Where Smiles Run Deep

 I feel every inch of my middle age tonight but it comes after a good day's work...not before:)

Stick pile from the ice-storm GONE! 

(I didn't get a bench(see above link) but I did salvage a stump;)

Her smiles run deep and cannot keep

The proof of years at bay

The quick return of live and learn

Startles her brow with gray

Her heart plays host to Uttermost

Of love’s laughter and tears

While her form bears and humbly wears

The penmanship of years

 Hope-spurred she strove to live the love

That lights the world afire

Stunned by the ease of memories

That tick and tock acquire

...as lark-song lilt on dawn soft spilt

And dusk’s blue shadow stage

And interplay of time's gold-gray

Clothed her with middle-age

Her smiles run deep and cannot keep

The proof of years at bay

But deeper still is the free will 

Of time slipping away

Futile to fret or fear the threat

Of lessons yet to learn

For Present spills both good and ills

 Into past's No Return

© Janet Martin

Office Like No Other

Writer's Digest PAD Challenge day 18:For today’s prompt, write an office poem. 

Her desk is cluttered with fixings for supper

Her office, a happening place

Of telephone ringing and little child singing

While bringing a smile to her face

Her toil is a humble hierarchy
Rewarded with fridge-door art

And darling chatter, dusting, dishes and laundry

While bringing a smile to her heart

She toils, not for mere money-chasers

For her common service is such

The future depends on the fruit of her labor

And it brings a smile to her touch

Until death, she cannot relinquish

The charge of an Office so dear

That it takes a lifetime to fully accomplish

And it brings a smile to her tear

Where her office is strewn with clutter

Of noise, toys and tools of love’s care

Her title like no other, simply this; Mother

And it brings a smile to her prayer

© Janet Martin

Comfort of the Soul

 Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, 

lest at any time we should let them slip.

Heb.2:1

Our times are in God’s hands

Sweet Comfort of the soul

In spite of man’s heathen demands

This whisper can console

Time’s mortal stint on sod

Commands utmost respect

For soon death’s rod transports to God

What no one should neglect

There is no most or least

With God, his love full-free

He spreads on morning skies a feast

Of opportunity

And pours into time’s Call

A new measure of grace

Where no care is too big or small

To lay before His face

With day to week to year

Time’s Awesome Wick grows dim

That none but God can commandeer

On our way back to him

© Janet Martin

Forever Memories

 The memories this week-end involve a lot of food-prep. I made the above recipe for a youth-group event called Progressive Supper. we hosted and served a main-course stop, after appetizers  at someone else's house, and then they moved on to the next host for dessert.

Now I'm prepping food for a BBQ tomorrow because the weather has suddenly turned summer-warm and we want to make keeper-memories out of these precious days...

Here is the dessert I whipped up...quick and easy so one is not cooped in the house all day cooking because...

...because life is too short to skip reading time:)

Victoria is reading Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. 

She just showed me these pages, knowing I would enjoy them.

 I'm sharing them so you can enjoy them too! 

Have a sweet rest-of-Saturday!

I'm reading The Wind that Shakes the Barley, such a good book with much to share in poems to come:)

Moments make mem’ries, love

The trove of thought a place

That holds the dole of moment-gold

Pouring through our embrace

Futile to grip too tight

This which no one can stay

But to touch-taste its holy haste

As it soft-slips away

Time’s temporary chase

Of grace-allotted dream

Where hope and hurt wear the same dirt

Is a fast-flowing stream

Our creature-o’-habit hearts

Can cause us to forget

The suave romance and quick-foot dance

Of tick-tock pirouette

…an interlacing rush

Of soul-sweet agonies

Brushing our skin to repose in

Forever memories

© Janet Martin

A Hint of Green....

 We are well on the way to this...

...and this

...and this

A hint of green tints somber hill

The dale, long bare and brown

Begins a hallelujah trill

To warm-welcome spring’s crown

We know not what a day contains

But we know this one thing

As long, God, said, as earth remains

Winter will yield to spring

The moan and groan of gale will pale

For in the undertows

That toss tall trees and rend earth’s veil

Time’s grail pours out a rose

We, bundled against winter’s ways

Where we shivered so long

Are all choristers now, we raise

Spring’s hallelujah song

…and forgive every fretting hour

That nearly wore us thin

Where every breeze is primed with flow’r

And every mouth with grin

A hint of green tints dream-rich days

The barren dale and hills

Begin spring’s hallelujah praise

That only summer stills

© Janet Martin

Tim Hortons

PAD Challenge from Writer's Digest day 16: For today’s prompt, write a poem about (or at) a food establishment.

We meet temporary soulmates there

diehards willing to wait, wade seas

to scan showcases of fresh-baked fare

and their turn to order, 'a large black, please'

...where the air is steeped with the heady blend

of chatter, laughter and a fresh-brewed pot

as student, traveler, laborer, friend

Streams through the doors of Canada's hot spot

Janet Martin~

If you are in Canada ask anyone you meet where the nearest Tim Hortons is...

and they will be able to tell you, 

because there is always a Tim Hortons (or three) nearby

Thank-you Tim Horton,
from Canada's coffee-lovers.
Read about Tim here,
 killed tragically in a car crash in 1974

Where Spring's Song Rings

PAD Challenge day 15: For today’s prompt, write a poem with at least four of the following eight words:
flat, ring, lavish, vessel, paper, blacklist, gaudy, tooth   

 Spring is like a verdant vessel

 Cargo-lavished with first bloom

Crepe-paper pink-purple petals

Stunning berths gaudy with plume

Beneath flat sky's fiery waking

Gaze is startled, torn between

A deck strewn with dog-tooth violets

Spilling from cups, speckled green

...or looking up to the heavens

While a new day dons its wings

...there is no blacklist in Nature

On a sea where Spring's song rings 

Janet~