Pray We Never Outgrow Wonder...

Oh, pray we never grow too old to wonder at the common world

Or marvel at the sundry ways that only nature can amaze

And, pray we never weary of God’s testaments beneath, above

Where eye and ear bears witness to the Handwork only He can do

The workmanship of One so great ought to confound and captivate

The brooding discontent of we who, born with growling bellies see

Full proof of He in every leaf; His mercy lent to seed and sheaf

Each like a wide-flung window to wonders that only God can do

The worries of this world can bind and blind the aptness of the mind

Where faithful through the wooing years the hand of Heaven commandeers

Dark bark that cradles in its womb the nucleus of bud and bloom

Ah, pray we never grow blind to the wonder of what God can do

© Janet Martin

Some Think Tis Ink Inside a Pen...

 Have you looked to see what is hiding in your pen? ;-))

Some think tis ink inside a pen

But I have seen it spill its will

In flowers while winter gales chill

The bone that holds the dreamer’s yen

Some think that black and red and blue

Are bled when pen is touched to page

But I have witnessed frost-kissed sage

And mauve-mist morn, meadows of dew

I’ve held, with nothing but a smile

The wonder of a new-born child

Or wandered moorlands, wind-swept, wild

Where only page and ink beguile

Look! there an autumn leaf drifts by

And there a butterfly, a bird

See how the transport of mere word

Can splash gold sun into gray sky
 

The heart and soul are not immune

To song or sigh or fingertips

That brush the silence as it drips

With ink-anointed winter-June

Eyes do not show all that we think

The hand that moves the pen will tell

Of worlds cupped in its citadel

…the pen holds more, my love, than ink

© Janet Martin

Outside the World is White and Gray

 It's been a week where landscape and sky are a seamless sweep of white-ish-gray...

Outside the world is white and gray

And summer seems so far away

With its bare feet and bloom-spun nook

And lilies wading in the brook

Outside the leafless world is tossed

By gales that seem surly and lost

They reel across field, wood and lake

Surreal, the silence in its wake

No fences frilled with flower-bells

Or haunt of fern or green-moss dells

Where fairies flit, no gnome or sprite

To roam this sweep of knee-deep white

Outside the world half-dark and stark

Is like a still-life work of art

No color warms this painter’s tray

Outside the world is white and gray

© Janet Martin

To You, Dear Day

 From Emily's Quest

I should know you, darling

Without surprise you spill

Your faithful light of morning

Over the far blue hill

You tug from moor and meadow

Midnight’s muted manteau

You ease away the shadow

Where dusk bid us adieu

And I should fully know you

Tell me, how it can be

That after all these years, love

You still surprise me

You veil within your bearing

That which none can predict

You heed to commandeering

Of time’s law and edict

I guess I’ll never know you

By much more than your name

For no two of you, darling

Are ever quite the same

© Janet Martin

After A Few More Lifetimes

After a few more life-times

Perhaps then I will succeed

At turning all the pages of

Each book I want to read

After a few more life-times

The stack beside by bed

On end-tables and in my mind

Will be tagged, 'books I’ve read'

After a few more lifetimes

Maybe then I’ll beg and plead

That after living for so long

I’ve nothing left to read

But, after a few more lifetimes

I will see I read in vain

Because then I will want for time

To read favorites again

© Janet Martin

For those of us who love to read and write  the word 'bored' is not part of our vocabulary!