November's Madrigal

The wind is a beggar, aimless and forlorn

Nothing to torment but the frost-stricken corn

Its backdrop is gray now; the azure caress

Of summer is filled with November’s duress

The skyline is stripped of its autumn allure

Its boast lines dull gardens, the street and pasture

The song of the willow; a stiff-lipped requiem

Where summer-night lovers would tarry and dream

To the sigh of the bracken, the lilt of the brook

Now subtly silenced; each leaf-laden nook

A haven for poet’s or wander-lusts ploy

Teasing heavy hearts with its bittersweet joy

While over the meadow-land hovers a pall

Strumming the air with November’s madrigal

We tread the surface of each season’s lament

Pondering the haste of life’s tender torment

As winter’s harbinger roughly kisses our face

And nips our noses with reckless embrace

Ah, suture the vault from which mere moments flow

For even as they tease our thought, there they go

Melding to the landscape; a sun-shadow swell

In un-sculpted mind-frames of fall’s fond farewell

Broken buds scatter their demise at our feet

Resting where the circle of life is complete

We cannot retrieve from the crypt of the earth

The husk back to bloom, or the dead to re-birth

Yet, beauty unbiased sweeps this muted hall

Composing the dirge of November’s madrigal

The harvest is gathered; the furrow is plowed

The garden lies dormant beneath leafy shroud

The wind wanders heartless through woodlot and grove

Like a jilted lover still looking for love

And we stoke the fire dissuading the will

Of icy aggression and wintery chill

Wood-smoke spirals wistfully; chimney-flute swoon

The vesper snuffs daylight from late afternoon

As night draws its sable and somnolent veil

Over sallow, slumbering valley and dale

Biting tears spit from the glowering skies

Pelting earth’s sphere with its sleet-lullabies

Tucking the landscape beneath its gray shawl

While coldly crooning November’s madrigal

© Janet Martin

I was traipsing through November's outdoors for a few hours and I heard it. This Monday is the total opposite of last Monday's howling gale. Today is stark-still.

  then, suddenly I remembered that deer-hunting season started today so I decided to head home lest a trigger-happy 'young buck';)) mistakes me for 'Bambi'.

He Fills in the Gaps

He fills in the gaps

So many, it seems

The gaps twixt our holding

And having of dreams

It is not ours

To coax or demand

But to humbly surrender

Beneath Love’s gracious hand

His way is perfect

Our way is not

We cannot know

His reason or thought

But He is Love

And He is grace

Nothing on earth

Can take His place

…As He fills in the gaps

So many it seems

Twixt our holding

And having of dreams

© Janet Martin

Teri's comment in the previous poem inspired a thankful surge in my heart.

Words Are All We Have

We cannot wrench from the heart

Need

It is an inherited seed

But we can fill its hungry lair

With whispered thought

Turned into prayer

We cannot spell our thought but with this;

Word

Within its twisted ink the heart is stirred

Yet, there is One who hears our wordless sigh

Within a prayer

We spill its cry

We cannot stem longings restless

Tide

With things; they never fill the want inside

But we can shape

Our feeble plea

Into prayerful humility

We cannot tug from the unknown its

Veil

But we can trust in Love that will not fail

And as we reach into the seamless air

We can place our longing, need and hope

Within a prayer

© Janet Martin

‘Words, words, words’, I said yesterday, to no one in particular as I was listening to something. ‘Sometimes I get so tired of words’.

And without missing a beat Victoria pipes up, ‘but words are all we have!’

 (my silly little sunshine:)

Of Hidden Hurts

There are hurts too deep for tears

There are fears too stark for word

But there has never been a cry

The God of heaven has not heard

In the sorrow of our ‘knowns’

Or the depth of secret grief

There is One who hears our cry

And offers through His grace, relief

There are wounds, not of the flesh

There are scars not of the skin

But oh, there is a perfect love

That seeks to heal us from within

There are hurts too deep for tears

There are fears too stark for word

But there has never been a cry

The God of heaven has not heard

© Janet Martin

Text Poem

PAD Prompt: Texting Poem

Text poem?

Yup

R U kdding me?

No ma'am

Can’t

Why

Poetry leaves heart stirred

How

By lure of written word

Oh

© Janet Martin

For someone who does not own a cell phone and has never 'text-ed' in her life this is my single attempt at this prompt:)

A Better Place

Dear Lord, give me the eyes to see

Not only what’s in front of me

And help me reach with love’s embrace

To make this world a better place

Dear Lord, give me the faith to climb

Life’s ladder, one day at a time

And help me strive with tender grace

To make this world a better place

Help me to crave, not man’s applause

But ever more of You because

It is the beauty of Your ways

That makes this world a better place

Deed by deed and prayer by prayer

We can show the world we care

As we reach with love’s kind embrace

To make this world a better place

© Janet Martin 

As I began praying this morning these words seemed to pour from my heart...

Just Beneath the Now

PAD Challenge: Just Beneath the...you fill it in.

Just beneath the now

Awaits the ‘then’

We ought to handle it carefully

For it will not pass again

***

Just beneath this present action

Is a test, don’t you know?

Because it is in our reaction to action

That our truest colors show

***

 Just beneath frost-bitten flower

and dull November sod

rests the slumb'ring seed of springtime

waiting for the kiss of God

© Janet Martin

Philanderer's Fear

PAD Prompt Scary...

He had too many ‘darlings’

One by one they turned away

Now he lies

In the dark

Alone

It is time to pay

He had too many lovers

But never found ‘the one’

Philanderer

Of a woman’s heart

He cannot sleep

Alone

He had too many perfect words

But somewhere they lost their lure

Even in their arms

He knew

That his loneliness

Has no cure

He had too many ‘darlings’

One by one they turned away

Now he lies

In the dark

Alone

It is time to pay

Janet Martin~