Glorious Masterpiece

 My motto for childcare: 'try to make the present pleasant'.

No, these kiddos will never remember these days but to them 'now' is all there is

and so they teach us to slow down and hear the separate notes that become the full song!

sometimes young parents and childcare givers energies are challenged by the 

'look-at-every-teeny-wonder' pace of youngsters but there is so much beauty and harmony

 we miss if haste the Hymn!

Try to make the present pleasant

Lend to life, love’s kind increase

Glean from common chords the essence

Of life’s glorious masterpiece

Try to turn time’s do-re-me rotes

Into more than mere ho-hum

Moments are like little eighth notes

In the song they will become

Take the music sheet of morning

Fill its bars with highs and lows

Harmonize life’s love and longing

Like the thorn that bears the rose

Set the strings of ‘Yet’ a-quiver

Who knows when life’s song is writ

as Time trembles from the Giver

To the composer of it

So, seek to make the present pleasant

Soon the tune of time will cease

Where each moment is the essence

Of life’s glorious masterpiece

© Janet Martin

what can compare in worth to a life well -lived; to moments well-whiled~

January Majesty

Earth went from bleak and barren to sleek white satin in the last day and night!

The land is plush with starry swirls

The black brook’s babbles cease

The wind, with gusty brush unfurls

A white-world masterpiece

Night fades its shades of endless ink

And fills man’s eastward gaze

Where Morning is an opal, pink

With silver-frosted glaze

And hope wafts, feathery and soft

Then wild and wonder-thrilled

Extravagance empties its loft

Earth’s naked Want is filled

And ‘wish’ wears fuzzy socks and sighs

Like lilies in repose

Love looks at life through gentle eyes

Unrushed in thermal clothes

It finds within white solitude

Breathtaking Majesty

To cheer the heart that else might brood

And miss the poetry

© Janet Martin

  

Stage of Almost His'try

I wrote this earlier today when Little Girl was scheduled for morning nap, 

(because she arrives before sun-up) but she definitely didn't get that memo. 

Nap #2 was a no-go as well and poof, so much for another day!

This one sorta tumbled out 'cuz it was one of those mornings that begged to be skied or walked across

 but Duty handed me a more domestic Beauty, so we admired the Gift from windowed frames.

Precious page of almost hist'ry sets a stage beneath our touch

Breaks through bars of almost heaven to delight the likes of us

Strews the glitter of potential through the dimming of the stars

And invites us to be thankful in spite of life’s slights and scars

Precious poise of noise and nuance tries sighs of caged wanderlust

Hunger kicks beneath the ribs while duty ties hands to its Must

Urging us, from four-wall corrals to be tenderly surprised

By a beauty-full decanter if we open up our eyes

Windows frame the Wow of seasons slipping ‘cross the countryside

Granting us ten-thousand reasons to be humbly satisfied

For this page of almost His’try is a very short-lived place

Always sealing with each sundown that which no one can erase

Worship bows in adoration to the Giver of our days

Breath-taking evaluation stuns complaint with rev’rent praise

As dawn's Door swings gently open to time’s most imminent Yet

Prompting us to tread with awe where almost Hist’ry’s stage is set

© Janet Martin

Part of the Purpose of Poetry

To touch that much-loved clime once more

Where soon morn's boon is borne away

To taunt us from a mist-kissed shore

Soft-sketched with scenes of yesterday

To trace the place beyond our reach

To feel its tender spiel once more

To wander down a silver beach

Washed with whisper-capped waves of yore

To pause because, caught on the air

We sense a flare of purple-gold

And petal snow soft-scattered where

Earth wears a garden white and cold

To smile a while because we learn

To realize the size of This

Is soon the Thing that fills the Urn

With ashes of what today is

To choose to make the most of now

And thank the poet with a pen

Because ink rhyme-and-verse somehow

Allows us to return again

© Janet Martin

Voice of Choice

 I started this poem early yesterday morning before being distracted by sunrise skies...

 before being moved by this message...

before Sunday dinner at my parents...

before not getting home til after dark

before beginning another week as soon as our feet hit home-turf last night

...and somehow it became a poem about choices 

because SO much has happened recently to

impress on me the long-term impact of choices!
 

This race of hopes and dreams we chase and replace year by year  

Is like game of guesses always veiled in Now and Here

Where mankind, always caught between what was and waits to be

Must choose to trust in God or wallow in fear’s misery

Choice is an awesome twinkle in the eye of centuries

Its impact, none can fathom as its slips from touch with ease

To endure the dynamics of a far and forward path

Where many feet will follow in its concrete aftermath

So subtle in its bearing, Choice sets out a vast buffet

And voices if the heart could talk the words that it would say

And like a spark can start a fire, Choice, cruel or kind

Can set a course in motion that never once crossed the mind

Time’s steadfast pace of change, while oft it rearranges plans

Can never thwart the channels that the mercy of God spans

Then, take heart, fellow-traveler, for the unknown road we face

Runs through and to the outstretched hands of everlasting grace

…so we may choose to trust or wallow in fear’s misery

And we may choose gods doomed to dust or Love’s Authority

And we may choose to lose our life in answer to God’s call

Or choose to turn our backs on Him and through this lose it all

© Janet Martin