Hark, Hark, What Haunting Melody

Hark, hark, what haunting melody

Intrigues the poet where stark limb

Is primed with solemn poetry

And captures heart-throbs with its hymn

 Winter’s earth wears a snow white shroud

Yet shameless, showcases bare trees

Where suddenly silence roils loud

Like crashing surge of far-off seas

Intent we are on bent of dreams

Sometimes it seems that we forget

How verily the hour streams

With time’s moment-ous pirouette

…it authors haunting melodies

Which induce an unbridled urge

To wander beneath winter's trees

And listen to sweet summer’s dirge

© Janet Martin

...on that note I think I will bundle up and wander/ski beneath naked trees to listen to

sweet summer's dirge...

 because "nature gives to every season a beauty all its own" 

Charles Dickens

Renaissance Music

 Sometimes the music of Past seems to play loudest as we peer toward Future

‘Perhaps’ we say; skies clap with Dawn

Time's Maestro primed with wait-and-see

Moves a chimerical baton

As future turns to history

Don’t try to grip the haste of it

But savor each note as it spills

And stuns us with the taste of it

That runs us through with thrills and ills

…to waken, break in, heal the heart

And make us reel beneath the thrall

Of common-colored works of art

Making muse-icians of us all

We house in cages clothed in skin

The music-sheets of season-death

While ballads from veiled violins

Turn our heads and steal our breath

...where we are torn twixt sit or climb

Borne on a thousand melodies

That course with the sheer force of Time

Casting eighth-notes to memories 

© Janet Martin

Below is the original version of the above poem;
funny how changing one word or line can birth a complete over-haul:)

‘Perhaps’ we say; time claps its hands

Perhaps and someday’s wait-and-see

Unravels future’s foreign lands

To have and hold, then history

Don’t try to grip the haste of it

Savor the bit-by-bit that spills

And stuns us with the taste of it

That runs us through with thrills and ills

…to break and heal the human heart

And make us reel beneath a thrall

Where tug-of-war-like works of art

Makes mem’ry misers of us all

We house in cages clothed in skin

The diaries of seasons spent

And hardly know where to begin

Always caught between came and went

Where we are discontent to sit

Too long with nothing much to do

Yet drawn by the sheer force of it

To linger and drink in the view

© Janet Martin

Meditation on Mediation...

It was so great to have Melissa home for three days...

 

I touch upon my cheek a tear

And clutch within my heart a rose

But they are not enough, my dear

To let you go or hold you close

Ah, poetry, you are inept

No demiurgic verse can prove

The length and width or height and depth

Of simply this; a mother’s love

So when I long to have you near

In spite of what love hopes and knows

I touch upon my cheek a tear

And hold within my heart a rose

…and pray the Lord your way to keep

He knows exactly where you are

A mother’s love flows sure and deep

But God’s love is greater by far

© Janet Martin

Little Lecture to Self, on Love

 Even if, at 6:55 a.m. I saw the recycling truck drive by the blue bins I pulled through the snow to the end of the lane a little after 6:30 a.m., in the dark so they would be out in time...and even though the snow plow bowled them over a little later (because recycling bins and snow plows simply are not compatible forces) and even though I wanted to shake my fist at the whole situation the only thing I could do of any value was bear the b-r-r-r-r-r!!,
pick up the mess and drag the bins back to the garage...😒

No matter what the day lets loose

Of toil or spoil, of hope or plan

We never have a good excuse

To mistreat our fellowman

No rank, no status owns the right

To treat another with contempt

No black or yellow, red or white

Is above love’s law or exempt

So, in this brotherhood where dust-

To-dust is our kindred boast

Let’s try to get along because

Love is the Must that matters most

…no matter what Time’s today grants

Of dance-stumble-rant-rave affair

Let’s not shake fists but use our hands

To help, to hold, to fold in prayer

© Janet Martin