November is like a Mother

 I held my camera to the passing landscape as I drove yesterday...November's kinship is a meek keenness...

November is like a Mother

Whose house at last is kept

The fruit from the garden garnered

Cobwebs from corners swept

Toys that all summer were scattered

In lovely disarray

While children and flowers chattered

Have all been put away

And now she shakes her apron

Trinket-like moments fall

From pockets where she gathered

Leaf-song, meadow-lark's call

Before she tucks them, gentle

Into Time’s cradle, soft

Where low sky is a mantle

Above the sleeping croft

November is like a mother

Content, she fills the air

With sparkling smiles and kisses

While, from her rocking chair

She views earth’s rooms in order

And neatly put aright

Before she tucks each corner

Beneath a blanket, white

© Janet Martin

Happy Now

I have pondered the word 'happy' since I was a little girl; the above poem was an attempt to capture my 'happy' in ink. The green magic-marker 12 records the age when I wrote it.

PAD Challenge day 6:For today’s prompt, write a 'happy now' poem.

‘Happy now’ is something that we cannot find, but choose

It spills its silver-lining from love’s second-mile scuffed shoes

This coveted euphoria we all seem to hunger for

Is often right before us like a buffet we ignore

We dash through daily living-rooms of morning-noon-and-night

The quest for happiness persists with vexing appetite

Yet, unlike merchandise, Happy no one can buy or sell

Then Wall Street would be heaven and our pockets would be hell

The battle for this blessed estate wages; its have and hold

Outwits misers and worriers and those greedy for gold

While Charlie in his thread-bare overalls and bronze, bare feet

With nothing but time on his hands goes whistling down the street

The ‘happy now’ exists in those who do not think so much

About their state of happiness or what they lack and such

Because they are too busy with the measure of the day

Where ‘happy now’ is something they’ve learned how to give away

© Janet Martin

I write this carefully as I think of hubby's co-worker's wife; smiling, jolly, bubbly giver and phoning her hubby the other night who is out west with Jim, (my husband) right now; "The test results are back. I have cancer", she says.

...stumbling-blocks to 'happy now'.

 It reminds me to be 'happy now' 'cause now is all we have and as soon as I begin to worry about then's what-ifs the 'happy now' goes p-f-f-f-f-t!

 

The Flower-hours

Today I pulled out the marigolds. The snow last week-end finally got the best of them...I collected lots of seeds and am already anticipating next year's flower-hours!

The flower hours flutter by

Like summer’s pretty butterfly

Where pinnacle of every belle

Is but a prelude to farewell

The rose bestows its out-poured bud

To boulevards of garden mud

Time frames a doorway, year on year

Through which all children disappear

Where mothers tending task to task

Befriending moments dare not ask

From God above for more or less

Than this wee cup of happiness

Again, again it overflows

From bashful bud to fallen rose

The flower-hours flutter by

‘neath wide-fling shutters of the sky

Where come-to-pass is grasped in awe

For we are subject to a law

Where the acme of every belle

Is but a prelude to farewell

© Janet Martin

In the Way of Opinion

The way of opinions is quite intense

And often thrives on difference

Imagine if we’d all agree

How monotonous life would be

Is anything more vehement

Than over-heated argument

Where we know we are right but they

Insist on seeing it their way?

Some people thrive within the quest

Of disagreeing with the rest

Always equipped with quick dissent

Just for the sake of argument

But we are all entitled to

And victims of our point of view

Until we take off shoes we wore

In miles we never walked before

© Janet Martin

Sometimes we’re accused of doing a complete 180.(read here for differing opinions on what a 180 really is!;-) 

Maybe the 180 came after God changed our view-point so we would change our point of view.

Opinions are great as long as they do not ignore/dispute the infallible word of God.

 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes. 2 Tim.2:23

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Titus 3:9

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? James 4:1

If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. 1 Tim. 6:3-5

Keep This Where I Won't Forget You

PAD Challenge day 5: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Keep This (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Often no matter how I vow

To keep a memory, it slips

like little leaves from autumn's bough

noiseless beneath Time's fingertips

as new impassioned pleas insist

'keep me' ; you fade into the mist

...of far away and long before

the why's and wherefores of today

but sometimes through Past's soldered door

it seems I hear the echoes splay

of long-forgotten this and that

stoking the air where once we sat

...and I was sure I'd ever keep

you where nothing can claim you, but

deft moments rearrange the deep

obliterating what I thought

I sealed where nothing could invade

the place where memories are laid

...but oh, that ever-forward clock

is such a giver as it steals

with nothing but its tick and tock

it unlocks vaults and refills reels

that once I rendered to the kiss

Of vows; "I'll never forget this"

 Janet~

 

Sometimes an unexpected Something sparks memories of days and moments long-forgotten; on Sunday morning after the congregation finished singing a worship song a little girl held in her daddy's arms cupped his face between her baby-hands and declared in pure delightful charm, "and that's what makes God happy, right daddy?'

It reminded me of days when our kids were little and would say things I vowed never to forget...but did;-(

Something 'bout November Gray

There’s something ‘bout November gray

Weeping where we laughed yesterday

That calls to mind the rush of Time

And aches to be preserved in rhyme

And something ‘bout November gray

Brings thoughts of loved ones far away

Then, in its cold rain reverie

We pour a second cup of tea

There’s something ‘bout November gray

Where in contrast, vast woodlands splay

Their tiralee beneath our feet

In gold and russet bittersweet

There’s something ‘bout November gray

That steals my very breath away

It spins a soulful poetry

That middle-May could never be

Yes, something ‘bout November gray

Is lovely in a lonesome way

It runs in rivers to our door

And makes us need each other more

© Janet Martin

I had Celtic Thunder cranked up when Victoria came home from school. In response to her quizzical raise of the eye-brow I told her its Celtic Thunder weather;-)

Super-heroes... Two-for-two Tuesday

This song we sisters would sing while doing dishes:) Our parents were/are heroes to us, teaching us that no matter who or where we are we are called to do our best not merely for man, but God.

PAD challenge two-for-two Tuesday; day 4

1. Write a super hero poem.
2. Write a super heroine poem.

To he who goes to work; his goal,
to do the best he can
and not life's menial duty shirk, oh
He is super-man

To she who does not seek applause
but gives, in every chore
her utter-best simply because
of what she's thankful for

To everyday women and men
Super-heroes by far
because they give the best they can
exactly where they are

Janet Martin~