Winter's Wonderland

Yesterday was a see-saw of flurries and sunny breaks all day long...

When winter wends her way to earth from regions far above

She decks the drab and ragged girth of hollow, hill and grove

And now the landscape beams once more; its robe of diamond-gem

Transforming nature’s stricken shore to glorious diadem

The laughter of each boy and girl is wafted on the wings

Of argent angel-canticle and Christmas whisperings

Up, up we look into the swirling, twirling filigree

And suddenly we too are whirling on earth’s starry sea

Softly she spreads her dazzling quilt across the country-side

Where green and gold of summer spilled before its evening-tide

Now we don hats and mittens; take our loved ones by the hand

As we all become children in a winter-wonderland

© Janet Martin

Why is it? Asked Matt yesterday after returning from scraping the ice off of the truck windows, ‘why is it that in the summer all we think about is the good things of winter?’

I told him my dad would say it’s the same reason we can look back to ‘the good old days’. We have a way of forgetting the unpleasantness.

I Shouldn't Be Here...

November PAD Challenge; day 13

For today’s prompt, write an “I shouldn’t be here” poem.

you do not throw a welcome mat for me to wipe my feet
I know I shouldn't be here but somehow it seems we meet
at the most unexpected times; I wish it wasn't so
You always leave me feeling like a masterpiece of woe...

You decorate the halls with doom and gloom and raw regret
and you like to remind me of those things I should forget
but in your disregard you spare no punches as your jeer
and bring me second helpings of your appetizer; fear

I really shouldn't be here, but I am against my will
You thrive beneath my faithless frown and ask, 'want a re-fill?'
Then every shameful failure sneers and rakes its claws of doubt
across my insecurities, ah, I want a way out

I cannot see an exit sign and its so dark in here
This room of 'what if's' has no window and no easy chair
Panic begins to set in; is there no other way?
But then I re-remember and close my eyes and pray

Janet~

This Love Thing

‘Tis heavenly and hard

This love thing, my darling

This intricate balance

Of hold and release

And I never knew

In its early beginning

The finesse of love

Is both beauty and beast

Why is it, my darling

That those we love dearly

We hurt most deeply

In spite of intent

This having and holding

Is a kind, brutal molding

Compassion and courage

Comfort and torment

To love is to bear

Life’s most beautiful sorrow

We cannot love

And escape living’s grief

And yet, not to love

Is the saddest of longings

Love, a kind shoulder

And sorrow’s relief

‘Tis roses and thorns

This love thing, my darling

It's awesome heart-holding

A ruthless romance

And I never knew

In its early beginning

Both beauty and beast

Must learn how to dance

© Janet Martin

Beneath Time's Evening Bell

 PAD challenge; day 22

For today’s prompt, write a poem using at least three of the following six words:

• ideogram
• remora
• casket
• eclipse
• selfie
• wretch

Use the words in the title of your poem, in the body of your poem, and feel free to play with them (by which, I mean, make them plural, past tense, etc.).

Earth, like an umber casket

Has cradled every bloom

November mourns, its heavy robe  

Enshrouds each stricken plume

For nature’s fairer filament

Has fallen; flow’r and leaf

Slumbers where wretch and prince preside

Bound for its steadfast sheaf

Moment folds over moments

Ephemeral eclipse

Of petals, poems and parting

And then its present slips

Into the crypt of ‘bygone’

An unrelenting plot

Of had and held remembered

And none exhumes its lot

The remora of hours

Does not release its prey

It drinks a field of flowers

And turns raven to gray

November’s stark procession

Bows where its laughter fell

Its dirge, a somber silence

Beneath Time’s evening bell

© Janet Martin

 

If Poetry Disappeared...

The world would not stop turning

For loss of verse

But the heart would

Stop burning

and racing

or chasing

the flirt of

elusive word

and the world would not notice

the absence of it

for the most part

but oh,

the light in the eye,

the path to the heart

the half-breath ocean stirred

the beauty of thought

or anguish-born jot

would never bring a smile

or a tear

and the poet would mourn

the day he was born

if verse would disappear…

© Janet Martin

Stone-cold

 

Image source; wikipedia

Writer's Digest  PAD challenge, day 21
For today’s prompt, write a secret message poem.

they looked

past the astonishing detail

past the painstaking hours

past the passion

and the pride,

past the poetry,

the tears,

the tenderness,

the love,

and then they said,

how much do we owe you?

© Janet Martin

Until all that Remains is Farewell

It tugs at the heart-strings…

Those in-severable ties

Reinforced, it seems

By life’s little good-byes

When grief runs its river

In tender tear-stream

As keenly we ponder

The end of a dream

How sad to stop living

Before life is spent

To choose futile grieving

And longing’s lament

…when time keeps on turning

A balm in its grasp

To succor our yearning

With what yet must pass

Life tugs at our heart-strings

Its ‘over-and-done’

The ravishing echo

Of love’s cherished song

Live, love and laugh, then

For no one can tell

When we will be ushered

To our last farewell 

© Janet Martin

Charcoal Flower-gardens

 Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own. ~CHARLES DICKENS~

 Pristine; pencil-patterns

Lure the wand’ ring eye

To charcoal flower-gardens

Etched against the sky

Nature spares not one season

But stuns our eager gaze

With beauty beyond reason

In rampant God-spun ways

The tree that bore bud-jewel

Then fanned the weary brow

Before its grand apparel

Fell, just before the snow…

…is not stripped, then forgotten

But spreads its filigree

Like charcoal flower-gardens

Across earth’s frozen lea

© Janet Martin

Hubby simply shakes his head when I laugh out loud in disbelief because a barren tree can be so breath-taking-ly beautiful!