Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A Question of 'Impotence...'


http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2011/10/midnight-snack-006.html

The stiffness of your moves, my dear

Compels me to inquire

Have you lost your agility

Or simply the desire?

Janet~

Realizations





We cannot

Return

Re-visit

Re-do

Recapture

Replace

Recreate

Renew

Redeem

Refuse

Restore

Re-design

Reject

Repair

Rearrange

Refine

Reconstruct

Reshape

Remove

Re-live

Retrace

Rewrite

Replenish

Retrieve

Reclaim

Reinstate

Revise

Re-cast

One solitary moment

Of our past

We can simply

Remember


Janet Martin


The most valuable gift we ever will hold is the present…

Let us not waste it...


The previous poem turned me to considering the 're-s' in our life...

and most of them connect to the past...remember, recall,recount, recollect, reminisce, review, regret...


'See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5:15-16

Not so in Life



Steps can be re-traced
And we can return once more
To re-visit nostalgia's hilltop
Or stand on a favored shore
But, not so in life

We cannot re-live one moment
Its prisms slip into the sky
Miles or footsteps can be retraced
To re-capture the seed of a sigh
Not so in life

Life has one clear direction
Time does not flow back
Though we pause in retrospection
To review its weathered track
…we can only keep moving forward
As moments keep slipping by
Places can be returned to again
…not so in life

Janet Martin

“Mom, just remember” cautions Victoria without turning her head,
“as far as we go this way, we have to go back!”
I was going to take a picture of her walking when up pops her hand with a reminder for that mom who might forget things like hours and distance in the great out-doors of autumn…and then I thought ‘yes, on a trail we get to come back, re-trace our steps-not so in life’. I'm so thankful, not only on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of my life, that we serve a loving God of grace and mercy.

Beginnings...


You no longer wear the softness of a child

I look at you, not down

But straight into your eye

Yet, I do not resist the urge

To hug you when I can

Your arms are long and awkward…

…the beginnings of a man

You ask questions spurred by deeper thought

Gone is the ceaseless spring of childish gush

The hand of time is nudging you along

Suddenly I sense its hurried push

And when did you begin to blush?

The proof of fading innocence

The bud of adolescence

I cannot see the brink on which you’re poised

But I can hear it in

The timbre of your voice

When began the deepening of its tone

Or the ruddiness beneath your tan?

Will you remain forever just a boy?

Or will you seek wisdom and become a man?


Janet Martin


Next year Matt will be hiking on Thanksgiving with our youth group.

This year's hike for me was bittersweet. Time is in such a hurry!


Moon Stories


She is too weary now

To ponder life’s deeper virtues

The ‘what’ and the ‘how’

The ‘should have’ or ‘want to’

So she slips her arm

Around the little girl

And together,

On the edge

Of a silent world

They sit and listen to the moon

Janet~

Tonight I asked Victoria to come and sit on the porch with me

And listen to the moon. (she told me she could hear what he said)…

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The Touch



With languorous sigh we laid beneath its shade

But now its awning spills upon my chair

As sunshine through its naked limb is splayed

Skeletal fingers claw the stringent air


Empty as the vain musings of a fool

The lush verdant umbrella of July

Unravels threads from nature’s giant spool

Releasing summer’s flower to the sky


Miniature acrobats, they dip and swirl

Cradled upon the lips of memory

And I am once again a little girl

Bathed in the withered teardrops of a tree


To weep for bygone joy is no disgrace

Beauty out-lines this tender note of grief

And as I press its sorrow to my face

I feel the touch of God upon a leaf

Janet Martin

Sonnet of Impressions


For my heart there is no sturdy bulwark

To guard it from the candor of your sigh

Mingling with the essence of the blue dark

Ghostly profusion dripping from the sky

Caught in the throat of midnight’s moody breeze

The elements of love and longing sweep

For naught can thwart the flow of memories

They rise and fall like billows of the deep

As yesterday adapts the muted robe

Of centuries that form the stricken dust

The milkweed flings its silk across the globe

Heedless of where its candid seed is thrust

But we, the author of our private woes

Can never its full secrecy disclose

***

Wrapped in the velvet pleasure of your smile

Is all the goodness of this world I ask

It warms me when another’s lips are vile

And lifts the mundane shadow from my task

Should worry taunt me with its formless fear

Or paint its dread upon my gleaming eye

Its blighted ruse is naught but tarnished cheer

It cannot quell the rushing of your sigh

I touch your lips that brush against my cheek

Miles cannot cool their warmth breathing within

I trace the tender curve of words you speak

And seal their kiss in vaults beneath my skin

For we, the keeper of love’s sweet caress

Choose to conceal its sacred tenderness

***

Life paints upon the canvas of our souls

Its intimate and panoramic art

Where none can know the murmur that consoles

Or runs translucent fingers through our heart

And no one else can see the artists brush

Or feel the splash of shadow, dark and light

What tone consumes the dim October hush

Or mingles with the teardrops of the night

Who leaves the imprint of delight within our sigh?

Or tears the lining from our hidden deep

Who lights the spark of passion in our eye

Or knows what we applaud or why we weep?

But we, the lone spectator of the whole

Can see life's pictures painted on our soul

J~

Monday, October 10, 2011

Counterpoints of Loss




I gazed longingly at so many prompts last week, knowing I was unable to touch them for a little while...there are a few too sweet not to give them a try.


Your finger-tips, once warm and tender
Rake across a listless turf
Then, an argent swell of splendor
Now a cold and darkened surf

Thought can be a calloused reaper
Stripping pleasure from the vine
Trampling all but truth beneath her
Folly yields a bitter wine

Where soft laughter filled night’s hollow
Now a low and hardened moan
Clenches twilight’s deepening pallor
With the timbre of a stone

Your lips, once sweet as dew-kissed roses
With sad triumph I decline
The door ajar now firmly closes
For you are no longer mine

Janet Martin