The Ineptness and Forgiveness of Mortal Love

I will never be to you

Everything you want me to

And if I disappoint today

Darling, love me anyway

You will never be to me

Every single thing I need

So let’s just love and give God thanks

Then let His love fill in the blanks

© Janet Martin

Of Loving and Living...

Dawn softly tiptoes from Time’ mysteries

Kissing the dark with slow intricacies

Hope, like a lover undresses the deep

Undoing strings that have held us in sleep

Shall we leave its coaxing love unrequited?

Crushing its dream before it is cited?

Day sprawls before us with reckoning chance

Urging us closer to touch, taste and dance

Darling, the silver of moonlight and mist

Pools cool in the dell, gold on amethyst

Who can resist? Living’s fingertips ache

With weight of desire and love it must make

Unfetter vain fear; let it fly past the sun

Morning is here but soon it too is done

We cannot live on the past and its charms

For then we die lonely in each-other’s arms

Dawn trickles softly from Time’s metronome

Soon it will gather its offering home

It cannot refund or replay its chance

Darling, let’s make love as we touch, taste and dance

© Janet Martin

Making love is a constant laying down of self... Ann Voskamp

Through the Wood

If you should like to hear a song

Unrivaled by mere mortal tongue

And if you should like to recline

Beneath wild morning-glory vine

Or feel time pause within the walls

Of poplar-hemlock-elm-birch halls

If you should like to rest awhile

Where gentle zephyrs tease and smile

And all is peaceful, pure and good

Then you should wander through a wood

If you should like to chase a dream

Where bracken lines the lazy stream

And the whole world is brown and green

With bits of blue tucked high between

Where suddenly life’s little care

Drifts like a leaf upon the air

As you recall your inner child

Before Time drew you to the wild

And hurried pace of adulthood

…then take a detour through the wood

Life does not wait for anyone

And soon another day is done

How sad to by-pass freedom’s hour

And never wander ‘neath the bower

Of nature’s sacred citadel

Out past the sweep of gold-grain swell

Or where the back-road curves beyond

The road well-traveled, past the pond

Where once upon a time we could

Spend hours wandering through the wood

© Janet Martin

 Okay, well maybe not on a July evening unless you enjoy being a mosquito buffet;)

Of Gardens and Good-bye

Although, in Time we are nothing now

But love’s kind memory

I’m glad to know, someway, somehow

This binds us agelessly

And though our paths have parted, love

Know we will never part

Because there are no sad farewells

In gardens of the heart

J~

Of Gates and God

The sun climbs high into the sky

The Unknown does not offer

A greater glimpse to he who trusts

Than to the brazen scoffer

Our fingers rest upon a staff

All we can do is follow

And trust the One who forms and fills

The Unknown's hidden hollow

© Janet Martin

This morning I had a sensation of lifting a latch to open a gate

I cannot predict the twists and turns of life that lie in wait

But all I know is He who goes before me knows the way

I bow my head and beg for trust before I touch this day.

Summer Vesper

 The sunset was, u-u-u-m-m...grand. Actually, there are no words for what the sunset was...

The shadow climbs the gilded gate

Beneath dusk’s grand pavilion

Until blue depths obliterate

Its silhouette horizon

Against the quiet aftermath

Of mid-day’s bustling duty

The Painter of life’s little path

Unfurls night’s somber beauty

And now the sweet familiar dons

A strange and mystic splendor

The moonlight pools on silver lawns

In midnight’s mellow candor

The charcoal hush dims gold and red

Brushing garden and meadow

As all the world is tucked to bed

Beneath night’s velvet shadow

The lithesome step of eager child

Dashes through dream-land pasture

The brook that threads the begging wild

Murmurs in muted laughter

The tangled tress of raven limb

Strums softly with silk fingers

The air is drenched with midnight’s hymn

Where hope and heartache lingers

© Janet Martin

Sweet Summer

Sweet summer sweeps in green-leaf leaps

And gold exhilaration

From mystery to history

And quiet contemplation

Sweet summer swirls, where time unfurls

A swift and subtle stealing

Of sun-flow’r splash and flip-flop flash

Beneath cerulean ceiling

Sweet summer sways in heat-wave haze

And weeping willow-tresses

A serenade of dappled shade

Of iced tea and sun-dresses

Sweet summer sings in offerings

Of petal-perfumed pleasure

In honey-bees and bonny breeze

And muted moment-measure

Sweet summer sighs in veiled good-byes

Where aspen silver shimmers

Against the blue-sky avenue

And in the tear that glimmers

Sweet summer sinks beneath the pinks

Of rhododendron and roses

We touch and taste its gifted haste

Before its shutter closes

© Janet Martin

This summer is sweeping along far too quickly.

Of Kind Places...

The laughter of the summer-sky

The beauty of the morning

The lily and the butterfly

In nature’s fair adorning,

The sweep of seasons as they flow

Would grieve without atoning

If we did not have, here below

Love’s kind place of belonging

Where is your sweet home of the heart?

What soothes your silent longing?

For we all need love’s dearest part

That kind place of belonging

And then, though life may treat us wrong

In conquest raw, demanding

What joy to haste where we belong

To quiet understanding

We ought not squander energy

On things cold, hard and graven

Where greed and gain, love’s enemy

Destroys its tender haven

But as we struggle on life’s road

Of loneliness and longing

I pray we each find here below

Love’s kind place of belonging

© Janet Martin

My brother Dave is not a man of man wasted words, but I find what he does say is worth a listen, and today, a sharing....

 "A home is not a house and things we own  -  but a sense of being where we belong  -  a place of safety , security , comfort , LOVE , -    and everyone wants to belong - desires to belong  - and needs to belong." 

Thank-you Dave, for this morning's inspiration.

I'm reading the 4th book in The Walk Series by Richard Paul Evans. It is a story about a man whose loses his wife, home and belongings so he begins walking and a journey to discovery...a great read!