquet. I wondered if they have trouble with people simply taking the flowers, then I thought; how could anyone enjoy stolen flowers? This thought was followed by immediate conviction)

Summer Madrigal

When streams in silver ribbon tease

The meadows flush with clover bloom

As winter’s fireside fantasies

Embellish nature’s living-room

When dawn melts gold into each rill

And dusk leans long against earth’s loam

Cajoled by lark and whippoorwill

And mother’s calling children home

Then we are all princes and lords

As summer spills its sanguine hoards

When sea-song rolls across bare feet

Where gulls waft high on hazy blues

And winds grow lazy in the heat

Rippling on milkweed avenues

When golden-rod sprouts plumes of green

And earth is giddy 'neath its crown

Then surely summer is a queen

And we the stragglers on her gown

As daisy rivers drift awry

Where ditches lure the roving eye

When lovers stroll exotic lanes

Behind the barn beneath the moon

Or pictures pulse within our veins

Begging to spill in ink-fraught swoon

On easels formed of sun-swept hill

Where palettes pour their rainbow yield

In petal-poem madrigal

Of flowers flowing through a field

As summer flings ajar her door

There are no beggars on her shore

© Janet Martin

Since this is the last day of school before summer-break I treated myself to a long bike ride this morning...well sort-of treated because it ended up being a ride in the rain;) Still, summer swelled in top-notch form!

Words and/or Action

 Image Source

 

Words ease our conscience

And make us feel good

But a living example

Needs no substitute

Wise words are golden

And essential

But only when spoken

In action as well

Words spell instruction

But its message is clearer

If our action

Reflects in its mirror

© Janet Martin

Of Beacons and Dreamers

 

Image Source

Oh, let me never hinder

Or snuff the giddy gleam

Lighting your lithesome laughter

And the power to your dream

Oh, let me never crumple

Your footloose fantasy

Or make you fearful to embrace

More than the eye can see

But let me gently urge you

With kindly words or wise

For no one ever conquers, dear

What no one ever tries

And let me never tarnish

Or trample on the hope

That keeps you gazing yonder

To that fair and phantom slope

Let me never extinguish

That dear and darling spark

For to a dreamer it will be

Your beacon in the dark 

© Janet Martin

This may seem like it is not very hard to do, but sometimes it is!

Heart-thief...to my fifteen year-old son

Contemplating the end of a school year re-ignited the words I wrote for my son a year ago when he graduated from Grade 8.

 

 

 

It is not a swift wrenching from my grasp

Or my chest

As you steal my heart

No.

It is a patient sort of tender anguish

Probing,

Pondering

Sweet and slow,

It is rendered in sudden

Intake of breath

A smile

A tear

A sigh

It trembles beneath me

Deep in the earth

As I look into your eyes

For I know full well

That parting lurks

Somewhere, in quiet wait

I hear it in the creaking

Of the rusty garden gate

And how your step

Falls heavier

Than when you were a lad

It makes me fully happy

And oh,

So fully sad

To know that you are stealing

With my blessing

Part by part

The deep

Innermost lining

Of your

Mother’s

Heart

© Janet Martin

Release

I found myself breathing these words this morning...

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

And not to live in hopeless need

But with the peace of sweet release

Allowing You to intercede

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

To place the weight of faithless fear

Within the grace of Your embrace

Remembering that You are near

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

Relinquishing each care-worn part

Dear Lord, I need faith’s mustard seed

Help me to trust with all my heart

© Janet Martin

Sometimes it feels like there's an added weight to life's loads of care, Lord, help me pray then leave it there.

 Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and shun evil.
⁸ This will bring health to your body
    and nourishment to your bones. Prov. 3:3-8

Of Breath-bindings

They drift away

Gossamer shells

Without a flicker

Of farewell

And though they hold

Within their clutch

The staggering

Softness of touch

Where love and loss

And longing bleed

Where hope and faith

And honor plead

Where blood and sweat

And tears caress

The footfalls

Of our humanness

And monumental

Penitence

Bound in half-breath

Deliverance

They slip into the

Languid hour

Plucking the

Glory from the flower

And children from

A mother’s reach

They rend, they croon

Tender and teach

Then slip into

Impassive air

Buoyed by whispered

Wings of prayer

Or perhaps

Just a little sigh

As we murmur

Good-bye, good-by

But they do not turn

To reply

Or brush the teardrop

From our eye

Though they have stolen

Part by part

The utmost linings

Of the heart

They spin into

The atmosphere

Beneath a guise

That we call

Year

Janet~ 

So many year endings and beginnings in a year. This heat-wave has finished off this year's peonies abruptly, the school-year ends, another year of summer-vacation begins, Moments molding Milestones melting into moments making memories.

Inhale.
Exhale.
Life.