Sometimes We Write...

Sometimes we write just to relive the night

Where it fell freely to snuff out the day

We trace with ink, echoes drifting away

Swift, soon forgotten but for the delight

Of touch so tender where thought drips from pen

Remnants of splendor to relive again

Fountain of Time spills its own sort of rhyme

Tug-of-war treasure in hold and let go

Sometimes we write just to cradle the flow

Of moment-measure in penned paradigm

Lest as the tolling of dusk-shadows fade

We lose forever fond memory made

Silence can swell with the ache of farewell

How can we hope to remember it all?

Is there safe-keeping for pictures that fall

Ere they are swept to past’s unyielding fell?

We siphon pieces to poetry, then

Sometimes we write to relive them again

© Janet Martin

From the Corner of my Eye

I cannot stare straightly ahead

To pluck the air for daily bread

Barricades cannot thwart a thought

 Ah, this must be a dreamer’s lot

From out the corner of my eye

Tid-bits of poetry drift by

And who can work where gold is strung

Throughout a cloud from heaven hung

What if, while I transfixed my gaze

Upon Duty’s relentless maze

I would then miss that giddy twist

Of blue-eyed sky and spiraled mist

If I would close my eyes perhaps

Then I could concentrate; but traps

Of zephyr-sigh and tick-tock vie

From out the corner of my eye

And  I cannot like cold stone cede

Those palms outstretched where poems plead

For what then would thought’s merit be

Shuttered and barred to poetry?

God's touch suffuses nature's tray
With free and beauteous buffet
So I cannot stare straight ahead
Past where His poetry is spread

If then, I cannot thus persuade

Thought to remain stark-stiffly staid

I will set its discourses free

To eat, laugh, drink, love poetry

© Janet Martin

On rare occasion the house is quiet and empty so I’m trying to get housework done but then from the corner of my eye a little poem goes drifting by…

Dare-dreamer

Sometimes I brush by you

Just to feel the purposed pain

Of you and yesterday

And all

And sometimes I crush laughter

For the reverence of rain

Because laughter bleeds summer

Tears fall

Sometimes the tortured tango

Of hope’s whispers faded thin

Becomes a tight-rope

Where I flirt

…with being braver, younger

And to dream a dream again

But sometimes I brush by you

Just to hurt

© Janet Martin

Braving Her Beauty

We brave the bitter sweet of grief

For love; and do not count Her cost

For darling, it is my belief

Within its counting, love is lost

…and did the Door from here to there

Fling far too wide too soon, my dear

I would return simply to bear

The beauty of Her farewell tear

But we are forward-facing race

Unable to repeat one breath

Philanthropists of gifted grace

 Craving Her from birth to death

Thus, we forge to the Great Unknown

Not for bland boast of stuff and things

But just to feel the gorgeous groan

Of Her farewell on heart harp-strings

© Janet Martin

Of True Blue

   

It was too cold to be without mittens but I took a quick clip of March 25, 2014...lest we forget! I can't capture the temps but they are FREEZING! This morning with wind-chill feels like minus 21 but on the bright side, we are looking at above freezing temps for the next full week, after tomorrow. In spite of the cold the evening was a gorgeous gift from God!

And did you feel it too?

That busying of blue

Like sleepy child by mother kissed

Dear dying day could not resist

Heaven-caress of blue on blue

And tell me, did you feel it too?

And did it tug within

To see the paling grin

Of yet, another chapter writ

Ere dusk consumes the breadth of it

Like paper puppets on a string

Pray tell, oh, did it tug within?

Or did it kiss your cheek,

In farewell, hard to speak

Clandestine glimmer of good-bye

Silvering shimmer in the eye

As suave strength of day grew weak

Tell me, oh, did it kiss your cheek?

…and did you feel it too?

Transit of old to new

…of tide astride a bullish breeze

Where twilight binds to centuries

Borrowed breath-beauty of true blue

Ah tell me, did you feel it too?

© Janet Martin

Time's Citadel

Yellow school bus flashes black wink, etched in rising sun

How quick familiar passes, blink. Where sage is silver-spun…

Those years of ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ have shed their green

Now I pray, Lord, guide and bless and ever keep their conscience keen

Too soon pale stars search out the cove where daylight spilled its mirth

A little bit of life, my love, before Death’s second birth

Time’s citadel cannot contain its sweet four-season surge

Yet fills its hills again, again with litany and dirge

Faith is the substance of our hope and Unseen’s evidence

Toward its Higher Clime we grope for living’s recompense

© Janet Martin

Of Poets and Gates...

The innocence of your staid stance

Vexes poets; for a glance

Is all it takes to stir the brakes

Cleaving to thought’s unbounded lakes

Darling, silk silence can beguile

With nothing more than hint of smile

And I’m a beggar plagued by yen

Of what is hidden in a pen

...and did you know your tinctured flow

Rends where only a word can go?

Yet there you lie and here am I

Taunted by your impassive ply

Tidal-vein of hurricane

Paradigm of parting’s pain

Doggerel of dying dream

Sealed in soulful ink-requiem

Darling, do you sense the storm

Cradled in your guile-less form?

Pen; oh, plain, persuasive gate

Where ten-thousand poems wait

© Janet Martin

What Is This Span of Seasons Strewn?

What is this span of seasons strewn

On sweep of sand or through rock hewn?

Of lily-laughter lacing dust

Or shadow tracing wander-lust

Daybreak climbs to high noon, then soon

Dusk pins the dark with crescent moon

What spins this sacred swoon of air

Where we press on…to what? To where?

Is this day-night-to-day a hoax

Of hours strung on sun-rise spokes

Before the west burns quietly

With one more page of history?

…and is the awe of nature’s best

Mere wonder-frames of moment-jest

or Miracles without a God?

Is Time but silliness of sod,

And all its battles that we brave

But for the glory of the grave?

Ah, what is this which rends the flesh

And mends the heart with loneliness?

If we are beasts without a soul

Then what is joy or living’s goal?

And is our guerdon Death, cold-grinned

As ashes drift upon the wind

…and then, is Calvary a tale

Of nothing but fireside regale?

And would Perfection die for naught?

Ah, what is life? Skin, blood and thought?

No, no! Touch earnestly Time’s sod

Life is the road that leads to God

© Janet Martin