Baseball Bygones...

Hot sun presses

On blonde braided

Determination

Push up glasses,

Lift bat,

Concentrate,

Swing!

She becomes familiar with

Much of baseball’s lingo

…strike three,

Out on first,

Caught stealing

But never once this;

Home run

© Janet Martin

Recently I told hubby that I still wish, just once, I could have hit a home run.

If ever you have watched your child play a sport do not miss Daniel Romo’s poem at YDP

Thought and its Offspring

Thought, no matter how willing

Has never accomplished a thing

It takes the effort of hands and feet

Thought’s fruition to bring

So we ought all to feel needed

Whether we are seen or not

For nothing was ever accomplished

That first did not begin with thought

 

Sometimes thought takes higher purpose

Where no other fete can compare

As we lift in earnest silence

Thought shaped into prayer

© Janet Martin

This morning prayer continues for those in Russia and Ukraine.

the first line of this poem was born as I woke and realized that thought, no matter how willing, cannot turn off an alarm-clock:)

Off-road Afternoon

We followed that off-road of dandelion freckled sod

Right out toward the ledge of blue and green twixt earth and God

Where free, forgotten apple trees scattered pink-petal mirth

To dapple emerald petticoats in pure abandoned mirth

And lilac plumes from gardens lost tossed perfume to the breeze

In beauty bold, unhampered by the bloom of centuries

We walked where willow awning whispered noonday lullabies

…where sun-soft sigh was spawning daisy-dreams and butterflies

And where brook-song meandered we followed its glossy glee

Through meadowland and coppice, beguiled by its melody

Camber of grassland ‘gainst the hue of heaven’s sanguine smile

Drew us onto the knee of nature’s nurturing a while

And here we watched the afternoon stroll into twilight’s trance

Beneath the curve of quarter-moon daylight and darkness dance

Until dusk's solemn postlude splays star-froth on onyx deeps

And we must go back to the flow that works and plays and sleeps

But long we will remember dandelion freckled sod

And that off-road we wandered to the very heart of God

© Janet Martin

When the Birds Come Flying Home...

 

When the birds come flying home

To drench waking day with song

Oh, sweet then, we’ll grasp the robe

Of springtime ravishing the globe

I would like a front-row seat

Where the air is bird-song sweet

Woodlot pealing with pure hymn

From the songster on its limb

Jaunty robin, cooing dove

Trill of lark from lilac grove

Finch and swallow, flicker, jay

Singing winter woes away

Eager waiting scans mute air

Listening for answered prayer

For we know that spring has sprung

When the birds come flying home

© Janet Martin

Today I thought I saw a robin but it turned out to be a grackle;  first signs of spring! I hear tell of robin-sightings, but not here…yet.

Image Source unknown

To That Place of Days Gone By

Leafless copse strums gray-blue gloaming.

Past the thicket and the pond

Daylight loiters, but the roaming

Of an hour claims its frond,

And in regions far-off, foreign

Thought its trace must satisfy

As it vanishes from Being

To that place of days gone by

Moments rife with sheerest yearning

Dissolve like grace-gilded gauze

And the hour of frenzied learning

Now becomes a Thing that was

Raw-spun sequence deliquesces

On a fulcrum silver-gray

As the air in vapor kisses

Vanquishes another day

Here the garnering of morsels

That beheld and bore our boast

Falls prey, as must all things mortal

To Time’s routine Uttermost

Beggar, baron, both are sharing

In its soundless quick-fire ply

As the discourse of its bearing

Fills that place of days gone by

There it goes, this Thing once sacred

Slips into an ageless crypt

Eager to be touched and tasted

We grasped it, white finger-tipped

But to see it fade in fringes

On the low end of the sky

Dusk draws wide its ether hinges

To that place of days gone

© Janet Martin

Sing a Song of...Almost Spring

Sing a song of stirring seed

Where blue sky skims the land

And stark, raw wounds of winter bleed

Into spring’s out-stretched hand

Sing a song of gold delight

As back-wood solitude

Is softly stripped of white on white

Beneath spring’s giddy brood

Then dream and child will run and leap

Like lamb upon the green

And clouds, like flocks of wooly sheep

Will graze on azure sheen

Oh, sing of maple-syrup slope

Or flawless harmony

Of sun and zephyr calliope

And flower fantasy

…or sing about the tiralee

Of bird-joy in the dark

Or rain-notes splashing merrily

And laughter in the park

Hope acclimates to bonny breeze

With ease to dear for word

As in the lane beneath the trees

A wink of spring is heard

Yes, sing a song of almost spring

Of bud-bliss breaking free

Winter may wield its final fling

But sing of spring to me

© Janet Martin

Nine more days! and after the winter we've had five degrees above freezing feels downright balmy.

(never mind what the storm-casters are calling for tomorrow;)

For previously published March poems simply click label 'March'.

Of Waiting and Walking...

Wisdom and words seem to fail me

Answers seem strewn in the dust

All I can do, Lord, as I call to You

Is cling to Your hand and trust

Faith pleads for vision and substance

Yet, futile it is to debate

For sometime we learn love’s greatest return

In its hardest answer; wait

So I close my eyes and listen

Reach past the ticking of clock

Until I hear a voice calm my fear

‘Hold to My hand and walk’

© Janet Martin

This Day is like a Vessel

We rise and scan the cloud-strewn acres out to the sky-line

This day is like a vessel on the swarthy seas of time

And we, its deckhands take our posts upon its waves of sod

For we will give account to our Captain; He is God

Though storm may toss and wind may vex and we are frail in size

The Hand upon the rudder of this ship is kind and wise

He does not leave us helpless in the fury of life’s ill

But guides the vessel we call Day according to His will

Toward a Port beyond this rise and fall four-season main

We board the vessel that will carry us from grief and pain

Much needs to be accomplished on its journey from dawn’s dew

And so we ask our Captain ‘what will you have me to do?’

© Janet Martin