Before Its Demise

Already Day dwindles

First dawn disappears

As tick-by-tock swindles

Half-breaths into years

Futile to be beggars

In Want of the Past

For no one can barter

With one moment cast

My, my, how an hour

Slips through thin-skinned sighs

Its lilt like a flower

That opens then dies

Where Before-to-After

With gossamer spheres

Spills heartache and laughter

To love’s guerdon; tears

Already dawn dwindles

Birth’s blush from the breeze

As tick-by-tock kindles

Almost-memories

 

Today’s invitation

With each moment cries

For our attention

Before its demise

© Janet Martin

...off to 'attend' to those almost-memories!

To Be or Not To Be

To be or not to be joyful

To live without fists clenched

Thirst is a Thing full of time’s emptying

Yet never quite fully quenched

To be or not to be hopeful

To live each day without dread

Mindful of this; no matter what, God IS

Thus Hope will never be dead

To be or not to be Thankful

To tally, not what is not

But to be glad for the blessings we have

Keened to Love’s tittle and jot

To be or not to be humble

Pray life-stumbles make us kind

Pray we will prize more than that seen with eyes

Esteemed as loss by the blind

To be or not to be happy

Coveted Fortune, ah, yes

But too often missed because we exist

In search of this; happiness

© Janet Martin

The first stanza in this poem birthed from a wild desire to grasp time's coat-tails and try to slow it down...but I could not.
(our 'baby' turns fifteen today)
 Looking back can feel a little like peering into an echo-drenched cup of mist...

Of Gifted Beckoning

Dawn drapes its cape across the shape of skylines; overhead

The air is like a beaming stair that hails the sun to tread

Its ancient climes where Time chimes New Day's ethereal belfry

Then drains its zest from east to west since God said, ‘let there be’

Life’s little noise that soon employs its joys and sorrows spills

Beneath the wreath of heaven’s heath to dust-and-trust foothills

Our undertaking aching with the breaking of fond dreams

Still God above in faithful love replenishes hope-streams

Grace defends mortal weakness and extends, befriends the pleas

Of wise and humble souls returning yearning on their knees

Lest they become numb to the strum of Gifted Beckoning

Dawn’s shofar blows; Time is a rose above man’s reckoning

The Maestro of each moment orchestrates yon gates of air

His baton spawns to us, (garcons of Here and Now), its fare

Pray we commit to do with it our utter-best for then

Dusk drapes its cape across the shape of Time's Never Again

© Janet Martin

Here Where Wonder Wonders...

Where the flower flowers

Where the bower bows

Where the thunder thunders

Wonder wonders…how?

Where each season seasons

Time’s timeless adieu

We reason with reasons

Thought once thought it knew

Where Past’s quiver quivers

Echoes echo soft

Where love loves and hungers

Wonder wonders oft... 

Where the flower flowers

Where the bower bows

Where the thunder thunders

Wonder wonders…wow!

© Janet Martin

Don't It Make You Wanna Sing?

 Once again... (is that an oxymoron?) a merry March-melt is under way...

(not so welcomed by Maple-syrup Producers)

When the gray of March turns gold

Warming places cold with doubt

When we glimpse first spring once more

Don’t it make you wanna shout?

When what long held blooms at bay

Falls prey to zephyr-romance

When the bud begins to wake

Don’t it make you wanna dance?

When the earth is primed with birth

Where its girth, a tomb-like glove

Opens up its cloven fist

Don’t it make you wanna love?

When the sun climbs under stars

Over bars of Beginning

Into a new day of grace

Don’t it make you wanna sing?

© Janet Martin