Thursday Thoughts~

There is a war

Intense, hid from sight

It is the battle

Twixt wrong and right

Fear the day

Should its conflict cease

As numbed discernment

Brings an illusion of peace

There is a tug-of-war

In love’s two-toned beauty

The urge of desire

And dictation of duty

A long line of laundry

Is a testament

To a long line of love

No man can serve two masters

The servant makes his choice

No words are needed because action

Carries a definite voice

Dream, but only a little

It polishes the mundane

The line is fine twixt little and much

And to dream too much is vain

Dream, but only a little

Don’t let it mess with your head

Lest you stand and stare into the thin air

While someone else butters your bread

Hurry, hurry; don’t be late

Hell

And heaven

Do not wait

Spare change

Changes lives

On some days we…

…Live, laugh, love and play

On others we

…Weep, wish, work, pray

This must be my Muse’s queue

A list with many jobs to do

Never yet has darkness set in

Permanently

He who hath no shadows

Hath no light

Janet~

Why I Write...

I never can explain it quite

This need, it seems I have, to write…

But paper is a patient ear

No words are writ, it will not hear

It never assumes what is not

But simply listens to my thought

Here life's pleasures and sorrows spill

In whispers from a poet’s quill

I write to preserve moments past

Knowing ink’s measure will outlast

This transient, ephemeral shell

I write, for there is much to tell

But time is short and listeners rare

And spoken word is soon dead air

Thus I must write; a diary

Of thought engraved in poetry

I write because I love to read

To feel the passion mortal’s bleed

To thrill beneath their ageless thought

The mark of quill on parchment wrought

Of Tennyson, Longfellow, Frost

And countless throngs of voices lost

Had they not taken time to bare

With ink, the thoughts they longed to share

Tis no small thing to hold a pen

And spill heart-linings out to men

Of hope, of longing; these we summon

For mankind has this much in common

And with the written word we trace

The heartbeat of the human race

Manifested on a stage

In filament of ink and page

 

Tis no small thing; reaching to God

Seeking Him within my thought

Tis no small thing to contemplate

What to write; what to erase

…to paint in whispered ethereal art

Upon canvases of the heart

An earnest, resolute vocation

Generation to generation

…and so I write, not to become

A famous author, world-renowned

I write to touch the low-flung cloud

Or lonely souls lost in life’s crowd

I write; for it seems I cannot

Quell the vast ocean in my thought

And I am glad, so glad indeed

That others write, so I can read

© Janet Martin

My Homework for Writer's Unite is done!
Assignment: 200-300 words on Why I Write

Word Count;300 (phew!)

What are you doing? hubby asked a few nights ago when he called
I'm reading Treasure Valley, I replied. It was written in 1908 by Canadian author, Marian Keith.
Thank-you Marian,(although you were gone before I was born) for writing and sharing your beautiful, timeless perspective.

The Mind of a Poem

They tell me how I should write them

The rules to rhythm and rhyme

But they fall from my quill

By their own free will

Regardless of meter and time

They tell me how I should form them

Can I shape a river’s fray?

For a poet’s need

Is to sit down and bleed

Let the drops fall where they may

They tell me how I should mold them

But rules never could sway a poem

In the still of the night

As I sit here and write

Words have a mind of their own

© Janet Martin

In Those Moments

In those moments

When I’m tempted

To reach far into the past

And retrieve

A fancied fortune

From its archives, iron-cast

In those moments,

Though I’m tempted

I embrace the melody

Of the sweet

And fleeting present

Flowing into memory

...and though I’m tempted
In those moments

I release its aching grasp

Lest I miss

The precious present

Because I was looking back

Janet~

Today, as I was waiting in a check-out line we o-o-o-h-ed and a-a-a-h-ed over a new-born baby, and for a brief moment I was drenched in longing as I watched the ecstatic first-time mother….next week it will be twenty years since I was a first-time Mother; a mere flash, really. That is why I determine to live in the now!

Horizons

Gently it ripples, softly it is slipping

Green tide adorning earth’s fallow and slope

Out to the lips of cerulean grinning

A perimeter man cannot follow or grope

Where is the skyline that seals our visage?

Earth rushes out to brush azure-blue shores

Man rushes forward but we cannot touch it

Elusive allurement to ethereal doors

Wilderness, frontier, mountain or ocean

Grazes the furrow twixt seeing and faith

Gently it ripples; our thought and emotion

Tracing the edge of its blue, mystic wraith

Gossamer ribbon of infinite measure
We cannot race through its translucent seal
Nor stroll the breadth of its line at our leisure
And yet we know, the horizon is real

...it is, isn't it?

© Janet Martin

Horizons...the proof of faith.

Happy Birthday, Dave

Tonight when you look up to the sky, bro

And think of the years that have flown

Will there be a tear in your eye, bro

As you ponder the course of the sun?

…and tonight when you hear twilight’s sonnet

Quiver in the deepening west

Will you pause to remember life’s losses

Or how you have been richly blessed?

Tonight when you gaze at the stars, bro

Will you feel infinitely small?

And wonder that He who paints skies, bro

Should be mindful of man at all?

Tonight when you contemplate time, bro

Where will your musing dwell?

For you’ve known some up-hill climbs, bro

Disappointment; you know it well…

…but life is a canvas of mystery, bro

And God is a faithful Friend

As this year slips into history, bro

Do you wonder what waits ‘round the bend?

And tonight when you look at the sky, bro

Recalling the years that have passed

Will the only thing you really know

Be this? Life goes by way too fast

© Janet Martin

Happy 47^th Birthday, Dave…from one sky-lover to another…Enjoy!

Here is a teeny glimpse of my sky-shot collection:)

This is the time-frame where I always think of mom and wonder how she did it! My brother Stuart turned 45 on May 28th, Dave turns 47 today, I turn 46 next week and the following week my sister (the oldest child in our family) turns 48...!!! and as you can see in the previous post, Mom is still going strong!...after raising 10 children...after the first four she had 3  girls and then 3 boys!!! I remember we begged her (as if she ordered us from a catalog or something, to PL-E-E-E-ASE have a set of twins to complete our family...didn't happen:)

When things return to 'Normal'...

Mom giving Salome one of her favorite drinks...Ginger-ale. She cannot talk but her body language and gulping say it all!

‘Normal’ does not hover in tomorrow

Nor does it reside in the past

It is not a sweet, coveted hour

Waiting in regions dim and vast

‘Normal’ is not a state or condition

It carries no guarantee

It does not linger on pining or wishing

When this day is history

But ‘normal’ is the bloom we are holding

The moment that meets our gaze

For even now this ‘normal’ is folding

Into planted yesterdays

Who knows the nature of tomorrow’s ‘normal’?

Will its filament be leaden or gold?

And will we wish as we reminisce

For the ‘normal’ that now we hold?

© Janet Martin

How often do we find ourselves thinking 'when things return to normal'?  The other day I used this line when I was talking to my mother...When they brought dear Aunt Salome (in above photo) to their home- the Dr. said it was  'so she could spend her last days with loved ones in a non-hospital environment'. That happened almost four years ago. Salome is thriving beneath tender, loving care in spite of  Down's Syndrome, advanced Alzheimer's and complete physical inability; the DR. says her heart is strong. Salome turns 57 in a few weeks. I mentioned to Mom that 'someday when things return to 'normal', and she asked me to read the quote on her fridge. Its a reminder that 'the 'normals in life are now, for we cannot know what tomorrow's normals may be'. I have been thinking a lot about that...

Salome and her care-giver's are the inspiration in this article...Angels Among Us

You Love Us...

Jason  Gray: Remind Me Who I Am

You who breathed the universe

On vast infinity

Celestial bodies You disperse

In awesome majesty

You who designs fragile bloom

And rides upon the gale

You who conquered mortal doom

And rent the temple’s veil

You love us…

You who sees the sparrow fall

Who walks upon the sea

You, most Holy all in all

Died for humanity

Who paints the glory on the sky

The dawn, the dusk, the dark

Who heeds man’s faintest, humble cry

And gives wee faith its spark

You love us…

You love us, sure, steadfast promise

We cannot comprehend

The fullness of its height and depth

A love that has no end

No time or thing can separate us

From His faithful hand

Through darkest hours He carries us

Though we don’t understand

For He loves us

Forever and ever

Amen

© Janet Martin

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:39