Tear-stained Letter

We’re not as close as I wish we would be…
And I take the blame for that
I know…
I’ve made choices with which you disagree
And I’ve made you sad
But in spite of it all
I love you, Dad

I love you more
And separately
From any other love
You’ve taught me
More than anyone
on this earth...
Generously, unselfishly
By example
…a gift beyond worth
And for this
I love you, Dad

Seventy seems younger than it used to…
Because I don’t think of you as old
I pray as you go forward
God will truly make each day pure gold
Because I can think of no other
Gift I would rather give
Than simply my love to you, Daddy
As long as we both shall live…

I love you
For the legacy you’ve given me
I wish there were some things
That had turned out differently
I know… you wish it too…
For it breaks my heart to realize
You’re *the greatest man…
…I never really knew…

With all my Love
From you daughter, Janet

Happy 70th Birthday, Dad

*Reba McIntyre song

If You Were to Stay...

I would wrap my arms softly around you

Spread my body o’er your fragrant dust

To cover you with sanguine summer-lust

And drink your sparkling wine of morning dew

I would slow-dance in the smoothness of your dark

Linger in your sultry, sullen arms

Victim of your mad and moody charms

Hypnotized by one faint glimm’ring spark

I would wander through your royal palace

Decked with roses; guarded by golden-rod

Built by none other than Holy God

I’d sip your tears from heaven’s purest chalice

Seduce me with your languid pantomime

I would not resist you if you tried

Lay me down where purple blooms reside

And lavish me with melodies sublime

Is there any ear to hear my pleas?

Will you dry the tear upon my cheek?

You kiss my lips, stealing the words I speak

And carry them away on Augusts’ breeze

Janet Martin~

I was lying on the deck soaking up the intense heat that comes

just before a billowy cloud-bank covers the sun and it hit me...

I don't want August to leave yet!

Matter of Age?

Can I, a vessel formed of dust
And prone to turn from fervent truth
Be wiser now than in my youth?
Does one become immune to lust?

Will folly be the residue
To cloak the trunk of wisdom’s tree
The breeze sweeps thither languidly
Across the weathered skins of fruit

Janet Martin

The words for this week are: residue, turn, skins, truth, dust, trunk, matter, breeze, cloak, vessel, sweeps, fervent

Paradise...Lost

Rue the day I come to tell
that I cannot remember well
the breeze that strode before us when
we heard the chorus in the glen
of hopes and dreams and whispers of
the thoughts of those who dream of love
and rue the cold and bitter night
when I cannot remember quite
the timbre of your quiet sigh
the color of your longing eye
and may I never live to tell
that I cannot remember well
what perhaps your name had been
or where you lived or even when
we said hello and not good-by
or was it just a far-fetched cry
of bitter love and loneliness
to fill internal emptiness
before we came to realize
more hope have we to touch the skies
than find within each others gaze
the magic of love's winsome ways.....
and dreams are but a hapless wave
to fill the cold and silent grave
Ah, rue the day I come to tell
that I cannot remember well...

J~

Invisible Hurricane...

By forces unseen
Ne’er beheld with the eye
Yet powerful as hurricane
Expelled in a sigh…
…is my love for you

J~

Thinking of everyone on the Eastern seaboard…be safe.

Joy Unrestrained

How oft the sadness of regret
Would bleed its vesture on my heart
Or paint its dark and sordid art
Across a day not broken yet

How oft its vengeance would remain
A visage, hidden and despised
Where hope lies flat, unrealized
In cold and unrelenting chains

Expectation’s pressing weight
Would push me hard into life’s dirt
Drowning passion in its hurt
Exchanging tenderness for hate...

...and peace would slip from my embrace
My joy be overcome with dread
But for redemption’s river shed
From Hands of sweet, atoning Grace

Janet~

Commandant

He marched ahead of me
barring every door
I was too afraid to retaliate
or even pound on the gate
freshly aware of my insecurity
I cowered on the floor
Subjected to the commandeer
Reliant on a single fortitude…
Fear

Janet~

Squanderer

Why wastest thou thy longing on a sigh
For minutes slipping to elusive past?
Why longest thou to hold a vapor fast?
Or lookest thou with low and dreamy eye
To swift-winged moments dashing by
Thus squandering present joy for shadows cast
No stagnant moment can there ever be
Nor was so small an hour that we should waste
Such treasure on closed lips devoid of taste
Or with eyes turned to past’s eternity
Be blinded to a stream of opportunity
Rushing to an ethereal sea in haste

Janet

To Mike…first crack at The Dare...
Am I vaguely close?