Wash-day Song

Sing a song of laundry

Lilting on the line

Like life’s little love-letters

Of cotton design

Sing a song of laundry

Sing until it hurts

Clothes-line filled with laughter of

Dresses, pants and shirts

Sing a song of laundry

Common tiralee

See those trousers dance a jig

To wind-melody

Sing a song of laundry

Echoing the joy

Mingled with the carefree spills

Of wee girl and boy

Sing a song of laundry

Happy as can be

For where there is laundry, oh

There is family

So, sing a song of laundry

Rainbow-tinted tune

Lolling in the sunshine of

A wash-day afternoon

© Janet Martin

The size of the pieces might change as years go by, but the process is the same...

Gather-wash-dry

-fold-put away,

This is the tune

of washing day! 

Moms, aren't you glad, glad, glad

for the people in your life that keep laundry hampers replenished? ;-)

On Keeping Happiness

We find it and we lose it then we choose it with mind-‘yes’

The froward-thinking way of flesh wars with daydreams and schemes

Darling, it seems we are inept at binding happiness

Covetous human nature often bars access, it seems

September rolls a sea of gold across earth’s countryside

And if we happen to take notice we are happy then

The eye-candy of nature pleases hearts of human-tide

But only for a little while unless its Sire we ken

Ah, therein lies the crux of happiness, simple and pure

Our weak attempts to corner it can never quite succeed

Until we come to know the One in whom we are secure

Then happiness becomes the Love that satisfies each need

© Janet Martin

 Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.

Ps.144:15

The Substance of Things Hoped For...

The substance of things hoped for in the budded brogue of spring

Reveals its evidence in recompense of bronze and gold

The death of summer-long lies buried in September’s sting

Of rainbow-colored gardens spawned from small seed’s thunderous hold

The landscape is a picture of harvest half-gathered in

Where seed and deed have much in common; what we plant we reap

And we cannot afford to ignore harvest-heavy skin

Its mortal mist of Moment hinges to Unfathomed Deep

The faith we plant among the thorn and scorn of disbelief

Like seeds will, without fail prove what is good and pure and true

The substance of things hoped for in this life of strife and grief

Abides in spite of time’s much mulled and unexplained ado

Then pray, the purpose of our push and pull and heave and groan

With all its brief appointments of present soon ever-past

Is for far more than avatars of crumbling skin and bone

But Substance of things hoped for before Evidence at last

© Janet Martin

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Heb.11:1

Better Than Pen-Poetry

Somehow the thoughts I think tonight

Mere poetry cannot corral

Release of ink inept to write

Its relief in a madrigal

The world that aches beneath my skin

Where wars of faith and fear hope, dread

Ignite a hunger-storm within

Like waves that surge and break, blood-red

Sometimes ink cannot mediate

The ways of love’s there-of and such

Nor can Poetry compensate

With offerings of type-print touch

My dear, the world at night can be

A black expanse of brooding air

A pen is maudlin company

When I am here and you are there

Prayer reaches through the dark with ease

God hears the words I cannot say

For He can translate tongue-tied pleas  

Into miracles when I pray

...and suddenly, my dearest dear
You do not seem so far from me
The transport of whisper and tear
Is love's sacred soul-poetry

© Janet Martin

 I will love You, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock 

and my fortress 

and my deliverer;
My God, 

my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield 

and the horn of my salvation, 

my stronghold. 

 I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

Ps.18:1-3

Gray September, Saturday Dawn

 I LOVE to clatter about the kitchen on a rainy morning...

...listening to the tune of silver-circle notes

Gray dawn is like a shawl

It wraps Saturday souls

In thoughts of woolly sweaters

Cups of tea and book-cajole

Gray dawn is a like a yawn

September-sweet and slow

It tickles us with fancy’s feet

And second cups o’ joe

Gray dawn is like a song

A blue-some serenade

Rain-drop percussion back-drop to

A week of mem’ries made

Gray dawn is like a poem

Stirring from common stuff

A canticle of home, sweet home

And pots and pans and love

© Janet Martin