I Write This Poem for...Us

I write this poem for you, my dear

For you are young and cannot hear

The rush of moments as they fly

Waning the gap twixt earth and sky

I write this poem for you, my love

To brush life’s gray with bits of mauve

Lest through it’s daily grind we pass

Like solemn shadows on the grass

I write this poem so we may see

Life’s Author and His poetry

Lest blindly we traverse this stage

And never pause to read the page

© Janet Martin 

Heaven's poetry spills from an infinite page...

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.Ps.19:1

Heart-matters

 

Man looks upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

We cannot see the hidden part

For only God looks on the heart

We judge a man by what we see

Of pride or of humility

And we may fool with careful art

The eyes that cannot see the heart

But fools will trust a fool’s disguise

Forgetting that the true man lies

Not in appearance’s vain part

But in the measure of the heart

We look upon the face, the hair

Our stature and the clothes we wear

But God sees far beyond the skin

For He beholds the heart within

© Janet Martin

Image Source

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." 1 Sam. 16:7

Ink-travel

 

Where will we travel today, my dear friend

Before dusk-blue shadows are cast?

Will we push toward life’s elusive ‘next-bend?’

Or return by your touch, to the past?

Will we, by the vexing persuasion of ink

Ponder the cold facts that exist?

Or will we succumb and slip over the brink

To arms of loved ones, dearly missed?

Will we probe the oracles shaping our want?

Or want nothing but what we hold?

Will we by the power of word-whispered jaunt

Revel where the moon blazes cold?

Darling, I love you for I cannot tell

Wherever or how we might go

And thought is an ocean that no hand can quell

Nor tether its free-falling flow

We are capable my love, of the worst

Just as we are of life’s best

Ah poet, ah pen, are we graciously cursed

Or dearly and divinely blessed?

A pen is a vehicle we all can afford

What blessing it then surely must be

That we traverse fathoms with nothing but word

Spilling into poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Home-makers, Mamas and Glory-days

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We do not tip the glamor Richter-scale

Of fashion, fortune or front-page applause

Yet we embrace, like heaven’s Holy Grail

Each humble task of love’s domestic cause

There are no halls of fame or monuments

To honor dish-soap hands of mama-smiles

No recognition for the hours spent

Of washed and folded, scrubbed and polished miles

We do not labor for crass platitude

Or trophies to acknowledge our pain

But oh, the childish grin of gratitude

Endears to us what some view as mundane

There are no banners waving in the air

For she who, for the thousandth time has served

Supper at six and no one really cares

Yet she toils not for recompense deserved

She toils to see her happy children smile

To nurture tenderly her patch of sod

Not for the wealth of fortune’s fleeting guile

But to make home a little glimpse of God

© Janet Martin

The inspiration for this poem; 

Both of my daughters work at Long-term care facilities. Yesterday while exchanging stories, they agreed it is so touching to see some of the ladies with dementia rocking and patting dolls or folding and re-folding tea-towels or aprons; re-living their glory-days…

We watched the movie The Help yesterday.Wow! That's all I will say.

On the week-end one of my daughters commented on how I seem so happy and content just doing laundry and stuff...ah, if she only knew:) and I pray someday she may, Lord-willing:) It's not the laundry, the dishes, the cleaning, the 'stuff'; it's the LOVE!

The other evening after supper had been over  for a while suddenly 'sonny' mentions while passing through the kitchen, 'oh, by the way mom, thanks for supper. It was really good'.'

I dedicate this song to all mamas and daddies.

Vexation-proof

Sometimes a vast, vexatious void

Torments the foibles of our thought

Not with life’s precious proofs of joy

But with the tears of what is not

The vaunt of what is not can drain

The laughter from life’s cup we hold

And what we have we hold in vain

If we ignore its splash of gold

For what is not may never be

And what fills our cup today

Does not come with a guarantee

That it will never slip away

So, when that vast, vexatious vaunt

Threatens to drive us to despair

We ought to fold its tortured taunt

Between our fingers in a prayer

© Janet Martin

Yesterday, was Family Day in Ontario. A provincial holiday for families to focus on spending time together. We had a great day, minus 'daddy' who needed to leave so he could be back for plans next week-end. I needed to keep re-filling my 'cup' with reminders of what we have, and not what is not...folding the rest between my fingers.

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Of Moment-tears

Oh, I am not impatient now

To see the snow slip from the trees

For soon time’s fixed, tenacious flow

Will claim it to my memories

And I no longer beg the hour

To leap into fair middle-June

For I have seen its virgin-flower

Garnish the sweep of autumn’s swoon

And I have heard the echo of

A balled writ of things I love

In sanguine swell a tender tune

Tinctures the knell of harvest-moon

And I no longer fret the day

Or love’s moment-metered pretext

For who am I to dare to say

‘Tis worse or better than the next

For like the snowflake decks the ground

In myriads of gathered gasp

They melt away without a sound

Sand-sparkles slipping through our grasp

Leaving no timeless, tangent proof

And soon the hour that stood aloof

Descends; joy precedent to grief

Winter, the bud of spring’s relief

No, I no longer cling or clutch

To hour-rendered offerings

But treasure, while they grace my touch

Life’s trial-and-triumph sufferings

For who can tell what waits beyond

Raw gale or golden-gilded sweep?

The lily drifting on the pond

Does not divulge its murky deep

And we cannot expunge the wrought

Nor form the future in our thought

But it is ours to smile or weep

Time’s moment-tears we cannot keep

© Janet Martin

'I'm sick of this weather', said Matt, as he trudged out to wait for the bus this morning (the cold more bitter because his sister's bus was cancelled due to the rain-snow duet:) I don't care for this weather either but I no longer desire to rush moments; transparent tick-tocks ever nudging the fledgling nearer to the edge of the nest...

Unrivaled Beauty

I know nothing

Of those things they write

Of Boston or Venice

Or Paris in spring

But oh, I have known

The same sky-night

Warm to a mid-summer

Dew-dawning

And I’ve known the same sun

Spill its gold

Into the hollow

Of last remnant snow

Or danced with the zephyr

That tosses the sea

Rich with the pigment

Of eve’s garnet glow

And I’ve known the same thrill

Of wonder-drenched hurt

As those who have traveled

Earth’s most-lauded shores

Extolling grand visions

Of turquoise-green surf

Of white sandy beach

And reef-studded sea-floors

For I’ve seen the smile

Of a little porch light

Reaching to me

Through dusk’s blue-shadow dome

And I’ve borne the rush

Of joy’s perfect delight

In the unrivaled beauty

Of coming home

© Janet Martin

I'm also discovering it's kindred beauty...two gold circles through blowing snow as I watch at the window
for loved ones to come home.

Of Life's Impetuous Rush

The waning edge of daylight’s dwindling sigh

Dissolves as blue on deeper blue descends

Until tangent and intangible blends

The hues that draw the line twixt earth and sky

Where we are held in Time’s delicate glance

A little while, to taste life’s wander-lust

Poured in a glass; the bitter-sweet romance

Of vintage dream’s before they turn to dust

And aspirations of our untried youth

Like cull of hull have borne the fruit of truth

The inevitable begins to yield

What our resistance cannot keep at bay

For who can brush the dusk from yonder field

Or pluck from it the rendering of a day

Or who can quell the echo of a sigh

As love employs its impetuous rush

Against the darkness of the midnight sky

Vexing the onyx void of star-frothed hush

Where ebb and flow of retrospect endears

The whisper of its memory in our ears

On yonder brink the morn of morrow waits

The oracle of hope and mystery

But none succeeds the hour to pry its gates

Or knows the formula of what it will be

We have only this moment on our tongue

To taste its offerings of salt and blood

Before too soon we are no longer young

Touching the footprints where our fathers stood

And murmuring as those who’ve gone before

How swift this little life-time is no more

© Janet Martin

Today someone mentioned how at a certain point in life suddenly it hits you that no matter how old we get, life is short and passes quickly...something we cannot grasp when we are young. This afternoon I convinced those who were home to come on a walk with me and when they asked 'why?' I told them to spend time together and to make a memory, because after all is said and done, memories are the only thing we can keep. This poem is a sort of collection of those thoughts.