Time's Touchdown

A quiet rush of ruby fills the air

Time’s touchdown spills in warbler-trills

We dare not linger where

We laid aside our busyness of care

To sleep and pray, for yesterday

Has no doorway from here to there

 The quick ability of tick-and-tock

Declares its might in dark to light

And petals on the walk

We change our plans; trust God for that and this

And none can force His hand, of course

We try; ah, foolishness

We have no choice; the frigate of an hour

Soon bears away both gold and gray

In muted moment-power

A quiet rush of ruby dissipates

The sun, like Heaven’s shepherdess climbs high

To pastures without gates

And we, its charge to keep cannot afford

To brood in chains for gilded strains

That yesterday has stored

© Janet Martin

This Grand Abyss

This grand abyss from whence a day is drawn then brushed away

Ignites scrawled shadows on the lawn and fills its dark with day

While we, the journeymen of hope and heartache deftly link

Our years upon Time’s beveled slope toward an Awesome Brink

My, my, the doorway to another day swings easily

Our dashing feet soon scar the street of mercy’s sympathy

And the abyss where all Time is, is vast and undefined

A drop within the eon of this Thing that slips our mind

We pile up books to teach or reach to places strange and far

We dream a little dream perhaps and wish upon a star

We drink our coffee, live, laugh, love and learn toward a Door

That when we have passed through no one can return anymore

We gaze in wonder at the thunder from a broken sky

Knowing full well we cannot quell what waits in yonder ‘nigh’

Ah, Lord of mercy, stir our souls; this awesome brink is sure

Eternity is more than endless nothings to endure

This grand abyss where future gives the filament to past

Is but a vapor on the air; a stair to what will last

Our diligence to recompense is not a futile quest

Thus we should strive each day we live to give it our best

© Janet Martin

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15:58

A Poet's Profession

Painting pictures

Free

For the Reading

Weaving wonder

With

Word-bleeding

Finding fortune

In

A flower

Ah, this is

A

Poems’ power

© Janet Martin

Jen's poem is such a feel-good poem for poets it inspires poetry:)

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