Mother-to-Mother...

 When hubby asks me what we talked about (on those rare occasions when moms go out)

more often than not I reply 'mostly mom-stuff'

I wondered what took Victoria so long to fuel up the Journey...

until she walked in with "Happy Early Mother's Day!"

Though we may not have met, as yet

We understand each other

Because we share love’s kindred care

When we become a mother

… for motherhood, so dear and good

Will fix within our bearing

A strange alloy of grief and joy

Born out of deepest caring

Where mother’s love will rise above

The circumstance and reason

Her prayers-tears-smiles fill whiles and miles

Without reserve or season

Who can explain love’s purest pain

When we become a mother

Its charge bestows high-fives and blows

Quite unlike any other

This humbling, fumbling, stumbling Best

This heart-string-honing tether

This lifelong faith-trust-hope-strength test

Binds all mothers together

For motherhood, so dear and good

Oft startles and confounds us

So, mother-to-mother, we need each other

To be God’s arms around us

© Janet Martin

Vexatious Vortex

Vexatious vortex of goodbye

It delves the deep that spawns the sigh

That stirs in its geography

Blurred vestige of what used to be

As longing clashes with the bars

Of sun-sparkles soon snuffed by stars

Where little lilts of life cement

A pageantry of seasons spent

…of gladness mingled with a sense

Of summers lost to recompense

We cannot keep for long The Now

That always slips from us somehow

Into that place that is no more

Comprised of highs and lows before

The toll of twilight softly pealed

And tucked today to coffers sealed

In silk and steel of smiles and tears

That keens the verge of yester-years

And makes us feel a little lost

Between the tug of prize and cost

The surge of day-to-day, oh my

Vexatious vortex of goodbye

As the heart races with intent

Then soon embraces seasons spent

As the trawler of soundless seas

Dredges the deeps where memories

Are not made by some secret How

But with Sacred Commonness; Now

Where all we have and hold falls prey

To the vortex of yesterday 

...where Time is never long enough

When it comes to the ones we love

Where gain is always hinged to loss

And pain is pleasure's albatross

Where Sacred Commonness of Now 

Slips through us without shouts of wow

To tune the deeps with fresh supply

Of inexorable goodbye

While we shoulder the ebb and flow

Of farewells soldered to hello

   

© Janet Martin

Heart/Hope-shaped Stepping-stones

this poem begged to be written as the sun emerged above earth's eastward edge

...its golden chime birthing the climb on Time's fresh sweep!

 Hope...the bud of Promise!

 this poem suddenly needed to meet a quick end as youngsters arrived:)

Hope breaks through bonds where darkness would be greater than the fight

Doubt’s cold bars fall like stars as morning scales the walls of night

The light of day like heaven’s hip-hooray covers the earth

Hope’s melody a golden sea of triumph and rebirth

Life is love’s grueling leap before the Door to surface-death

Opens, then shuts on hinges soft and slight as baby’s breath

To unveil with that final exhale hope’s  trophy of trust

As Soul unfolds its wings from this cocoon of dust-to-dust

The courage that we crave is a matter of grave concern

This course we brave is a fixed forward flight of no return

But God be thanked and praised and praised; these numbered days that fall

Are hope-shaped stepping-stones toward the reason for it all

© Janet Martin

Wonder-loom

Yield not to the fear of failure

Though the past none can erase

Through the welts of human error

Bleeds redemption’s healing grace

We are vessels, chipped and broken

Scarred by lesions of regret

But new day metes mercy’s token

…lends a leap not taken yet

Learning is a lifelong lesson

Yield not to depths of despair

But reach through the gates of heaven

With the whisper of a prayer

Chin up, precious, time for proving

Stumbles are not iron-cast

But teach us the art of moving

Forward, from frames of the past

Buds are full of flower-gardens

Hours burgeon with new bloom

Look, the light of mercy pardons

Past with morning's wonder-loom

 

© Janet Martin