Saturday, February 21, 2015

Winter is a Little Time of Life





So, just in case we've forgotten...


The shawl that drapes white- soft on scraggly limb,
And lends its cape to cover field and hill
And locks the valley streams that lilt and brim
With silver song, beneath ice-soldered will

…the gale that wails across pale countryside
And roars, blue-lipped through brittle barrenness
Or lunges at each door and tries to find
Its way into our bones with brute caress

…the corpse-like timberland, where stiffly starched
Attendants observe, sergeant-steely-stern
Our creaking, squeaking footsteps bravely marched
Toward the hearth where dreams and fires burn

…the hunger for color and corridors
Alive with birdsong, where the air is rife
With everything that long we waited for
…is really but a little time of life

© Janet Martin

Hubby delivered cattle to a cheery, lithe-stepped farmer this morning. In a mischievous effort to derail this far-too-happy-for-a-raw-winter-morning farmer, hubby remarked about’ this too long too cold winter’ and Farmer quickly replied that “this cold is really but a little time of life when you stop to think about it, plus it is so good for the earth to rest in deep-freeze. We have snow blowers to move the snow. It’s not so bad”

Friday, February 20, 2015

Job Offer



I tripped over a hockey-bag while starting laundry, when I heard the bus pull up...Victoria always looks for Mom's 'see-you' wave...


He asks, with eyebrows raised
If ‘do I think that possibly
I miss the thrill of knowing
My full potentiality
Implying, ‘Here
Among the mundane-ness
Of household chores and such’
He dangles it as ‘nothings’
…all these things that I call love
And do I think it is enough?
The noise of boys
And toys
And ‘little things'
Which fill me with
Ten-thousand unnamed joys
He asks me if ‘I never
Long for more than merely this?’
I wonder, does he mean smiles, hugs
Or pudgy, smudgy toast-crumb kiss?
And then, he lays before me
What he calls a golden ladder
Promising money,
As though it could buy
Those things
That really matter

© Janet Martin

Rush-hour




 The sun is no longer cradled in the crook of the tree's arm when it rises...a sign of spring-things:)...and oh, it climbs the sky so quickly. I snapped these in approx. 90 seconds. ..as a sort of rush ran through me sensing Mystery soon to be history beneath this hurried molten orb...

Pink pales
Time’s grail tips hallelujahs from
A sacred jar
And none can see
The sea
Where all
Unopened moments are
But soft upon
Time’s gaping yawn
Dawn’s darkness dissipates
And morning like a
Glory-song
Rushes through
Ruby gates
And we who stand beholding
Light igniting every curve
Can only think to whisper
What a mighty God we serve

© Janet Martin

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Wearing Black with You...



It (black) became the color worn by English romantic poets...wikipedia

Yep...it's wikem day 

Beyond the windowpane it drapes, in velvet arabesque
where sight is touch, and oh my love, the nearness of your eyes
Is all the light I need; the cloth of midnight's dark-spun dress
blankets the quiet imminence of need's imploring sighs

...and I am glad we share the black of sight; a sea of ink
rises and falls, its cadence like a madrigal un-penned
Darling, who knew the pulse of it can rush where dreamer's drink
the black of night, a strange high-tea where touch and taste amend

...and all the colors of the world are tucked into the folds
of it; there are no dark or lighter shades of black
With you I do not need to see beyond the warmth that holds
me close and strums a starless sea of whispers down my back

Janet Martin



Mon Amour





Greedy, garbled, gluttonous game
Want wastes words, barters with blame
If love loses its first flame
Lusting for self-satisfaction
Sorrow slips from fingertips
Forgiveness forges friendships
Laughter lavishes love’s lips
With ‘Mon amour’ attraction

© Janet Martin


...invites us to try this prompt; 
Sounds of love CACOPHONY and EUPHONY.

Creation's Cathedral


I spent yesterday morning outside because I heard the already cold temps were going to nose-dive for the next few days, again! They were right!




There are no pictures on these walls
Yet everywhere we look
The awesome artwork of Someone
Fills every rill and nook

The floors are laid with carpet rare
White plush or lush leaf-green
And we are drawn to linger where
The air is sweet and keen

No clock to tick and tock or mock
No rigid rules intone
Here Worship needs no noise of talk  
In nature’s pantheon

…and we are welcome, one and all
Into this holy place
To wander slow, its tree-lined hall
Or gaze on heaven’s face

For nothing else can quite compare
In workmanship or fame
To creation’s Cathedral where
Earth shouts her Master’s Name

© Janet Martin


 The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Ps. 24:1