October Lullaby

Wood-smoke spiraling; gray curls quickly drenched

Fog pressing weightless; yet like a cloud clenched

‘cross earth’s bleak dolor and colorless hues

November murmurs its imminent dues

Time tiptoes over this waning threshold

Of sweet October and gray stealing gold

Russet minstrels croon a last lullaby

Summer and winter sleep ‘neath the same sky

Coffins and cradles in earth’s womb enmesh

Juxtaposed; gardens of timber and flesh

Relentless rivers of ‘missing you’ rush

Rampant and silent through Time’s underbrush

Foothold of faith rivals festering fear

October shivers in dusk’s deep’ning sphere

Fantasy flounders; for no Brigadoon

Rises to rescue or rift Time’s swift swoon

There are no shadows; for the moon is dark

And there are no lovers tonight in the park

© Janet Martin

Baby Turns One Today!

Today  the little boy I baby-sit turns one! We had a party at his house on Sunday. We marveled again at how quickly a year is done!

Today mom and dad are both happy and sad

How quickly a year slips away

But we smile with joy for our dear little boy

Is turning one year old today

We sing and clap hands; moments trickle like sand

Or water of brook over stone

But bravely we cheer as we kiss baby dear

For today baby boy turns one

Sweet Time disappears in our laughter and tears

In birthdays, in work and in play

Now we celebrate with balloons, hugs and cake

For baby who turns one today

Happy Birthday to sweet, sweet Nathan!

With love, from Janet 

Time's Tango

The marsh is filled with eventide

And nature’s waning will

The grinning bloom betrayed by Time

Slumbers where all is still

The doggerel of august day

And cricket minuet

Midst wind and leaf-song falls away

Etched in thought’s silhouette

A metronome of moments fills

Then steals another hour

A chorus spilling daffodils

Soon strips the autumn bow’r

As dividends of quickened youth

And ageless wanderlust

Declares in nature’s ruthless truth

Life’s journey back to dust

The imminence of what must be

In every half-breath nears

Where nothing marks eternity

Or charts its days and years

Time’s tango teases and torments

It’s touch both kind and cruel

Somewhere its final recompense

Unravels from life’s spool

© Janet Martin

Love's Poetry

   

Nature resides within Love’s poetry

Each season climaxes then fades into

Its successor in splendid filigree

Of bud, leaf-laced or barren limb on blue

As beauty blends with beauty, spring to spring

Stunning anew the spectator of sod

For every season spills its offering

In shameless praise to its Creator God

There is no fairest of them all; each one

In turn unfolds its wonder to our gaze

We bow in awe to touch dawn’s frost-kissed lawn

Then turn to watch the sunset’s dying blaze

And soon another season’s worth is gone

Faint flicker in a soon-forgotten haze

Mortality rests in this Poet too

His hand sustains; to doubt is paltry shame

The Artist of ten-thousand shades of blue

Knows and beckons to each of us by name

We cannot know and understand His thought

But look; to every season He imbues

The colors that by Him alone are wrought

We stand amazed within Love’s hallowed hues

For everywhere the beauty of the Lord

In spite of our ignorance, abounds

Oh Victor, not of violence or of sword

Brings beauty to the broken; He confounds

Our stuttering; we cannot breathe a word

Within His poetry we are restored

© Janet Martin

 …that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' "Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.…Acts 17: 27-29

Job 12:10
In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

A Little Bit of Heaven

 

 

 

 Yesterday afternoon as the air sparkled with father, mother and child laughter, and the wind nipped our noses and kites pivoted, careened and nose-dived against a canvas of fall sky it almost felt like a little bit of heaven!

 What if we allowed

Love’s blessing to sink in

And what if we accepted it

Above our weight of sin?

And what if we proclaimed

In everything we do

The worthiness of HE who promises

To guide us through?

What if faith became

Our mystic stepping-stone

And sight simply love’s blindness

Where our vision sees a thorn?

What if we believed

And received without fear

Then wouldn’t we glimpse just

A little bit of heaven here?

© Janet Martin

Recompense of Hope

Wanton wind broods hungrily

Where June’s leaf-song used to be

Gone is summer’s sighing tress

None its season can possess

Now the street is lined with hosts

As earth claims Time’s petal-ghosts

Just as every half-breath, slipped

Into past’s eternal crypt

We are chancellors of hope

Blue wind broods on barren slope

Yet the discourse of an hour

Holds within its force, spring’s flow’r

We embrace this wondrous thing

Hope is heaven’s offering

For the brooding wind that blows

Will again kiss summer’s rose

Waiting is a hard-learned hurt

I have watched its seasons flirt

With my darling dreams, and I

Have sad and silently stood by

As they fell, like autumn’s leaf

I have suffered waiting’s grief

But within its grip I’ve learned

Happiness is hope returned

© Janet Martin

Of Regret and Redemption

Every now and then

From some lost yesterday

I feel the haunting tug of things

That I let slip away

But all the could-have-beens

Pounding time’s frozen past

Cannot annul God’s grace that fills

This day soon memory-cast

Regret is but to die

To opportunity

And this new day is mercy’s

Patient gift to you and me

© Janet Martin

 Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord.Ps. 27:14

A New Chapter Begins...

Its script yet unfathomed

Its page yet unmarred

Its stories unwritten

Where dawn bathes the yard

And morning implores us

To rise; grasp our pen

Beckoning gently

To write once again

We taste Time’s free-fall

We sorrow; we laugh

Dawn fills the air

With its first paragraph

Beneath our fingers

And feet we employ

Ink-drops of anguish

And whispers of joy

Over earth’s concave

And crest; beaming bright

Syllables tumble

In morning’s first light

Grace breathes its bounty

And forgives our sins

We trust Time’s Giver

…a new chapter begins

© Janet Martin

Rob and Emily dropped in before heading to their new home last night and I thought to myself, thus a new chapter begins.