Where Footfalls Fade

Poetic Bloomings INFORM PROMPT: Collins Sestet

 

Tread softly, dear, the by and by

You think is far from here is nigh

The little boy that runs and plays

Will soon be lost to yesterdays

The carefree girl will dance and dream

Into that world of what has been

Tread softly, dear and do not pine

For morrows waiting down the line

Where soon, too soon you’ll realize

The value of each moment-prize

And how they meld, blue-gold-gray-green

Into that world of what has been

Tread softly, love, and live full, free

In every day God grants to thee

Soft, swift the gift of it folds to

Bygones that claim their daily due

Where footfalls fade, seen to unseen

Into that world of what has been

© Janet Martin

I dare every mom out there 'who misses her terrible' to read this without shedding a tear with Marilla;)

But oh, The Afternoon

The afternoon meanders like a brook in mid-July

It eddies through fringed maple-windows blue with bits of sky

It trickles where time’s humor smiles from unbarred isles aloft

And sparkles like a diamond coronet, yet, oh, so soft

Some think God spills His rarest ink in pink sunset and rise

But I have read fairest of letters on afternoon skies

Its ink so blue one can see through to on and on above

Its well so deep it seems to mirror metaphors for love

  

A meant-for-more-than-toiling epoch cupped twixt noon and night

An afternoon is surely a first-class, green-grass delight

Where haste begs to be gentled just enough to taste the hour

Borne from the bud of morn into a full and ample flow’r

Its field is like a yellow lake fenced by treed silhouette

It dallies where a chair, a book, a cup of tea is set

And oft we overlook this gift dressed in meek beggar’s spoil

Or trudge begrudgingly across its albatross of toil

White cotton-candy clouds appease the one who dares to lie

Beneath blue-collar luxuries; a wide, untrodden sky

A miniature vacation midst love’s common kiss and dance

Of to-do lists; an afternoon runs rife with life’s romance

Ah, soon its lilt like petals will spill into blue good-bye

Its rippling roster cradled, flushed with vesper lullaby

But until then, come, revel in time’s dear and daily boon

And dream a little dream upon sweet summer’s afternoon

© Janet Martin

Universal Unity

 

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him.  

 With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.”

2 Chron.32:7-8

It is universal

Man's need and despair

It is universal

God's unfailing care

It is universal

That which none can see

Save the God who is I AM

And Immortality

It is universal

Love's language of tears

Utters words we cannot shape

Yet God Almighty hears

It is universal

Man's sojourn of sod

A twinkle in Time's eye that leads

To Everlasting God

© Janet Martin

Until The Thread of Seasons Breaks

 Often we wish for the Prize of being faithful Now, not 'in due season'.

In the meantime lets linger among flowers, shall we?

The prize that lies beyond these hills

Where dawn, yon region wakes

Is not attainable until

The thread of seasons breaks

Flowers oft cheer this way of days

They reminds us of He

Who ushers from the bud, His praise

And from mud, Majesty

We work and weep, want-wonder-stirred

And pray for things to come

We wait while God tests uttered word

And draws us nearer Home

The trial-and-error of mankind

Is as old as the first

This is no newborn grief we find

But with it we were cursed

And since that day of Eve’s downfall

Where Adam did partake

And Jesus’ came to pay it all

The curse of man to break

...we look beyond the far-off hill

Where dawn, yon tresses wakes

And trust the God of love until

The thread of seasons breaks

© Janet Martin

Have I told you that my family gave me a new camera for my birthday?
SO much fun using a camera that works properly!
 

...and a morning prayer

The Tale of Us

life is like a story written in a picture book

its best lines often hidden in small things we overlook

where time is like a rhyme that slips through lips we cannot hush

a bloom that seeps from budded plume, heart-soft, hard pull and push 

attraction and distraction and subtraction tally up

thrilling, filling and spilling over to past's willing sup

where you and I and they-is-was, are at the mercy of

the little jot and tittle that becomes the tale of us

winter is but the prelude to a summer soon subdued

the garden bares its heart ere it becomes dream-worlds unglued

the secret sorrows of the soul can seer one's best intent

aha, aha, we join the hordes who wonder where time went

tomorrow is pure innocence until it is today

time's pencil touches down and scrawls facts from its come-what-may

where life is like a story written in a picture book

the tale of us oft hidden in small things we overlook

Janet Martin

Of This

 Memories/lifetimes are made out of small everyday moments that we sometimes hardly think about...

I hope today's memories include a major house-tidy-up!

Take this day, unfold, untwist

Memories are made of this

Take this moment that you hold

Shape it into mem’ry-gold

Wish and want are futile fronds

Work with Now, ere it absconds

Leave Unknown-Unseen and such

Weave with strands that skim your touch

Take this day, soon it will be

A small stitch in history

Work, play, hope, pray, laugh, weep, kiss

Memories are made of this

© Janet Martin