Joy-harvest...

To harvest joy we must employ

Not tools of iron, steel or wood

But firmly wield in every field

A humble heart of gratitude

To harvest joy giddy like boy

With puppy or wee girl with dream

We must aspire in meek desire

To regard ‘small’ with high esteem

To harvest joy; mystic alloy

Of standing strong and bowing low

We must entrust our begging dust

To One True God who loves us so

To harvest joy is not to cloy

Vain expectation’s bloated yen

But to embrace God’s gift of grace

In breath-by-breath betrothed ‘amen’

Ultimate joy is no decoy

Of painted plastic, stone or wood

It is the thrill of  broken will

Filling a heart of gratitude

© Janet Martin

I Woke to Hear November's Wind...

I woke to hear November’s wind

Where night-scape sprawled silent and still

Yet noise tore at each leafless limb

With violent and unbending will

..as petal- leaves were ushered, rushed

Beneath a giant, obscure broom

Like children by a mother, shushed

Toward an invisible room

…and how can sound, like a freight-train

Rumble with no distinctive source?

Rattling at every window-pane

A formless brute of fearsome force

It screams; a wild relentless wail

And no one can escape its wrath

Except the moon, round-faced and pale

Beaming to earth a silver path

© Janet Martin

We have had more power-outages in the past 8 months than we have in the past 8 years! Last night I stood in the dark and gazed out at the surreal-ness of shrieking wind over moonlit calm. The trees are bare and nothing seemed to move yet the house shook and rattled in its relentless force. 

Our hydro was restored this afternoon.:)

November Is...

Long lies the shadow, ‘cross the globe

Snuffed soon by twilight’s chastening

Earth-scape has donned the deeper robe

Of Time’s insistent hastening

The breaker crashes on the cove

There are no stragglers on the beach

 Summer has fallen from the grove

Once heady with plum bloom and peach

November is a sparring poem

Of letting go and holding on

The separation of tick-tock

Shapes, first the present then the past

Time touts a subtle half-breath lock

Stealing, sealing its pulsing cast

November is a strange ghost-town

Of crumpled leaf and wand’ring wind

As we stroll streets, barren and brown

Seeking a song we cannot find

Yet here and there we glimpse a trace

Of moments spilled to Time’s embrace

Life’s mortal stakes are vanity

November is the solemn steward

Reminding us that what we see

Is but a temporal vineyard

And we, the servants of its spoil

Are at the mercy of tick-tock

Its proof pants in our weary toil

Or leaf-song snared against the rock

November is a broken road

Leading to spring and Heav’n-abode

© Janet Martin

Amendments...

PAD Challenge, day 18

For today’s prompt, write a “forget what I said earlier” poem. This poem could be a response to a poem you wrote earlier in the challenge (or just earlier in general). Or it could cover one of those moments–I have them all the time–when you say something that ends up proving wrong or that you wish you’d taken back.

Forget what I said about daylight
Washing those thoughts away
Where did you come from and how, love?
Here in the middle of day
Before the blue night-cloud diminished
Before the sun drank up the dew
I am compelled to admit it it...
Night-thoughts can be day-thoughts too...

J~

Life-gift or Hollow Token

 Writer's Digest PAD challenge: Day 17

For today’s prompt, write an element poem. Maybe an element from the periodic table (hydrogen, oxygen, etc.). Maybe an element of surprise?!? Or a missing element, which could refer to a person, tool, or poem. Run wild with it.


...yes, run wild with  it!
Tear the wrapping from this gift
Touch, taste, treasure its fine measure
Let its mercy-morsels sift
Through our bearing, reaching, sharing
Never daring to be slack
For this is a one-time wonder 
We can never have it back
 ...But remember, precious children
Without God we waste this dance
Empty as the hollow token
In a one-night stand romance

Janet~

How Swift the Sparkling Day...

Wow, this day flew by...I was sure I was going to have some 'spare' time today,to get out and 'play' but the blue dusk fell too quickly.

How swift the day, the sparkling day

Has borne its rife ration away

And now the stars come out to play

In night’s ebony field

How soft the hour, the grappling hour

Returns to earth the dewy flow’r

And man can sense a potent pow’r

Within the clock concealed

The night, the stealthy night descends

And wraps the land in ether blends

Of blue on blue until it ends

In darkness, star-pinned black

A man, a man travels the span

Of dust to dust beneath the fan

Of dark to light to dark again

…there is no turning back

How soon, how soon the vanity

Of have and holding’s venery

Will still, like leaf beneath the tree

Or snowflake’s silent sleep

How swift the day and darkness fade

How quickly Time’s pittance is paid

The measure of its moments weighed

In that supernal deep

© Janet Martin

Of Half-things

'We are over half-way to Christmas!' announces Victoria as she counts down the days with beads...

Writer's Digest PAD Challenge 16

For today’s prompt, write a half-way poem. The poem might deal with a half-way point in time. Or perhaps, a place in the dead center of here and there–in a physical sense. Even a compromise on terms in a negotiation can work.

Who knows the home-stretch or that ether crux where
we can proclaim, we are half-way there?

Who can tell his half-number of days?
Or judge half a man simply by his age...

In half an hour we will be
closer to a finish-line we cannot see

Half-cups of coffee, half-smile, half-kiss
spawns desire to see what the other half is...

A half-poem crumpled on the floor
tells of an author looking for more...

Time is an intangible winnowing of air
Its half-breath whisper silvers the hair...

We must pursue life, not with half a heart
But taste every moment to its fullest part

Joy, sorrow, laughter, pain
The other half of sun is rain

Half-parted waters, half-answered prayer
Sometimes the waiting is a hard half to bear

Life is the door-way to eternity
where there is no 'half-accountability'...

Darling, let's be hungry for each other
like we can never get enough
because who is ever satisfied
with  'half-of-making-love'?

Janet~

an old proverb that I grew up on...

What your hand finds to do
Do with your might
Things done by halves
Are never done right

These are Night-thoughts...

 

Image Source

"These are night-thoughts; the daylight will wash them away".

 ~From Lark-rise to Candleford~

Charmed, I suppose by blue and rose

Of morning, noon and twilight brush

A cage of bone can hold its own

The heart a Brave in living’s rush

But then, oh then the midnight pen

Reveals what daylight washes far

When I am sage with age again

And never wondering where you are…

Spoiled, I guess, by love’s caress

I could ask for nothing more

The heart can hold both gray and gold

As daylight seals that private door

But oh, the night, when all is quiet

Unbars the gate of good intent

Before the day when soft I say

I never wonder where you went…

Yes, yes, I know, the ebb and flow

Of dawn to dusk to dawn must be

The thoughts that ride its moment-tide

Are at the mercy of its sea

And I am just a girl at heart

The night has no respect for years

Thought spills unhindered in the dark

That in the daylight disappears…

Janet~