Prelude To Accomplishment

This morning's sunrise was Someone to behold!

 I boosted the colors a bit to amplify the WOW!!!

but stunning without the 'boost' as well...

with boost...

without boost...

Doesn't the Sender of such an invitation as this deserve our best?!

Who knows if we will touch the link

That binds hope-wish to triumph’s pride

But before day sets on yon brink

I’d like to think at least we tried

Who knows if Best is good enough

To achieve vision’s well-laid plan

Still, its full work is partly wrought

By choosing to believe we can

Who knows if we’ll get there, but oh

This day, still young to you and I

Extends its invitation, so

I’d like to think at least we’ll try

© Janet Martin

January's Rains and Other Matters of Degree

 I snatched a photo and jotted the first two lines of this poem yesterday before the degrees plummetted like a wooden shoe off a sky-shelf...

Morning drips from eaves in the sky

Day breaks, a lake-shaped lullaby

Of rivulets rushing down lanes

In splashing circle-note refrains

Where berth and girth of earth imparts

A silver-stippled work of art

How somber, January rains

What lonesome song its air unchains

No little bloom with face turned up

No leafy plume, no flower-cup

As splish-splash lashes dark-toned bark

 Of timberline, stricken and stark

…all nature huddles on earth’s street

A world of puddles at its feet

Where not so very long ago

It wore a woolly coat of snow

And on its throat diamonds and stars

Where now the sky pours leaden bars

Time’s temperature hovers between

What waits to be and what has been

It’s give-and-taking intercourse

Can seduce seasons without force

Where life will die and rain will freeze

Determined by a few degrees

© Janet Martin

Life is a Stringing Together...

Life is no popularity contest

If it were, then oh, how vain it would be

Life is a stringing together of hands

To help each other be all we can be

It is no secret; we are all broken

Appearance, though it may strive to disguise

This sorry state cannot overcome it

Life is a stringing together of sighs

On this planet of people and purpose

We are an untidy band of hope-smiles

Stringing together all manner of us

Here in life’s stringing together of miles

If we could see its lavish labyrinth

Stringing together life’s laughter and tears

Up to the Hands of God, oh, then I think

We would be kinder to all of life’s years

Life is a stringing together of moments

Gray, gold, blue, every hue, tint and sheen

Life is a stringing together of hands

Hello, good-bye and its links in between

© Janet Martin

Last night we had some guests at our writer's meeting from a city quite far away,

but they came across our site, contacted the leader and asked if they could come.

"Of course, please"  she said and what a delightful time we had and now our stringing together of friendships will reach over the ocean to England.(the homeland of three of our members) One of our members is at school in the Netherlands. What a beautiful stringing together of lives over this small world, is the touch of Time.

Day-set...

Day deepens; its far-off foothills soft-kissed

And swathed in scarves of periwinkle mist

Blue banter of breeze eases through highs and lows

Settling where the sky-line is a red rose

The sight of day passing slows our feet

As we watch its remnant river deplete

Then glad, we turn toward toil’s tender quest

Of hearth 

and home 

and slumber’s merited rest

© Janet Martin

There's a different tone to Friday night rush-hour traffic...

a sigh of relief mingled with anticipation, maybe?

…unless you are a transport truck driver, always coming home to leave.

It’s hard to explain Jim’s love/hate relationship with the road…

As soon as his truck turns homeward it’s like a horse in full gallop; can’t get home fast enough.

As soon as he is home he is checking the schedules to see where to next.

A Tip 'o the Hat to Old Man Winter

It's Jan. 8th and in these parts we have not touched a shovel or snow-blower this winter!

(discounting those who needed them for a day at the end of Nov. ;)

Next week it sounds like Old Man Winter is going to try to change that, so enjoy!

He’s trying to muster a bluster

Out of his house in the sky

But someone keeps tickling his chinny-chin-chin

And all he can grin is oh, my!

He’s trying to hurry a flurry

Out of his house of snow

But someone keeps pushing his front door shut

And all he can grunt is oh, no!

He’s trying to feather the weather

Into a big, bluffing sea

But someone keeps rearranging the sky

And all he can sigh is oh, me!

© Janet Martin