The Way of Life

Honey, we cannot force the road that leads through circumstance

Nor rearrange the love songs written in its bitter gale

The way of life is not a highway flung from fate or chance

But ever runs through fingers of a Hand that will not fail

Who knows what lies beyond the blush of morning’s waking hour?

The paradise of fortune is a fragile house of sand

The way of life will dip and curve through thorny field and flower

Beneath its winding Unknown spreads love’s faithful nail-scarred Hand

How hard would be this journey but for hope beyond the grave

How putrid were life’s prize if at death’s door it fell away

The way of life unfolds and we its offering must brave

But ever still a higher Hand cradles both gold and gray

Uncertainty is Wisdom’s gift that draws our boast to prayer

Honey, we cannot sidestep or desist the miles to come

The way of life is not a footloose free-fall to nowhere

But leads to where we’ll touch the Hands that led us safely Home

© Janet Martin

 Thus says the Lord: Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls...Jer.6:16

Kindred Souls

To touch you in this way,

To feel you there…somewhere

Beyond my window-pane, we meet

And scale hope’s common stair

The passion of a poem

Is like no other rush

Save for the artist as he spills

Thought-oceans from his brush

There are no walls out here

Let blood and ink collide

We stroll the star-strung atmosphere

And trace its turbid tide

For we are kindred souls

As heart to heart we’re held

Within the motion of a poem

Where ink and music meld

© Janet Martin

Soon Time Forgets

Dusk like a gentle mother

Gathers the day to her breast

Tucking its remnant blue blanket

‘Round little dying day’s nest

Somewhere by firelight flicker

Mothers and children play

Before bedtime stories and lullabies

Whisper frayed fragments away

Soft, like the notes of a ballad

Dripping from ethereal holds

Twilight falls over the planet

Deeper and deeper it folds

Soon time forgets this blue hour

Soon morning ruffles the air

But now, like a gentle mother

Dusk folds its fringes in prayer

© Janet Martin

Bluer and bluer dusk covers the day...

Fresh February Wishes

Ah, fill my cup with summer’s gold

These lips are numb from drinking cold

And let the blue unmingled be

With naught but sun-diamonds on sea

Then let this winter-land delight

To be shaken from robes of white

I yearn to join the eager child

Splashing through green with wonder wild

Glad, unencumbered, let it be

As river-madrigal runs free

Breathe soft into the sleeping dell

Tickle the ice-encased blue-bell

Ah, transform slope to sterling show  

Sweet sunshine, warm away our woe

And if it’s not too much to ask

Please, put some petals in your flask

Unfold upon the cheerless sky

Lilting of lark and butterfly

Stir within earth’s love-laden womb

Every bud waiting there to bloom

…and fill uplifted cups with gold

Long, long we’ve drunk these draughts of cold

Then end our season-suffering

Let every chalice brim with spring

© Janet Martin

I didn’t get any response from the sky so far; only the wind puffing snow-swirls ‘cross the field, so I pour a cup of ‘fresh’ mint tea with leaves we harvested last summer.

If We Must...

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If it all feels helpless, if that famous ‘inspiration’ will not come, write. If you are a genius, you’ll make your own rules, but if not—and the odds are against it—go to your desk, no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper—write.

~ J.B. Priestly

If we must…and yes, it seems we must

Persuade into a pen thought’s scraped from dust

Or siphoned from the air, life’s filigree

Of moment quick-fall sealed in poetry

The care of circumstance cleaves to our skin

Seeking to weigh our hands with living’s din

And yet, it seems we’re driven to a stage

Reserved for suffering with pen and page

We paper rooms with echoes; silence swells

With notes the aching throat and heart regales

But restless is that ever-thirsting yen

Until we fill and spill the poet’s pen

If we must…and yes, it seems we must

Spell out thought’s burning, yearning wanderlust

Oh wretched, blessed bliss to beggars born

To live somewhere twixt pulse and parchment torn

© Janet Martin

Write while the heat is in you. … The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Resting Place

 

In greater, gentler hands

Our little life is held

Therefore we need not fear nor fret

As sands and seasons meld

Beyond our craving clutch

The numbering of days

Is cradled in a Father’s touch

And guarded ‘neath His gaze

Ah, blessed resting place

Beneath this turbid clime

Abides in unwavering grace

The hand that measures Time

© Janet Martin

Someone just asked about my dad and I told her he was moved out of ICU yesterday but they are keeping close watch on a blood clot in his lungs (the reason he can’t get the oxygen he needs). I’m glad he is held in Hands much bigger than ours.

On Looking Back...

Heart-pangs of pain and pleasure clash

For feet can never run

To touch once more the gilded sash

Of past that time has spun

How subtle is the silver sweep

Of moments as they flow

Futile the fold of fist to keep

What Time cannot bestow

…but every now and then it seems

We wander down its track

To linger in its lost daydreams

As we stand, looking back

The way of life runs ever to

The setting of the sun

No returning to exchange hues

Of day when it is done

Time’s moment-mercy ruthlessly

Inhales life’s quickened hour

Reminding us mortality

Is brief as grass or flower

The trails of retrospect compete

With echoes fierce and tender

See how the dueling bittersweet

Falls in sun-shadow splendor

Heart pangs of pain and pleasure merge

A surge of want and wonder

Yet even now new moments splurge

To satisfy Time's hunger

© Janet Martin

O memory! Thou midway world

‘Twixt earth and paradise

Where things decayed and loved ones lost

In dreamy shadows rise 

Abraham Lincoln…from the poem Memory

February Fantasies...(tweaked re-post from a year ago today)

It would be fine to wander and squander

A dew-drenched, daisy-strewn dazzling new day

And fritter the glitter of freshly-hung moments

Into the nonchalant meadows of May

It would be grand to guilt-freely amble

Through giddy violet-for-get-me-not dell

Heedless of hours wielding a grim gavel

Over the vagrant and fragrant spring swell

It would be splendid to soak in sun-puddles

Teased by a zephyr with sassy-sweet mouth

Splashed with potion wrought by April’s ocean

Dancing with vagabond winds from the south

It would be sweet to languish in bare feet

Appeasing and pleasing fancy’s wanderlust

With treasure of pleasure in middle-May measure

Teasing our traipsing through daydreams of dust

It would be thrilling if mornings were willing

To pause in the spilling of Jack Frosted glow

Then dangle a spangle of spring-ribbon tangles

Or float on the froth of pink apple-bloom snow

Somewhere the splendor of buds, buxom, tender

Startles the drifter on his footloose way

We cannot hurry winter’s fretting flurry

Every February must first have its day

© Janet Martin