Loveletter to an Illusion

Sometimes listening to a song sparks something...

Oft on the eventide just after dark

When dusk’s dew-damsel releases her sigh

Then on a sea of thought, dreamers embark

Beneath the belfry of leaf-lullaby

And silence is not silent anymore

Those elements that intercept daylight

Unfurl on ebony air a broad door

Where illusion tantalizes lost sight

…it infiltrates the poem-stricken soul

With agonies that pen cannot console

Wild wand’ring wind-song skims calm countryside

Blue amplifies delusion in its wave

And we are apt to daringly confide

To the deep sky those things we stilly crave

Darling, the ‘musts’ in love out-number far

(though we may lie upon night’s far-flung shawl

To count and pin wishes upon each star)

…still love outweighs the sorrows of them all

We cannot trade our portion for schemes

Taunting weak willingness with foolish dreams

The hour falls, folding in deft defeat

My dear, we cannot clench its ether gown

The holding of a heart is bittersweet

For we can never really put it down

And how is it, the essence of a thought

Can ravage where flesh-fingers cannot reach

Because illusion of what we have not

Rushes where gratitude and grief beseech?

...ever entanglements torture the air

Where thought spills whispers too honest to bare

© Janet Martin

A Lovely 'We'

Gentle invitation

Lingers soft, expectantly

Not in the ‘you’, not in the ‘I’

But in its melding ‘We’

‘You’ by itself seems lonely

‘I’ brandishes the ‘me’

But ‘you’ and ‘I’ together make

A lovely, lovely ‘we’

© Janet Martin

The Knack to Happiness

If we can find without a dime

The beauty in a mite of Time

Because the sky is full of blue

And every dawn is wonder- new

And if, for no reason at all

We walk at dusk, its shadow-hall

Where earth and heaven interlace

And we see God in every place

…oh, and if we do not insist

On stuff of things to fill our fist

But gladly-awed and humbly we

Touch marvels none can fully see

Where somehow seed becomes a bloom

And Mother earth, both womb and tomb

Gathers the petals to her breast

And nudges new sprouts from her nest

And if we, a small part of this

Are satisfied to watch the mist

Of morning melt, silver to gold

In Time’s quick ephemeral hold

And do not fret but learn to live

And give the best we have to give

In every day; a gift of grace

To hold a hand, to kiss a face

To fill the air with cheer and song

And thus help someone else along

And never seek more recompense

Than time to linger where the fence

Is laden green with bindweed vine

And we are glad and life is fine

Because we found, without a dime

The beauty in a mite of Time

And in its mercy we confess

We found the knack to happiness

© Janet Martin

Don't you just love it when you read a book that makes you feel so good you could eat it! That's what Fresh from the Country (copyright 1960 by 'Miss Read') is for me right now. The inspiration for this poem came from a page in this book...

Anna and Tom are on a walk in England's countryside discussing people. Anna says so many people are miserable over things that don't matter a button-
"that's what's wrong with nine-tenths of people you meet," asserted Tom with the down-rightness of youth. "As far as I can see they don't interest themselves in making things or looking at plants or trees or lovely buildings...what beats me is the neglect of simple pleasures and the complete loss of-well-wonder. Why, I get a thrill every time I plant something that looks like a dead flea and comes up a great, glorious pulsing flower! Who wouldn't?"

"You've got the knack of happy living", commented Anna. "I think you must be like my mother who says you aren't just given happiness. She says you have to pick it up here and there all day through. And she does too. She smells a rose, or marvels at a bird hanging upside down on a spray, she makes a perfect dinner. She really savors life, you know, and from it builds up a stock of happiness...she reads a lot of poetry"

Have a Happy Sunday. We are having an out-door service at a campground for our annual church picnic!

Summer Saturday Song

Oh, let me touch you slowly, thread my fingers through your sigh

There is something softly holy in the way you fill the sky

And I know from past experience how you blithely fall away

And how tiny moments soon become ten-thousand yesterdays

Oh, let me hold you softly but with hunger and delight

Gardens spill flowers, my darling; leaves of summer lose their fight

For we cannot thwart the order of this forward-facing leap

But content ourselves with hours ere they fade into the deep

Oh, let me feel you fully where your colors grandly reach

Purple clover or a sea of gold where sunsets bathe the beach

Then, when it fades to crypts where forefathers have tarried long

We will sigh with pleasure on our lips; ‘oh, how I loved that song’

© Janet Martin

Wayfarer's Wonderment

Oh, do not rush me so

For past yon distant slope

A sense of newness spreads its glow

In God-breathed shades of hope

And I must pause a bit

To drink its wonder in

A gift indeed it is to sit

And see the day begin

Earth, like a polished cup

Brims with Time’s newborn best

And we, its creatures thus lift up

To God, praise and request

…for He saw fit once more

To breathe upon the dark

to light the wick that lights the shore

Where wayfarers embark

And in this light we see

 A sweep of land, sea, sky

God’s handiwork of poetry

Stunning our mortal eye

Yet what we cannot see

Is greater, dearer far

To know He cares for you and me

No matter who we are

Faith, hope and trust agree

We do not understand

The moaning, groaning filigree

That fills His holy hand

Yet in the end we know

Or, at the least we should

To those who truly love Him so

All things work out for good

So, do not rush me, clock

For I must sit a bit

To have a tender morning-talk

With He who ordained it

© Janet Martin

Happy Independence Day to our American neighbors.

 Also,our thoughts and prayers are with our 'farming-neighbors' in Manitoba.  and our fellow-wayfarers in the Ukraine.




Trust is merely another word until it is needed!