Here We Are...

 

Here we are, keen with fresh hope

As old and new converge

The old, sealed in yesteryear’s grope

The new, a gleaming surge

Here we are; in spite of life

We resolve once again

To fight anew this little strife

Of gladness, sadness, pain

Here we are; the portal where

We stood one year ago

Now blemished with our scattered care

A scarred and marred plateau

Here we are; with nothing much

But to resolve once more

To laugh, love, learn beneath life’s touch

To God’s forevermore

© Janet Martin

As I read this (please consider reading it if you want a worthwhile smile yet much to seriously ponder and remember) I found myself thinking...yes, here we are once again. I don't really 'do' New Year's Resolutions and yet it seems this is always a portal where we ponder life thus far and resolve to do better and not give up.

Happy New Year, all!

Of Corridors to Eternity

Time is so much more

Than a jesting of moments

Grazing earth’s shore

Time, for all it can ever be

Is but the corridor

To eternity

Time is a gift whereby we procure

The hour we make our calling

And election sure

Time, a transient vapor door

Leading us into

Forevermore

© Janet Martin

Almost...a Sonnet

Almost I feel you like it used to be

Perched on the brink of both future and past

Watching the twilight sweep over the lea

Shadows beginning to lower their masts

Almost I hear the murmur of the waves

Rushing, receding, holding, letting go

Pushing life’s moments to aerial graves

Without depleting their subaqueous flow

Almost I taste your whisper on my lips

Trembling as when I welcomed your first touch

Almost I reach with wanton fingertips

Into the sky for things hands cannot clutch

Almost I feel what once surely had been

Save for the miles and the years in between

Striving for self is grossest vanity

Time is insistent, thus I must turn loose

The wants God never intended for me

Lest they become an invisible noose

Here on the edge of morrow’s yesterday

I dare not covet what no longer is

The heart is both hunter and tenuous prey

I do not plead for one last farewell kiss

Yet, no one will suffer for me, your good-bye

Or weep wrenching tears of beautiful love

And now as twilight devours the sky

You slip from me like a hand from a glove

Forgive me, dear Lord, I am surely a fool

Beggar and king must adhere to Time’s rule

Darling, almost I feel the warmth of your sigh

Soft on my skin where time renders its mark

Somewhere the sea, like a lover’s lullaby

Croons its endearments to us through the dark

Parting is beautiful sorrow, they say

I’d choose a humbler delight in your arms

Almost I cannot relinquish this day

Though I have danced, reveling in its charms

It simply expands the missing of you

As history claims its vulnerable gasp

Almost, I cannot bear this shade of blue

Prying your silver swan-song from my grasp

Almost I hear you cajoling its sheen

Save for the ocean of moments between

J~

Poetic Bloomings invites us to share our favorite in-form form to close out the year.
Mine is the Sonnet.

The Ways of a Poem...(to poets the wide world over)

Your British eyes smile, blue

Across the sea

Poems scale mile-barriers

Effortlessly

I hear your whisper

From the turquoise south

Your poem melts like summer

In December's mouth

Even in the dark

Thought cannot lose its way

Poems drifts like a spark

To ports far, far away

Ah, Spanish matador

Red capes cannot shield

The thrust of a poem

In its passion revealed

Muse, like tumbleweed

North, south, east or west

Roams ‘cross the prairie-land

Climbs Mount Everest

She traverses oceans

Dallies from the moon

While dangling a poem

From the tip of her swoon

There is no rampart

A poem cannot climb

Such is the wonder

Of rhythm and rhyme

British eyes smile, blue

Like coming home

Thought shapes her beauty

Into a poem

© Janet Martin

Snow-fall Sonnets

The winter-dawn scene is white-sheen serene

No hint of tempests that tortured night’s girth

Lambasting hollow and tall evergreen

Sweeping stray petals of fall from the earth

Now children wake with a shriek of delight

At last old man winter has ceased to snore

Flinging his blankets of snow-powder white

Into the sky with a sulk-bulky roar

As gray-umber scruff of pasture and bluff

Boast gleaming robes of gilded royalty

Glistening diamonds bedazzle the cuff

Where pauper’s ragged tatters used to be

Elements shudder then softly release

To hill and gutter sweet heavenly peace

***

What is so rare is a fine winter day?

Though June doth possess verdant emerald gown

December polishes November gray

Decking youth’s folly with wisdom’s white crown

Over the stubble and trouble-wrought past

Grace is bestowed, not in pewter-pitch ash

But tumbling and twirling, old man winter’s blast

Blankets dull yards in silver-studded sash

Rousing within us the slumbering child

Urging us to suavely brave the sharp chill

Dashing through unblemished field, free and wild

Pausing to touch the air, stringent and still

For sure as sure as the summer doth pass

Soon this day too is a drop in time’s glass

***

Firesides beckon; orange-leaping romance

Snickers and smolders; its mystic tenure

Bestowing to poets and dreamers a dance

Of flickering flame in amber allure

Outside the artist, most often despised

Paints masterpieces into the dark hush

Though oft he is cursed, berated, chastised

Still he extols Heaven’s Hand ‘neath His brush

This is the season of sleds, skates and books

Tender hiatus from dirt-dreary toil

This is the reason for cozy house-nooks

Mini vacations from work-weary spoil

Gather your loved ones and let the winds blow

This is the season; let it snow, let it snow

© Janet Martin

p-s-s-t. I'll be honest,

this is for those who did get dumped on yesterday. Once again, we are on the fringe...

Like Smoke Rings...

 

Where once the hour chimed her in

From portals mystic-gray

Now soon it tolls her out again

To sleep earth’s time away

How fleet the feet of moments dance

We fall beneath their spell

Mesmerized by the romance

Of impending farewell

How swift the splurge of seasons merge

With predecessors spent

How soon the swoon of verdant June

Is stricken, stripped and bent

How quick the truth shunned in our youth

Leaves its halo of gray

The clock chimes clear, another year

Like smoke-rings, drifts away

© Janet Martin

Wild Wind Song

 

When the night falls down

In a dark velvet gown

Crowning earth’s borders

East, west, north and south

I hear the croon

Of a lost afternoon

I taste the salt

Of its tear in my mouth

When the wind moans blue

On midnight’s avenue

Phantom scavenger

Fearless and bold

I hear the lay

Of a sweet summer day

Warm in my memory

Yet to my touch, cold

When the wee house shutters

‘neath dark threats it utters

And love-stitched blankets

Cannot snuff its bluff

I hear the wail

Of a life growing pale

Heavy with things

Which are never enough

When dark night is deep

And the earth is asleep

Save for stark tree-tops

Tormented and tossed

I hear a moan

Echo sad and alone

A wayfarer searching

For years she has lost

© Janet~

Tonight the house shivers and shakes

as the harsh winter wind

howls and rakes 

its talons of steel across the dark

chill and wroth

shrouding the earth in a silver-white cloth...

Overtures of Spring

Moments burst, then twirl and swirl

Unfurling hours through the air

Rapid exhale, wild enigma

Painting portraits, raw and rare

Though grim gale hurls snow-storm spasms

Its insistence cannot quench

Dormant daydreams in the garden

And the bud that tree limbs clench

Soon will stir a ruby rustle

And what seemed a hopeless thing

Spills into nature’s spacious parlor

In grand overtures of Spring

© Janet Martin

Sunday Whirl ;