I Love You Too

(my own version of Tom's song:)

I love

Little girls in spring

Burnished brooks that sing

Laughter of rain

And grain

I love

Weather-dappled glass

Carpets made of grass

Cloud-ships overhead

And bread

And I love you too

I love

Coffee-flavored dawns

Children-trampled lawns

Daddy’s stubble-chin

And grins

I love

Teen-agers that blush

Midnight’s velvet hush

Weathered rocking-chairs

And pears

And I love you too

I love

Off-to-school-day-hugs

Butter-flies and bugs

The joy of dinner-time

And rhymes

I love

Sunsets, little boys

Quiet after noise

Autumn-painted trees

And cheese

And I love you too

I love

Sunday morning calm

Snowflakes on my palm

Whispers soft as silk

And milk

I love

God’s amazing grace

Sea-breeze on my face

Bicycles and blooms

And brooms

And I love you too

© Janet Martin

…and I love that one could write a hundred verses to this song.

No Greater Love

There is no greater love

Than love of Thee, oh God

You crown us with your mercy

Where our sin-stains deck the sod

And instead of destruction

As long as we shall live

You offer sweet redemption

Oh my God and you forgive

There is no greater love

For you do not reward

According to the death we earned

But you forgive us, Lord

As far as east from west

Or north is from the south

You wash away unrighteousness

And satisfy our mouth

The sweetness of your love

Is not a transient thing

Mortality soon slips away

Like petals on the wind

But because of Your grace

And everlasting love

You transport us from this dark place

To ageless realms above

There is no greater love

You laid Your own life down

So we may not know death

But wear the victor’s crown

Oh, what a love is this?

Your death so we may live

Your righteousness absolving guilt

Oh God, as You forgive

© Janet Martin

Inspired by Ps. 103 and this…The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 6:23

 Celebrating LOVE today!

Happy Valentine's Day

I must go now

To melt chocolate

And laugh

Happy Valentine’s Day!

May chocolate and laughter kiss you today.

Love~ Janet

Poems too Perfect for Air (an edited re-post)

I pen your whispers on a page

Where only thought can see

The master-piece arrangements

Of love’s perfect poetry

I seal your secret sentiments

Within my tender tear

In scripts of un-spelled poetry

Where only thought can hear

I share your silent sorrow-tugs

  A slow-motion appeal  

In tidal-waves of poetry

Where only thought can feel

I wrap your sigh around me
 A whispered after-glow
Of poetry and passion
Where only thought can know

J~

Ineptness of Ink

To spell the ways of love evades my pen

Disrober of the heart and soul and mind

And I would blush but love is gentle, kind

Forgiving foibles common unto men

And yet to spell its ways evades my pen

Softly you come to me and I love you

As you remove the ramparts to my soul

Geography of skin is not the whole

But oh, beneath your kiss its touch will do

Softly you come to me and I love you

The ways of love are life’s great mystery

We cannot suffer its caress alone

For love cannot exist in only one

Divine extolling of insanity

The ways of love are life’s great mystery

To tell the ways of love evades my quill

How does one spell the lining of a heart?

Or shape in word our utter-deepest part

Shattering eons when the night is still

To tell love’s ways evades my humble quill

© Janet Martin

Of Mending and Tending

 

Her hands were rough

With the toil of love

Of tending, mending

Home and heart

His body was lean

Raising a large family

Drained more than

Pockets and bank accounts

…as we thrived

Never knowing need at all

Not because of things

But because of love

© Janet Martin

True love teaches in its tending

For there will always be fences,
clothes and hearts

In need of mending

Image Source

Of Pondering and Pinnacles...a Love Sonnet

 

Soundless, night sweeps its sable sea across

Blue winter dusk, and the world disappears

Beneath its wave; this day of toil and dross

Slips to the ocean of life’s rendered years

I strain to grasp its cadence on the breeze

Years taste like salt; their tears stinging my cheek

Or, is it the caress of memories

Telling those tender thoughts I cannot speak

Of love and longing, where its swan-song falls

In rippled echoes from the vaulted deep

Tripping through retrospect’s unguarded halls

Like vagabonds with no desire to sleep

They beckon and I yield to the romance

Of blue-bell burnished zephyrs and we dance

The night is warm; beneath its purple mist

The surging swell of ticking clocks subsides

There are no moments; time does not exist

Where we retrace the echo of its tides

I feel your whisper, soft against my face

The melody of moonlight gently spills

Against the shadow of thought’s keen embrace

Somewhere a dam breaks, disregarding wills

And while the lab’rer rests and dreamers dream

While winter prowls and howls outside their doors

We sail the crest of wild, uncharted streams

Marauders swept onto deserted shores

And on the banks of time’s unfettered bliss

Here we recall and touch those things we miss

Love does not fall away like tears and years

Or petals from the polestar of the rose

Its does not drift to nameless atmospheres

Dissolving in the breadth of moment-flows

We contemplate but cannot quantify

Its measurements of rhapsody and grief

Of passion-surges curtailing the sky

Or pain in swift, staggering disbelief

The dance of retrospect does not impart

One half without the other, smile and tear

Composes love-songs cradled in the heart

In canticles that only thought can hear

I hold you close but oh, I’ve come to know

Love’s pinnacle is in the letting go

© Janet Martin

Happy Valentine's Day
May it be love-ly in every way OXOX

Image Source

Love Out-poured (an edited re-post)

 

He could have sent a prophet
A servant, meek and low
To bear the curse of evil
And hatred's cruel blow
He could have sent a king of earth
A pauper or a priest
He had the means to place His worth
Within a mindless beast
He could have sent His angels
Legions to fill the sky
To spare Himself the anguish
Of watching His Son die
He could have, with one uttered word
Declared all man forgiven
He could have, from His visage stirred
The rocks to shout salvation
But He chose to put on flesh
The Sacred Son of Heaven
Became a servant unto men
In form, lowly and human
Upon a cross He gave Himself
A King and Royal Priest
And not one drop of love withheld
As death’s curse was released
He could have sent an army
To face the fiends of hell
But He loved us so completely
That He sent Himself

Janet

Inspired by Isa. 53 and Phil. 2: 5-11

~The more we love others, the more of ourselves we give.
~Love is fulfilled in its out-pouring.
~Love speaks in a clear voice
not by words, but by choice.