Thinking About Writing a Wedding Speech

How does one write

One’s heart in a speech

To you, who has lived our real laughter and tears?

How does one spill

On patient page

Love’s element of vapor years

Our home was no

Glossy center-fold

Of picture-perfect rooms and such

But somehow between

Life's clutter and muddle

It was perfect beneath love’s gracious touch

Memories grow

More beautiful with time

Etched on Bygone’s winnowing heart-beat

And dear daughter, in spite

Of love’s fumbles and stumbles

I pray your memories of home will be sweet

How does one write

Heart-tugs in ink

As we try to reconcile Time’s subtle flow

See? Already

Dusk’s eager brink

Inhales the morning’s after-glow

How does one shape

In word the thought

Aching where countless echoes spill

It seems the essence

Of my love

Is something that evades my quill

© Janet Martin

My folder is always close by, catching those 1:00 a.m. or middle of canning revelations:) It has been a 'fruitful', exhausting week.

 

 

Wise and Worthy

Let's bloom where we're planted! These sunflowers volunteered their presence in my pea-patch. I'm glad I decided to leave them be instead of weeding them out.

We ought not to berate ourselves

For all we’ve never done

Or gaze with doleful self-reproach

At moments dead and gone

It does no good to wish and want

What long has slipped away

We cannot wear the rose or thorn

Of bygone yesterday

So if we would be wise and worthy

Of Time’s tender test

We ought to take this day at hand

And give it our best

© Janet Martin

I suppose we could all go there, to that ‘beat-myself-up-for-what-I-shouda/coulda-done’ place, but that is simply to waste the grace of a new day!

This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24

It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. Ps. 118:8

Vexation of Moments

Ah Time, moonlight sighs through curtains of mist

And I miss you; this day died as dusk

Wiped its slate; and what was no longer exists

Filling night-shadows with echoes soft-brusque

Your holy game of day to night to day

Slips through our filament in mute disguise

While we adorn your moments with our clay

The fool receives the same rain as the wise

…and I must be a sentimental fool

To wish for you; secured within the keep

Of memory in past’s immortal pool

You vex and comfort me when I should sleep

© Janet Martin~

Ever feel like its all slipping by way too fast??

Gossamer Whispers

Above raven rubric of this day’s unknowns

Light tints the tresses of Time

Moments, like gossamer-gold stepping stones

Implore us to dance and climb

Here, in the garden of life’s little place

We learn its lessons of sod

Moments, like gossamer whispers of grace

Draw us to twilight and God

© Janet Martin

 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Rom.12:1

Sojourners of Time

 (a rather shaky recording of golden moments falling;)

We gather, God, beneath Thy gaze

To tread life’s oft perplexing maze

Of highs and lows, of joys and woes

A mystical design

in hand-me-downs and wedding gowns

and flowers gilding summer’s crown

before the burnished laying down

of beauty from the vine

Yet, in this deft deliverance

from circumstance to circumstance

we will endure; we are secure

within a Master’s keep

as we behold the green and gold

and wonderment as seasons fold

from dust to dust, a transient hold

where garnered eons sleep

The Hand from which mute moments flow

like leaf-wrought flakes of golden snow

on summer’s lake, will not forsake

sojourners of Time’s charms

where soon we learn, its no return

requires grace we cannot earn

as we live, labor, love and yearn

toward His outstretched arms

© Janet Martin

...let men consider the steadfast love of the Lord. Ps. 107:43

Of Filament and Free-fall

Brooding breeze like melodies
of distant stream flows through the trees
as marigold in bold festoon
embellishes the afternoon
where wistful tone of willow moans
shedding its first free-fall of tears
and moments run beneath the sun
shaping the filament of years

Sumac wild-fire obscures cricket choir
collaborating; indolent quagmire  

of patient prelude to summer subdued
and innocence lost in its tune
as magenta dusk and dewy musk
mingle, a dissonant duet
of poplar tress and tear-caress
in twilight’s bluesy silhouette

 where you and I beneath a sky

of timeless Time ponder the why  
and wherefore of a wide-flung door

leading into forevermore
from this kaleidoscope of hope
and moment joy and sorrow

caught in between what once has been

and mystery of the morrow

© Janet Martin

Sing a Song of August

Sing a song of August

Peaches in a pie

Chicory-lined ditches

Monarch butterfly

Harvest to the silo

Bare-feet by the brook

Crickets-incognito

Wild-bloom laden nook

Sweet corn for our supper

Blue-sky opulence

Growing ever softer

In autumn’s advance

Ballad of bronze pastures

Sunflower festoon

Summer's spiraled laughter

Like honey from a spoon

Leaf-song in the woodland

Sea-song on the beach

Love-song keenly pulsing

As they slip from our reach

Sing a song of August

Cloying melody

Of summer softly slipping

Into our memory

© Janet Martin

Of Farewells and Kisses

No rustling of garments, no prints in the grass

No slamming of doors, yet how surely you pass

Hiding in daydreams, in midnight’s still dark

Brushing the morning and tuning the lark

You take our hand while we, quite unaware

Allow you to run rampant years through our hair

As we clutch the reins of duty and desire

You touch hills and plains with your autumnal fire

Ah, where do you come from and where do you go?

Where is the spigot from which moments flow?

Down from the heavens and out to a sea

Empires of soundless supremacy

No one can subdue your arabesque clout

Travail and triumph pour from the same spout

Yet in the mute, mystic, maddening sweep

Of constant departure, we find things to keep

Time; you leave tender trophies in your path

Echo of dances in your aftermath

Locket where laughter, love, learning and grace

Softens your stubble as you kiss our face

© Janet Martin