Hues of Blues...

She comes by it honestly

Her love of blues

In sundry hues

Of sky and sax

Flowing through

And filling in

The gaps caused by

All that love lacks

© Janet Martin

Investing in the Future

 PAD Challenge day 14: For today’s prompt, write a time out poem.

It’s not so much about money

As it is about Taking Time

To squiggle honey on bagels,

Or giggle a nursery-rhyme

Or stroll to a sun-yellow Hello

Of morning, gold-curled, bed-head wild

Or to take a ‘sit’ in the meadow a bit

With a picnic, a book and a child

Where we have unrushed conversations

About nothing too much at all

…*about whether chilly is weather or food

*And is Elora a boy or a girl?

And what is name of that little black bird?

*'Junco', I reply and they laugh

Because whoever heard of naming a bird

After a heap of trash

And suddenly I think how funny it is

That when we hear the word

Investment, we think about moneyed things

…not bare foot strolls or soup stirred

Or freckle-faced questions that wait our reply

Or let’s sing, let’s play, let’s dance

Yet, future depends more on how we spend time

Than the coin of dollars and cents

© Janet Martin

Inspired today:)

* 8:00 a.m. Boy 3 yrs. old: Janet, can we have a picnic?
 Janet; Let's wait a  little. It is still too chilly outside
Boy mystified; Chilly (chili) is food, right?

***

*Janet to Boy 3 yrs. old: Mommy is teaching in Elora today.
Boy, puzzled; Is Elora a boy or a girl?

***

Boy 3 and Sister 4, : Janet, what is the name of the tiny black bird?
Janet: that's a Junco.
Siblings squealing with laughter; A bird called Junk?

Take Time Out to Think About...It

PAD Challenge day 14: For today’s prompt, write a time out poem.

Bird-watching...the feeder is quite the hot spot in the morning!

This slick parade of tick and tock can take one by surprise

Veiled in heaven’s kaleidoscope of sunset and sunrise

The age-old chants of ‘how Time flies’ in new mouths is renewed

As we begin to realize how swift time is subdued

And then we plan to take the chance to dance a little more

And take time out to simply sit on Mother Nature’s floor

To slow the feet that fain would meet the breadth of day to day

With little more to show for than the rest who passed that way

Sometimes the time we didn’t take can smite a sudden blow

So we vow not to make the same mistake with its new Now

…then stoutly say, maybe today, we’ll pause a little bit

And take time out to think about the Grand Purpose of it

The quick parade of hope-trust-faith does not lead to the grave

But wholly, holy draws us to the Crux of all we brave

Where dust to dust is but the mortal must of flesh and blood

Before the Awesome Evermore…the Door that leads to God

© Janet Martin

One glimpse of heaven would suffice as reply
To earth's age-old question of why, why, why?

Last Exhale

 PAD Challenge day 13: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Last (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

Eastward...

Twilight draws over croft, soft pink

It tiptoes across wooded hush

And etches tree-lines on yon brink

Beneath the rose of eve-tide’s brush

That place where we keened waking thought

Upon the whetstone of new day

Has turned from future into naught

But that which comes to pass away

And suddenly I think of how

A day to week to month to year

With constant, waning undertow

Can make a lifetime disappear

A little lilt of newborn morn

Then far-off chimes, what, twelve o’ clock?

Ere dusk climbs the blue-ladder dorm

Midnight exhales; time turns the lock

© Janet Martin

Westward...

Sitting Among Sages

To book and keep a date with trees

Is quite imperative, my dear

For they say more with bend of breeze

Than peopled mouths preach in a year

Hush; hush thy rush of ordained mist

Come, pause beneath Jehovah’s laud

Of patriarchal pacifists

Ever reaching upward to God

Put down thy weight of daily dues

Those Mores will wait; wander the wood

For soft the gate of twilight hues

Swings shut upon our 'But' and 'Should'

So, when you plan your day or week

Amidst enlisted loyalties

If you wish to hear sages speak

Then spend an afternoon with trees

© Janet Martin