Befitted for Love

 Love trades duty for honor

Love remembers to ask

Love's kind and gracious Author

To fit us for its task

Two little girls, the same size with the same names
are 'enjoying' same nap-times😀
...well, one is. the other one is making way too much noise to qualify as napping:)
(who knew love could be SO exhausting)
on their part and mine!
They are both kept quite busy 'borrowing' toys from each other
 and I am kept busy trying to sort what is who's!
But two not-even-two-yet girlies are pretty easy to convince
with another  'toy-bribe'
Time for a quick poem-coffee-break before #3 arrives.
#3 is all of two and boasts the title Grandson so
the dynamics change a bit just because when
you're all of 2 years + a month toy-bribes don't work as well anymore;
esp. at Grandma's house where he is the super-star!😊
Ah life! love!

One of the toy-bribes...inspired by Aiken Drum !

The quiet eye of heart and soul

With wily want and will to weigh

Rivals with noise of common toll

Where fact and fancy war and play

To teach thought’s vision to behold

*‘Midst gales of gray, hope’s glints of gold

Tell me, is ever time enough

To learn all that we ought to know

It seems to me life’s fist-a-cuff

Is always poised to wield a blow

Whilst we, with black eye, bloody lip

Brace for love’s next face-plant or trip

The mind is more than it may seem

Thought’s powerhouse produces touch

It harbours with its darling dream

The slyer skill of schemes and such

Where no one is immune to fear

Or the tempter’s impulsive leer

This dust we stir is soon subdued

A blur entombed in history

Where not one footstep can intrude

To rearrange time’s estranged spree

While love alone makes worth the leap

Twixt birth and death’s eternal sleep

The quiet eye of heart and soul

The mighty powerhouse of mind

Would be a futile rigmarole

With only havoc left behind

But for the humble servant’s prayer

To befit us for love’s warfare

© Janet Martin

*right now we are having gales of gray with no glints of gold!

Sometimes by Friday, life's noise sounds louder 

and good intention's poise is wobbly at best.

Thank-you God for your wise order 

of 'six days work' 

then a day of rest!

Today's wind has me humming this tune😁

 

There is a Love Waiting...

Part of my start to the day includes 'waiting'
and keeping an eye on the window for headlights
to signal the arrival of youngsters...
I suddenly visualized Jesus waiting,
 peering through the windows of our hearts
wondering how long it will take before we notice Him!

There is a Presence waiting

Man’s hunger to fulfill

There is a power waiting

Man’s weakness to instill

There is a purpose waiting

To fill with Worth, man’s days

There is a passion waiting

To turn man’s want to praise

There is a pilot waiting

To bid fear’s storm to cease

There is a Jesus waiting

To fill the heart with peace

© Janet Martin

There Will Be Buttercups (a February Fantasyland)

For your February dreaming pleasure!

There will be buttercups

Brimming with draughts of dew

There will be wild grass sighing

Where the dying day runs through

The silky, milky scarves of mist

Will drape dawn’s countryside

Where white daisy medallions strew

Green meadows far and wide

Silver highlights will brush the lush

Thigh-high cornfields with sun

And hills will tug at hearts to rest

And restless feet to run

The garden, fast asleep for now

Will waken wanderlust

To sting the dreamer’s eyes and brow

With tears of sweat and dust

Where fellowship with flowers is

Fine payoff for the pain

Of hours in the blazing heat

To beat weeds at their game

Zephyr-vespers will waft aloft

Soft on the eventide

The afternoon will offer seats

Of grass and moss, creek-side

There will be cricket-song

And Queen Ann's Lace-fringed lanes

And buttercups that brim, my dear

With warm, dust-fragrant rains

A hundred shades of green

Will break upon the earth

Where soon winter will melt into

Spring’s fountain of rebirth

© Janet Martin

Let's Just Stay Home

 All schools including colleges and universities are closed today in hopes that people 'just stay home'!

It's much safer for those trying to keep roads clear if there is less traffic skidding about!

Let’s just stay home

The wild wind wails

and flails its tears like broken glass

Let’s stoke the embers into flame

and make Cozy;

this too shall pass

Let’s snuggle beneath fuzzy shawls

while Nature decks its halls with B-r-r-r

Let’s bake a cake (or muffins)

to celebrate

Time’s creaky gait toward summer-r-r!

 Let’s count the ways we love thee, home

Thy warm welcome

never wears thin

How sweet the tempo of thy poem

How dear the laugh-lines

of thy grin

How beloved thy roof and walls

They gather us closer a bit

And shelter us from brutish brawls

while Old Man Winter throws a fit

...and heaven drops its hints of joy

in cheery kettle-tune and such

In happiness of girl and boy

at ease near mother's gentle touch 

Let's picnic by the fireplace

Let's just ignore the roaring clock

No, let's look time straight in its face

and savor every tick and tock

Let's live life slow;

let's be ourselves

Ah, never mind what others think

Family-arity fills shelves

with photos, books and poet’s ink

that authors within wood and stone

the solace of love’s humble prayer

while we work fingers to the bone

lest home-sweet-home becomes threadbare

So, not without meek, thankful thrill

do we utter this sacred Tome

while wild the gale exerts its will  

glad, glad we say;

let’s just stay home

© Janet Martin

and then the irony; while writing this poem Matt, after hearing his school is closed went straight to work. "I'm not sitting around here all day!" he said to his anxious mother😊

I got a text from a neighbour asking if its okay if she comes over today.

(I guess she's not feeling the 'let's just stay home' thing either😁)

Victoria on the other hand told me she's so glad to be home today 

because she didn't sleep very well last night due to the fact 

that she kept dreaming there was a crow in her room that constantly flew at her head😂

More Than Time's Glance Can Tell

 Writing this while ice-rain pelts the window and all schools are closed far and wide!

An unexpected day off for me as well.

People are staying home unless they simply can't!

Hoping this ice-storm makes quick work of its 'art'.

We've seen too much of it for our taste in the past few years! 

(below, last April)

For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind,

and reveals His thoughts to man,

the One who turns the dawn to darkness

and strides on the heights of the earth,

the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

Amos 4:13

More than weather or if we have

Enough to make ends meet

More than fond plans before the grave

Claims what none can defeat

This day the Lord has made is more

Than almost-memory

It is a stepping stone toward

God and eternity

More than an orb of fate unfurled

More than money we earn

Naked we came into this world

Naked we will return

This trek of ‘all is vanity’

Of creature joy and grief

Is far, far more than we can see

Where none but God is Chief

Holy, holy, each breath we take

The soft undoing of

The stuff we heap, the plans we make

The people that we love

Where God so rich in mercy, gave

More than time's glance can tell

For death is greater than the grave

That holds the lifeless shell 

More than the bud of beaming spring 

More than summer's full bloom

More than autumnal winnowing

Before the wintry tomb

More than four seasons, round and round

On earth-bound carousel

More than a stint of lost and found

Beneath time's tolling bell

More than the host and boast of years

Whilst learning what we know

More than mist, kissed with smiles and tears

Where hold means letting go

More than a span of bread we break

Of hello and farewell

Holy, holy, each step we take

Toward Heaven or hell

© Janet Martin