July's Departure

I beg you to hold me in your azure gaze

Dance to a warm willow-vesper

Nurture my mind with abandonment’s blaze

Sweeten my mouth with your whisper

Cradle me where you will seal my last kiss

Gather me in your brawny hunger

Torture me tenderly in your farewell bliss

Tarry until I am younger

You know that I will not shackle the gate

I know that you must be leaving

Passion and sorrow; love’s juxtaposed weight

Entwine in bittersweet grieving

I beg you to hold me, sweet azure July

But moments do not pause or linger

Caught in a vortex of half-breaths, a sigh

You vanish on my outstretched fingers…

© Janet Martin

Preeminent Farewell

There’s a key change in the wind today

It drops from a lilt to a sigh

It clings to the tendrils of wild morning-glory

In the preeminence of good-bye

Tomorrow perhaps it may cart-wheel or amble

Nonchalantly over high-noon

Today it lingers; fingering the tassels

Of July; leaving way too soon

Long we a-wait the coveted candor

Of mid-summer’s languid kin-ship

Somewhere within its mellow meandering

Over Time’s fringes it slips

There is a key change in the late afternoon

It trickles from lintels of musk

Pooling in mouths of day-lily blooms

Then disappearing into the dusk…

Solemn, the orchestra of cricket-song

Ushers her over a floor

Of stubble and clover; while we are asleep

July suddenly is no more…

© Janet Martin

Un-spilled

Unscripted oceans

Ebb and flow

Somewhere inside of me

A surging, swelling

Undertow

Of un-spilled poetry

Where is the key

To set it free?

What seals this aching flood?

The rising, falling

Agony

Of poet’s un-spilled blood

How do I trace

A formless face

Or spell what yet is not?

And how do I

Escape the cry

Of a poet’s un-spilled thought?

© Janet Martin

 It's true; we can run but we cannot hide...

Waking...

Soft morning’s lavish profusion of grace

Creeps though the window and kisses my face

From pink misty meadow against thinning dark

A minuet ripples of cricket and lark

Out on the skyline the woodlot is blue

The color of wishing and missing you

Triumph and heartache in mystic shades splay

Nobody knows which it will be today

Yesterday’s wheat field is nothing but stubble

Such is the yield of this life and its trouble

© Janet Martin

The Barred Gate

We can’t return to the ‘before’

There is no back-to-history door

We cannot retrace one hour

Nor force to bud again, the flower

We cannot undo the ‘done’

Or retrieve a moment gone

Onward, upward is this climb

We cannot go back in time

Swift these transient morsels slip

Fleeting vapor on the lip

Over ramparts we have built

Pleasure, victory, shame or guilt

We can’t return to the ‘before’

Yesterday has sealed its door

Live well the moment you are in

For it will not pass again

© Janet Martin

Where the Crater's of the Heart Run Deep

Where the craters of the heart run jagged and deep

I tuck a leaf, a petal to keep

A head of wheat, a ray of sun

July, why do you leave when you’ve scarcely begun?

Queen Ann’s Lace, midnight-cricket’s song

I know it will not be very long

Until they are swallowed by the hour’s hungry lips

Or plucked by Time’s scrupulous fingertips

Where the craters of the heart run blood-deep

I seal the echo of the willow-sweep

Or the soft brush of your warmth on my ear

As you whisper good-bye and disappear

Take me to the ball-room of wide open sky

Hold me for one final dance, sweet July

Then I will release you forever to keep

Fragments of you where the heart’s craters run deep

J~

I stared at the date this morning…mildly shocked. I have not been paying much attention to the numbers on the calendar! July…where did you go and how? Oh yes, now I know, you slipped away on the breeze that blows over golden oceans of rippling wheat, over sun-sparkled waters and clover-sweet. You slithered through shaded willow-bower and dangled from the sultry high-noon hour…You faded a little with every petal that fell…Oh beautiful, beautiful July,  farewell!

Rock of Ages

What pierces the darkness?

What banishes doubt?

What leaves the soul deeply stirred?

What feeds our hunger

And soothes our grief?

Only one thing; God’s Word

What reassures us

As hope slips away?

What keeps our will undeterred?

What heals our sorrow

And quenches our thirst?

Only one thing: God’s Word

What is sure; changeless

In this world of change

Where the lines of virtue are blurred?

What remains steadfast

In spite of the age

Only one thing: God’s Word

What comforts the lonely

What strengthens the weak?

What never grows old, though oft heard?

What can we trust in

Without dismay?

Only one thing; God’s Word

© Janet Martin

Yesterday morning an elderly man shared how is SO thankful that God’s Word is a sure, steadfast, changeless Rock of Ages in every season of life…His wife recently suffered a stroke changing their lives immensely, and this man’s faith shone in the conviction and humility of his words.

Please pray for Mel and Irene if you read this. I’m sure they would appreciate it.

Beautiful Bittersweet

Life leaps and seeps in synchronized pulses

Graciously giving as it tenderly wanes

Someone’s first sunrise is another’s last sunset

Summer is winter on far yonder plains

Live fully each moment, but keep your clasp light

Farewell is torment if we hold too tight

See how the dawning in blue-gold atonement

Banishes yester’s dismay from our brow

Great is His faithfulness, new every morning

Hope and forgiveness in even tides flow

As forward we tumble and backward we slip

And onward we stumble in His tender grip

Life breaks and takes in its living and giving

Patiently enduring our sorrows and schemes

Youth cannot claim its white crown of wisdom

Wisdom does not return fair, youthful dreams

One portion expands as another depletes

Life, oh thou beautiful bitterest-sweet

© Janet Martin

Dawn rends the scrim

of another day

What will it give

or take away?

Before dusk settles

on borders far west

Will we have given

this day our best?

Have a wonderful day! Go with God.

Who Do You Think You Are, Janet Ruth Martin? ...an accrostic poem

Poetic Bloomings Prompt; Who Do You Think You Are?

PART I – WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

This week Marie and I ask you to write the poem as an acrostic, using your full name as the subject. The title of your poem should be “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, (Your Name Here)?”
Your poem should touch on your life, or some aspect of it until now. Remember, the focus is you! Tell us. Who do you think you are?

Just a simple girl, daughter, sister, mother, wife

Amazed every day at God’s gifts in my life

Night-owl when seduced by a word or a thought

Educated? By the world’s standards I’m not

That’s me

Rolling pin collector, lover of rhyme

Under the tutelage of a teacher called Time

Thinker, often quiet with sudden bits of crazy

Homebody; my favorite wild-bloom is a daisy

Mother and wife; I’m humbled and awed

And I would run scared, but for the patience of God

Rover of woodland and nature’s perfection

Thankful for moments of tender reflection

Incredibly blessed; undeservedly so

Normal? Nerd?  Nut?  Maybe, but by the grace of God I go…

© Janet Martin