Braving The Elements...

Chapbook Challenge poem-a-day prompt 16: write a brave poem

With a house full of snow-happy youngsters it's impossible not to feel a little 'inner-child revived

I read a quote the other day; 

If you choose to hate the snow you will still have the same amount of snow...just far less joy! 

So, though I would not chose Winter to begin in early to mid-November

I determine to brave its beauty with joy!

Babies gaze in sheer amazement

Mittened-mufflered children shout

Reviving in older ‘Brave-sters’

What winter is all about

Happiness is snow-stars falling

Push and dig and pull and plow

Braving happiness, my darling

Always happens here and now

Wake once more thine wide-eyed wonder

Seasons slip through skin with ease

Wear thine hoary crown with tender

Reverence for memories

Carry no tomorrow-sorrow

But acquaint thy weathered joy

(Through the bravery we borrow)

With thy inner girl or boy

For this blur of howling hunger

Weans us from earth’s seasoned prow

Not with hopes of growing younger

But with humble here and now

© Janet Martin

Seasoned Sighs and Sacred Ties

 Tell me, tell me, tell me, 

how can it be 

mid-November already!

Through a lighthouse window in Souris PEI

This tick by tock tinder

That burns to a cinder

And turns into winter

Sweet spring, summer, fall

Will, with the same measure

Take trouble and pleasure

And turn it to treasure

Of times we recall

This high and low motion

That rolls like an ocean

Through prayers of devotion

And love’s tender tears

Gathers in its surges

Time’s day to day splurges

Where what soft-emerges

Is echo of years

This window of wishing

And 'let's just go fishing'

 Is like a cook, dishing

Out fodder for thought

Where pirates of passion

And four-season fashion 

Are bound to a ration 

Of what soon is not

This bygone-bent sally

Of hilltop and valley

Of dashing or dally

Binds us to good-byes

For soon what we savour

Slips from us forever

To season the flavour

Of ‘my, how time flies’

This breath-by-breath peeling

Through which death is stealing

Is far more than feeling

Or seeing or need

Beneath skin-wreathed shutters

A deathless wing flutters

And Soul-fully utters

A Call all should heed

© Janet Martin

More from Uncle Tom's Cabin...

Of Homemade Soup and Biscuits

I have NO idea what to make for supper tonight, I said to Victoria at 4:30
 (because I forgot to take out the chicken last night, to thaw.)
"Soup would be good" said Victoria
Yes! The perfect way to use up one of my five heads of cauliflower I bought on sale😀😋


Cauliflower Soup and Cheese Tea Biscuits...

Simple Satisfying Supper! Yum!

Let's celebrate our hunger where November's early eve

Has drawn a starry blanket 'cross the miles we brave yet grieve

Let's celebrate the brooding backdrop with a slice of cake

Or homemade soup and biscuits like our mothers used to make

Let's count our many blessings; pray the Lord to bless our meal

And not get tangled in the gossamer of 'how we feel'

Since summer has forsook us and the dark is like a glove

Filled with the muffled music of those days and years we love 

Let's linger longer at the table now; no need to rush

The outdoors are asleep beneath the minimalist's brush
Let's celebrate our hunger with a cup of tea and cake

Or homemade soup and biscuits like our mothers used to make

Janet Martin~  

Day 14 PAD Chapbook Prompt: write a hunger poem

Hope Is The Hunger

PAD Chapbook Challenge day 14: write a hunger poem ...

Gratitude Conquers the sin of Complaint!
It does not however fill wholly/holy, the hunger!

Longing, a lion that no one can tame

Who knew a roar could be soundless and still

Ocean-like surges without form or name

Honed by a hunger this world cannot fill

Longing, a hurt only heaven can heal

Tugging where love’s count-your-blessing streams pour

Still, in the middle of wonder we kneel

Crying where craving and need plead and war

Gratitude conquers the sin of complaint

Faith feels a Father’s whisper, ‘peace, be still’

Love is a lifeline where else we would faint

Hope is the hunger that heaven will fill

© Janet Martin

Mighty Metamorphosis or Torch-bearer

 I have a little book entitled Passages of Kindness; 

This quote is on the back cover ...

 A kind word is a treasure we can all afford

The kind word that you said to me

Shaped today’s gray into a smile

So I could brighten up and be

The light to someone else’s mile

And they in turn took heart and held

The hand of someone down and out

Where torch-and-burden-bearers meld

Into what love is all about

© Janet Martin