Goodness of Morning...

 Looks like another beautiful day! 

After the brute that battered us a few days ago

we are glad with fresh fervor for mornings like this!

But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength; 

Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning, 

For You have been my stronghold 

And a refuge in the day of my distress.

Ps.59:16 NASB

Sometimes it whistles and sometimes it croons

Sometimes it moans, moody gray

Sometimes it crows like a rooster, where soon

Noon sweeps its newness away

Sometimes its harmonies meld, blush and gold

Sometimes it broods, blue and wild

Sometimes its kisses are bullish and cold

But always it’s pure as a child

Sometimes its startles our sleepy-eyed gaze

Sometimes it kindles anew

Zest for the quest of life’s best well-worn ways

Commonplace labor to do

Noble anointing, time’s fresh free-for-all

Stoked with appointments galore

Nothing quite rivals the hours that fall

Like morning, time’s never-before

© Janet Martin

Of October's Prose

Of poems on parchment

Of reed-stippled ponds

Of teasels on easels

Of frost-brittle fronds

Of paintings on canvas

Of endless blue sky

Of sienna stanzas

Where summer-songs lie

Of beggar and borrower

Not set apart

All eyes feast on flowers

And *blaze of leaf art

Of wind-tousled tassel

On corn-tinseled sweep

Of purple smoke-spiral

O’er woods half asleep

Of farewells, breathtaking

Of hellos soon lost

In wind-wassail shaking

The tress of tree-tops

Of silver-sage stages

Of garden’s repose

Ah, these are the pages

Of October’s prose

© Janet Martin

* Autumn lovers in this area are a little color-famished this year;
not much blaze.
Mostly just hazel-bronze with here and there a "look, look at me" tree!

Of Present Push and Pull #2

We are thankful

Life’s push and pull

Poised upon perhaps

Keeps us guessing

At the next thing

Pressed into our laps

It might be sweet

And kitten-soft

We'll pet its purring mew  

Until it scratches,

Bites and claws

Then we'll want something new

And we'll be glad

That what we had

Wore out its welcome, oh

And broke the ice

For something nice

-er, at least we hope so

Sometimes the tears

For far-fled years

Blind us to Here and Now

Until we see

How swift the plea

Of season stills the plow

Forbid we miss

The full of This

Arabesque, shimmer-kissed

Where present push and pull

Soon lulls

And new push-pulls insist

This montage of

The laws of love

Oft leaves us awed and vexed

Caught in between

All that has been

And what will happen next

© Janet Martin

Of Easel and Wine Press

My, what a fretwork of artwork we hold

Frames filled with claims, lent by God

Glimmers of cobalt and shimmers of gold

Tickle Time’s trembling facade

Ah, what an awesome Invitation, This

Rife with life’s breath-by-breath ‘oh’

Showers and flowers and hours we miss

And some we kiss once and let go

Duty is beauty in common disguise

Thank He who sends it each day

Savor the flavor where soon noon-day’s Prize

Like footprints in sand wash away

Well, well, we say, then the gray of goodnight

Brushes from sight, window-scapes

Thought traces places naught erases quite

It sips wine pressed from yester-shapes

What are we making of this holy haste ?

Eyes and ears, mouths, fingertips

Say, what will season the vintage we taste

When we lift thought’s glass to our lips

Darling, the arbor is heavy with grapes

Autumn insists on its due

Ah, something stirs; it blurs brawny landscapes

Shattered by silver and blue

© Janet Martin

Of Present Push and Pull

It grants us dances, thwarts our steps

It lets us leap and fall

A labyrinth of dreams and debts

And wonders big and small

Laughter and longing intermix

What seems a gathered sum

Is but a bitty bubble fixed

To what it will become

It bursts the bastioned bud with bloom

Bloom spills its beaming laud 

Threading the shuttle of a loom

 Mastered by nature's God

Earth’s births are hinged to death, but wait

Farewell hails veiled advent

It forges from felled gold a gate

To seasons not yet spent

It never stays the same for long

This present push and pull

Composes stanzas in a song

We never hear in full

© Janet Martin