Monday, July 6, 2015

Way To Live





Snared sea-song spills to green-sheen hills where reaching corn-rows blow
And chamomile gilds ditches like drained vials of early snow
Queen Ann’s Lace graces fence-lines, streams in lavish white-frothed swoon
That rushes through lush underbrush and hush of summer-noon

The doorway to For-nevermore is ethereal, yet rife
With flower-gardens; metaphors of ‘what is a man’s life?’
The wind lolls, low and slowly in a languid serenade
Across wheat fields a-ripple like a golden-stippled lake

Those days that long we longed for are unchained; we are half-scared
To run too fast or walk too slow on this that none have snared
Of lupine-lay and fresh-mown hay and clover-mead; bare feet
Skimming the sluggish creek that loiters 'mongst pale meadow-sweet

The clock opens the locks that kept a world of dreams on hold
Anticipation yields its fruit in zinnia, marigold
And lest we miss the best that life and summer have to give
We vow to find a slower, sweeter, kinder way to live

© Janet Martin





Of Then-shaped Memories...



(they were here;-)

I try to picture him (my Uncle Abner) as my eyes travel over each face at the kitchen table; the real- life laughter and chatter, the eager appetites, life's laughing-love moments that once were his as well. But now he sits at his table alone save for *his wife’s picture inducing precious memories…and tears.
I draw Now’s precious moments in then pour them out in prayer for him.

We draw life’s little moments in
A humble quaff of grace
Of tender tear and gladsome grin
As now-then interlace

We live-laugh-learn; the brink of When
Trembles beneath our touch
As moments slip from Now to Then
In pictures framed with love

Small endings and beginnings flow
In seamless intercourse
Life’s high and low and hold-let-go
Caught in its subtle force

And looking back upon birth-deaths  
That flowed from When to Now
To Then can steal our very breath
And startle us somehow

It keens the awe of all we hold
Now; living’s lavish lease
Of moments poured into a mold
Of Then-shaped memories

© Janet Martin

*little did they know that the photos taken the day before she passed away would become so precious so soon! So let's take or make 'pictures';
 Lots of them!

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Good Morning, Little Day





The vault that holds the sun
Above earth’s pleading arc
Of want and need as time-frames bleed
Softens its veil of dark

Another day is born
Yester’s morrow bestows
Unblemished boon of morning-noon
To good-night, dear fellows

Sun-rise, sunset, oh my
The heart struggles to hold
The gossamer of time’s whisper
Wringing the air of gold

Good morning, little day
Beaming from heaven’s door
Where Mercy grants its newborn chance
Like none ever before


© Janet Martin…

This morning when I wrote this the sun had just begun, but I didn't get a chance to post it: now it is slip-slipping away after a day at a family reunion.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Hymn...





Pasture trills in clover chorus
Sea-song washes over shores
Lark lilts over moorland high-lows
Spilling joy to rich and poor

Daybreak dances over gardens
Mist-morn murmurs over mead
And while we gaze through lace-arches
Willow-song wafts overhead

Madrigal of midday medley
Mingles with dusk's vesper-tide
Multitude of green-lay lingers
Soft on summer country-side

Carols of creation render
Glimpses of heaven to earth
Holy-hallelujah splendor
Swells as bud abounds with birth

...singing glory to their Maker
Love-songs tune leaf-petal-limb
To the One True God forever
Nature’s choir praises Him

© Janet Martin

Let's join them, shall we?:-)

 "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." Luke 19:40

Suave Abductor...





Then be gentle, suave abductor
As you steal a day, a year
For within your weightless ardor
All we hold will disappear

Tread breath-softly on my pillow
While your fingers rampant, rend
Fabric of midnight and willow-
Whispers on a noontide land

With your shapeless mist-morn mantle
You have swaddled centuries
Suave abductor, please be gentle
While we learn your certainties

For we are new to your habits
Surprised by your practiced ways
While you tease us and distract us
With life’s little every-days

© Janet Martin

'I can't believe how fast days fly, even when I'm working!; remarked Matthew (17) this morning as he headed out to his new full-time summer job on a dairy farm a few lane-ways away... I chuckled at his new discovery;-)