Storm-stoked...

 When I started writing this poem the snow was still held at bay,

but the winds have escalated and begin to add substance 

to the forecast of a big storm today.

The sky hangs low with unshed snow

The wailing wind begins to blow

Into each crevice, crease and nook

The vines that drape the boist’rous brook

Rattle; summer’s skeletal trace

Like scattered spools of tangled lace

Or ink-stains from a stoppered sea

That spilled vague strains of poetry

Still waiting to be recognized

By brittle frond and sprig disguised

The grumbling gale bullies the bush

And rakes the woodland’s solemn hush

A hoodlum looking for a fight

Harassing everything in sight

It storms the streets and marketplace

A hunter eager to give chase

To any unsuspecting prey

Not battened down or tucked away

So hang onto your hat, my friend

Or you may not see it again

The wind-chill seeps through walls it seems

And wakens simple fireside dreams

It makes the courtier of books

Content in modest, nested nooks

Where wanderlust’s tug is assuaged

Twixt sips of tea and turn of page

And everywhere we wish to roam

Does not compare to home, sweet home

Where paper ships on paper seas

Transport us anywhere we please

So, let the weight of lowered height

Burst through barred gates in white o’er white

White petals and white butterflies

White diamond-studded stars and sighs

White whispers on a white-washed path

White garnish on white aftermath

Unbroken save the curlicue

That spirals from the chimney flue

Or here and there a little bird

By ruffled feathers undeterred

© Janet Martin

Like Next of Kin...

Last night's supper; roasted vegetables, pulled pork and coleslaw!
(Buns, not pictured, were available for those who preferred pulled pork on a bun.)
 
I love the happiness that happens at meal-time when everyone is hungry!
Oh, how much we have to be thankful for! It reminds us of what we are here for, right?!
Not to over-indulge if we are blessed enough to entertain that thought...
but to live soberly and righteously in the present age/world,
where to whom much is given much will be required.
(For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.
It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, 
and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 
as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance
of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.…
Titus 2:11-13

The chords of a love song the Lord composed and wove within

Makes all of us together feel kind of like next of kin

For though we are like strangers living continents apart

We have so much in common in the matters of the heart

Man’s struggle to survive is this world’s universal quest

Where we all need each other to succeed and be our best

God gives to some to give to those who have no bread to share

(No one is more or less deserving of Mercy’s kind care )

My dear, we are all fearfully and wonderfully made

Though shapes, shades, sizes vary as the bloom that gilds the glade

We, oh, so very diff’rent are so much the same as well

Where hope-hurt-hunger-wonder tolls a keen and kindred bell

We all face challenges, oh yes, this is the way of life

We all need to kneel at the cross to gain eternal life

We all want to be loved; we all need to learn how to love

And all who trust the hand of God will find his grace enough

Who doesn’t like a hearty feast of food and fellowship

Who doesn’t need a hand to hold so our feet won’t slip

And who of us forever finds contentment all alone

Where there is so much more to us than forms of skin and bone

Time takes its toll until all that is left of you and me

Is living soul; for none can annul immortality

Then pray we make our calling sure in He who gave His all

Today is the day of salvation; pray we heed His call

Let’s live as though we’ve met before on some shore left behind

Make a collective effort to be more gracious and kind

Let’s live out the Great Love Song that our dear Lord wove within

So when we meet on yonder shore we’ll feel like next of kin

© Janet Martin

 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. 

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5

On Sunday our church family enjoyed a meal cooked by kind, willing people

to be enjoyed along with an opportunity to help fund

a week of kid's camp in Eucuador!

When we got the report this week that thanks to the funds raised we/they

are able to bring many kids to camp,

suddenly Ecuadorians felt a bit like family!

Sheer Perfection

The sun as it set seemed to cast the ice-coated trees in coral glaze...
Stunning!

Oh, that lovely, lonely feeling of the twilight slowly stealing

From earth’s coral-coloured ceiling to its shadow-stippled text

Oh, the beauty of the ages when the weight of whispers wages

Wars with nature’s seasoned pages moving from one to the next

Oh, the tender, somber splendor as today’s constant contender

Fills far, endless deeps with grandeur too divine for pen to spell

Where the Lender stuns the spender of the moments that meander

From the height of ‘love-me-tender’ to the depths of ‘fare-thee-well’

Oh the sweet and soulful yearning as the toll of no returning

Keens the whole of love and learning with a hymn of dimming day

Waking a surge of emotion like the breaking of the ocean

Waves on rock-juts of devotion tested by a westward sway

Oh the blushing, rushing wonder roused by silence that can thunder

As Intention’s Pirates plunder ships lost on a dusk-tossed sea

Where gentle ripples of laughter from a firmament-al rafter

Fills the ever-ever-after with a perfect memory

© Janet Martin

Last night and tonight's dusk called for a poem-serenade...

Tonight I was out on my skis waiting  with bold expectation
for more of what last night treated us with
but a broad band of brumal cloud
snuffed the sun
just as it began to
stun!

...it was still pretty, just not pink!

Pictures, Echo-refined

 for the ka-jillion times I've done this,

there are no photo-keepsakes, I remarked to Victoria yesterday,

Maybe we should have one to tuck into good-old-day archives

 ...'and so we take a closer look at common here-and-now'

which includes numb bum from the hard floor etc.😊

but sometimes book-looking needs to happen right where we are or 

we never do!

Its raw edges are smooth like stones washed by the sighing sea

The grace of years has brushed spent fears, like tears, from memory

And what had honed our hopes back then as dreams keened hunger’s gaze

Has forged the ups and downs of them into the good old days

Time, as it slips through our skin softens its yester-blow

And sweetens love’s incumbent growing pains of letting go

Then, while the winds of change insist upon time’s changeless ways

The gray and gold of have-and-hold soft-molds new good, old days

The aftermath of ordinary highs and lows becomes

A sort of path we wander in a world of tallied sums

It fills thought’s weathered pages with a tender hymn that plays

Across the modern ages of tomorrow’s good, old days

And so we take a closer look at common here-and-now

Soon turned to pages in a book that Past perfects somehow

While we grapple with ties that bind today’s momentous frays

Into pictures, echo-refined in Bygone’s good old days

© Janet Martin

This poem was written with a tender prayer included
for those whose good, old days really were the best before...
before sickness and death severed ties and altered pages forever!