Thursday, October 12, 2017

Moment-metered Originals

I was getting ready to head out the door, dumbly floored by the brooding window-scape...
suddenly completely betaken by what became this unplanned poem.
and that, my dear reader-friends, 
is the tender-splendored and dominant yoke of a poet:_)

 (but if she hurries, she won't be too far behind, she hopes:)

Cricket plays summer's postlude...

Window-scapes are wonder-hued
Flower capes ravel, unglued
Cricket plays summer’s postlude
Footloose dreams meander
Up through treed fretwork we stare
Leaf-art etched on naught but air
Thought becomes a wordless prayer
Awed by Autumn’s Painter

Winter-spring-summer and fall
Moment-metered madrigal
Cloaks its circuit in a shawl
Draped in umber slumber
Em’rald, azure, cinnamon
Spills in thrills then wills undone
Soft a year is here and gone
Labelled with a number

Timeless treasure, here and now
Spills its measure, takes a bow
Yet is always full somehow
With virginal offers
Take and make the best of it
Break and seize the quest of it
Soon, too soon the zest of it
Rests in ashen coffers

Blaze of auburn, russet, maize
Gratifies the greedy gaze
Oh, but falls prey to the ways
Held in melded hours
Touch, but do not clench the fist
None can wrench or quench the grist
From the Hand that grants the mist
That unravels flowers

© Janet Martin

Genesis, Exodus, God



We went from smiling summer-like sunshine to....
b-r-r-r-r-ly, growling gale in a day!

Prelude to a frost-felled world...(these are last years frost-frames) no killer frost here this year...yet!


Womb of the earth gives birth to bud, then bloom
Intricate cradles unfold into flow’r
Steady, beneath leaf-green eddy, sheaf, plume
Heaven Her canopy, wind as Her broom
Earth hosts the belle of the hour

Loom of the earth weaves wonder to behold
Intrinsic shuttle, no rebuttal heeds
Skeins of rich purple, carmine, coral, gold
Tumble to treetops, gardens wild and bold
Miracles mantled in seeds

Tomb of the earth claims life’s cardinal due
(Warriors, genesis-exodus-shod)
Back to the berth where beginning’s accrue
Shimmer of violet, glimmer of blue
Cupped in Her fallow façade

© Janet Martin



Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Rainy Fall-morn Rumination





Ah, weight of woe and wonder
Thy retribution tests
The heart of hearts with plunder
Of uninvited guests
Where loneliness and laughter
Fashions a nagging knot
From fronds of echoed After
Entwined through present thought

Ah, crux of joy and sorrow
Pain, pleasure juxtaposed
Where hope and hunger war, oh
In battles unexposed
Faith and fear, feuding rivals
Courage and cowardice
Spar in heart-harbored duels
With God as sole witness

Ah, leap of love and longing
Cradle to grave emprise
Where have and hold, my darling
Is letting go’s disguise
Soft, soft summer-dust settles
In harvest bitter-sweet
Like pretty flower-petals
Scattered beneath our feet

Fall takes its leave in leaf-song
Relinquished note by note
It turns the tide of seasons
To lumps lodged in the throat
 Where Ever-after etches
Its essence, gray and gold  
To galleries of sketches
That heart alone can hold

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

When We Pray...





When we approach our gracious Lord
Though boldly, may He see
A heart of penitence out-poured
In meek humility

When we draw near to Holy God
Love’s divine genesis
May our pleas be wholly awed
Because of Who He IS

When we, with fervent hungering
Pour out our heart and soul
May we resign our will to Him
And trust His kind control

When we implore on bended knee
To He, all-glory crowned
May we never forget that we
Are bowed on holy ground

© Janet Martin

A Mother's Heart



 Precious weekend with the whole family passed SO fast!
All that remains is echoes...



There are gaps
When words don’t fit as well as she had planned
Perhaps if you live long enough, my love,
You’ll understand

Then there are words
You’ve heard so often maybe you don’t know
How ‘I love you’ wrings from its sentiment
Her joy and woe

There are tears
The years flow through us quicker now it seems
And she has learned to siphon splendor
From surrendered dreams

There are smiles
The miles we have to go would be too long
Without the beauty of love’s truly
Sentimental song

Then there are times
Sometimes when intention misses the mark
While gaps and words and tears and smiles blurt out
A mother’s heart


© Janet Martin