Silly Lily or Why, Indeed?

"Silly lily", said Victoria. "Why do you pull away from the very thing that gives you life?" Yes, why indeed?
(we are watching with interest, the lily that began as a tall, straight stem. The stem keeps curling. It pulled the flower down to the jar rim then continued to curl up, up...)

Why do we stray and pull away

Within temptation, grief and strife

Choosing to trust the gods of dust

Instead of He who gives us life?

Janet~

John 1:4
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

When This Day is Done...

Oh, when this day is done

Its jargon and its jest

And when the morning sun

Melts bronze beneath the west

Will we, when it is gone

Sealed in past’s soldered chest

Be satisfied because

We offered it our best?

Oh, when this little day

Joins history’s mute cast

To spill its gold and gray

In pictures of the past

And when its echoes splay

In memory’s caress

Will we be glad to say

Today we did our best?

When dusk returns to hide

This ripple in Time’s stream

And claim within its tide

The discourse of its dream

When this day’s stills its stride

To rest where all days rest

Will we be satisfied

Because we did our best?

© Janet Martin


Life is What We Make Of It
by Edgar A. Guest
 

Life is a jest;
Take the delight of it.
Laughter is best;
Sing through the night of it.
Swiftly the tear
And the hurt and the ache of it
Find us down here;
Life must be what we make of it.

 Life is a song;
Dance to the thrill of it.
Grief's hours are long,
And cold is the chill of it.
Joy is man's need;
Let us smile for the sake of it.
This be our creed:
Life must be what we make of it.

Life is a soul;
The virtue and vice of it,
Strife for a goal,
And man's strength is the price of it.
Your life and mine,
The bare bread and the cake of it
End in this line:
Life must be what we make of it.


I think it is safe to say I love every single one of his poems!

October Lullaby

Wood-smoke spiraling; gray curls quickly drenched

Fog pressing weightless; yet like a cloud clenched

‘cross earth’s bleak dolor and colorless hues

November murmurs its imminent dues

Time tiptoes over this waning threshold

Of sweet October and gray stealing gold

Russet minstrels croon a last lullaby

Summer and winter sleep ‘neath the same sky

Coffins and cradles in earth’s womb enmesh

Juxtaposed; gardens of timber and flesh

Relentless rivers of ‘missing you’ rush

Rampant and silent through Time’s underbrush

Foothold of faith rivals festering fear

October shivers in dusk’s deep’ning sphere

Fantasy flounders; for no Brigadoon

Rises to rescue or rift Time’s swift swoon

There are no shadows; for the moon is dark

And there are no lovers tonight in the park

© Janet Martin

Baby Turns One Today!

Today  the little boy I baby-sit turns one! We had a party at his house on Sunday. We marveled again at how quickly a year is done!

Today mom and dad are both happy and sad

How quickly a year slips away

But we smile with joy for our dear little boy

Is turning one year old today

We sing and clap hands; moments trickle like sand

Or water of brook over stone

But bravely we cheer as we kiss baby dear

For today baby boy turns one

Sweet Time disappears in our laughter and tears

In birthdays, in work and in play

Now we celebrate with balloons, hugs and cake

For baby who turns one today

Happy Birthday to sweet, sweet Nathan!

With love, from Janet 

Time's Tango

The marsh is filled with eventide

And nature’s waning will

The grinning bloom betrayed by Time

Slumbers where all is still

The doggerel of august day

And cricket minuet

Midst wind and leaf-song falls away

Etched in thought’s silhouette

A metronome of moments fills

Then steals another hour

A chorus spilling daffodils

Soon strips the autumn bow’r

As dividends of quickened youth

And ageless wanderlust

Declares in nature’s ruthless truth

Life’s journey back to dust

The imminence of what must be

In every half-breath nears

Where nothing marks eternity

Or charts its days and years

Time’s tango teases and torments

It’s touch both kind and cruel

Somewhere its final recompense

Unravels from life’s spool

© Janet Martin

Love's Poetry

   

Nature resides within Love’s poetry

Each season climaxes then fades into

Its successor in splendid filigree

Of bud, leaf-laced or barren limb on blue

As beauty blends with beauty, spring to spring

Stunning anew the spectator of sod

For every season spills its offering

In shameless praise to its Creator God

There is no fairest of them all; each one

In turn unfolds its wonder to our gaze

We bow in awe to touch dawn’s frost-kissed lawn

Then turn to watch the sunset’s dying blaze

And soon another season’s worth is gone

Faint flicker in a soon-forgotten haze

Mortality rests in this Poet too

His hand sustains; to doubt is paltry shame

The Artist of ten-thousand shades of blue

Knows and beckons to each of us by name

We cannot know and understand His thought

But look; to every season He imbues

The colors that by Him alone are wrought

We stand amazed within Love’s hallowed hues

For everywhere the beauty of the Lord

In spite of our ignorance, abounds

Oh Victor, not of violence or of sword

Brings beauty to the broken; He confounds

Our stuttering; we cannot breathe a word

Within His poetry we are restored

© Janet Martin

 …that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.…Acts 17: 27-29

Job 12:10
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

A Little Bit of Heaven

 

 

 

 Yesterday afternoon as the air sparkled with father, mother and child laughter, and the wind nipped our noses and kites pivoted, careened and nose-dived against a canvas of fall sky it almost felt like a little bit of heaven!

 What if we allowed

Love’s blessing to sink in

And what if we accepted it

Above our weight of sin?

And what if we proclaimed

In everything we do

The worthiness of HE who promises

To guide us through?

What if faith became

Our mystic stepping-stone

And sight simply love’s blindness

Where our vision sees a thorn?

What if we believed

And received without fear

Then wouldn’t we glimpse just

A little bit of heaven here?

© Janet Martin

Recompense of Hope

Wanton wind broods hungrily

Where June’s leaf-song used to be

Gone is summer’s sighing tress

None its season can possess

Now the street is lined with hosts

As earth claims Time’s petal-ghosts

Just as every half-breath, slipped

Into past’s eternal crypt

We are chancellors of hope

Blue wind broods on barren slope

Yet the discourse of an hour

Holds within its force, spring’s flow’r

We embrace this wondrous thing

Hope is heaven’s offering

For the brooding wind that blows

Will again kiss summer’s rose

Waiting is a hard-learned hurt

I have watched its seasons flirt

With my darling dreams, and I

Have sad and silently stood by

As they fell, like autumn’s leaf

I have suffered waiting’s grief

But within its grip I’ve learned

Happiness is hope returned

© Janet Martin