Wednesday, March 12, 2014

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:)

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

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