A Sing-song of Sorts

Sometimes, when ice-filigree

Tries to get the best of me

Offering on offering

Of cold on cold, I sing

…and sing

I sing of barefoot little boy,

Of pansy-grin or coffee joy

Winter tracing bracken nook

Milk-weed lining muted brook

I sing of laughing lass with curls

Brides with dreams, Young men with girls

Of lover and his love is mine…

I sing of summer and sunshine

Memory-quilts stitched on the air

Lily-lilt frozen somewhere

Heaven-hope and rose-romance

Wild-bloom slope and daisy-dance,

Darling hellos and goodbyes

Morning melting midnight skies

Merchants pushing laden carts

Market-places, broken hearts

Lone leaf scuttling up a street

Long past noon-day’s hurried feet

Spiraling of thought on thought

I sing of forget-me-not

Rambling river, vesper-trill

Moonlight halo on a hill

Moment-might and mighty men

Poems pouring from a pen

Bastion of prayerful heart

God and nature’s endless art

I sing of a garden-gate

Where spring’s first bud-jewels wait

Shadows blue on twilight-shroud

Rain-song dripping from a cloud

Oh, and winter’s vast off-spring

Snow on snow on snow…I sing

© Janet Martin

Sunlight seeps cold gold today...

White Winter-tide

Black to blue to white you dawn

Morning-tide on winter’s lawn

Cimmerian undertones

Wind, frost-knuckled moans and groans

Testing sashes, vexing shores

Lending light twixt swinging doors

Where dawn-break and dusk soon meet

In a night-day-fall repeat

Every hill and rill and rim

Clad in snow-song seraphim

Now we covet things like gold

Not the kind that we can hold

But the kiss of sun and such

Evading cold winter’s touch

Where a dolor morning-tide

Tiptoes over countryside

Tucked from tippy-toe to chin

Beneath Old Man Winter’s grin

White on white on white foray

Spiked perhaps by tree-sprig-gray

Once upon a greener day

We watched morning wend its way

Like a lady, finely-dressed

In turquoise and amethyst

Spilling coral in her wake

Melting mauve across the lake

Where now, waltz of winter-tide

Petrifies the countryside

Lingering to spill its mirth

White on white on white-capped earth

© Janet Martin

Ink's Fondest Luxury

Ah, Poetry, it seems to me

Must be ink’s fondest luxury

Scattered fragments of a heart

Picture-frames of nature’s art

Agony and ecstasy

Bleeding into poetry

Dances of despair, desire

Rushing reels of ice and fire

Love and longing synchronize

Hope and heartache fill its skies

Where ink’s fondest luxury

Fills night-sighs with poetry

Centuries of testament

Spill in laughter and lament

Battle-ground of pain and peace

Luxury of ink-release

Mantra of a memory

Fondly framed in poetry

© Janet Martin

 The log I put on the fire at midnight didn't burn very well. Due to our COLD temps the stove-pipes got too cold creating a downdraught and at 3:00 a.m. we were woken to shrieking smoke alarms and a house plugged with smoke.kinda terrifying! I chucked the smoking log out into a snow-drift.  It took a few hours to figure out how to thaw windows open, clear smoke, reverse the draft. and get a fire burning again.online article a tremendous help (hairdryer up the chimney flue)

Now, coffee black and...poetry:) 

Matt is in school today but the buses to the elementary schools are not running so Victoria can make up for the sleep she missed during the night.

Collaboration of Contrast...edited rendition

Truth does not change

Season follows season

Night fills the hollow where dawn rends its blue

I cannot rearrange

Love’s restless reason

Longing still follows the having of you

The more that I love you

The deeper I hunger

The deeper I hunger the fuller I love

Perplexing paradox

Pushing me onward

Searching for something I know nothing of

Out on the skyline

Poplar and pine shiver

Here in the blackness of white winter night

Symmetrical contrasts

Collaborate, quiver

Tender-sweet torment and bitter delight

© Janet Martin

Wasted Wishing...

Don’t leave me yet, though night-ness shades the street

Where a short while ago dawn teased to gray

Hope’s un-chanced moments of faith without feet

Now we have worn them; its dance bitter-sweet

...too much I cherish of this little day

Why are you eager to vanish away?

Don’t leave me lonely; this fire is for two

Time enough darling, to sip midnight's sky

Dancing with memories tomorrow will do

I am not ready to relinquish you

Exchanging touch for an echo or sigh

Trading the gild of your grin for good-bye

Don’t leave me winter-cold here at the door

Vexing my wishes with your fading light

Time enough darling, for past’s never-more

‘After’ is longer, it seems, than ‘before’

And we grow older with each farewell flight

Kiss me, but oh, do not kiss me goodnight

© Janet Martin~

This was one of those days I simply don’t want to end…Yes, because we were all home with nowhere to go. Storm-stayed Luxury.

( ...and yes, Green Gables and Gilbert and Anne find their way to our house every winter:)

Storm-song

 We kicked some niches into the ice-snow-covered shrubs...it didn't take long for the birdies to find them!

Galvanized talons, raw, reckless unleash

Passion of snowflake to shiv’ring shrub-niche

Burrow, wee birdie, into cedar-tress

Pray, Mother Nature for spring-sweet caress

Down, from deep dregs of ice-crypts in the sky

Frenzy of flurry scatters far and wide

We, meek earth creature-lings bear its bleak blast

Knowing eventually it will be past

But the conductor of this stalwart choir

Waves his baton and shouts ‘higher, higher’

Strike silver timbrel and rouse bully-bow

Ring out the anthems of winter and snow

Over the landscape its melody streaks

Frosting eye-lashes lashes and nipping our cheeks

Where is the music of warm wave and sun?

Ah, it must wait until this song is done

© Janet Martin

Faces are frosted in mere minutes!

Morning Does Not Lose Its Way...

Morning does not lose its way

Though tardy, it seeps through gray

Lighting coppice, crag and firth

Sallow orb o’er white-washed earth

Windswept, hinterland and dell

Brace against steel tentacle

Nook and hollow, alley, hill

Nothing can escape its chill

Somewhere softer canticle

Teases turquoise-bathed pebble

Purple pool of morning mist

Veils lush vineyards warm, sun-kissed

Here we brace against the growls

Flung from Old Man Winter’s jowls

Here, at hearth we linger long

Slipper-clad and coffee-strong

Morning wends from heaven-tress

Vexing night’s dark wilderness

Through its howling, headstrong wrath

Morning melts a little path

© Janet Martin

Crazy-cold and stormy...all schools in a wide area are closed!

Snow Days...

There’s somethin’ ‘bout snow-days…

How they keen the heart-blaze

Love-laughter warming

Where flame-dance is null

Afternoon chatter

Wrapped in cozy sweaters

And soon to be memories

Of fresh-framed Thankful

There’s somethin’ ‘bout snow-days

And scrabble-word free-ways

Carving out niches

Of sun-sweet July

Good books, steam swirling

Above the unfurling

Of soon to be memories

Etched over good-bye

There’s somethin’ ‘bout snow-days

And blueberry bundt-cakes

Filling the kitchen

With Green Gable charm

Ah, there’s somethin’ ‘bout snow-days

Molding their memories

…not with ice-anguish

But love spicy-warm

© Janet Martin

It's All About the Cross ABC's

Love’s

Aching

Braving

Craving, coping

Dying,

Endless

Faith,

Grief,

Hoping

Inspiration.

Joy,

Keen

Loss

Oh, it’s all about The Cross

Love’s

Misery

Nobility,

Obligation

Passion

Quickening

Relinquishing,

Sacrifice,

Temptation

Unity

Victory

Worship,

X-altation

Yearning,

Zealous

And beyond all human explanation

This wayfaring and warring flight

Is not a dance of dross

For as we weep and pray and fight

It’s all about the cross

© Janet Martin

Skiing gives a person a lot of time to think...life and love can be heavy and grueling at times; then I looked up through the blowing snow and gathering dusk to where God planted His promise BAM! in front of me.literally...I stopped short and laughed out loud!

And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Luke 9:23


Phil 2:8 (NIV) And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!

Beggar's Benediction

How is it?

One click of a key

Steals your coy, half-grin

From me

Cerulean

Of summer-sky

Swept

To a bleak

And gray

Good-bye

How is it?

Coveting a page

From yesterday’s

Elusive stage

Can prompt

Quick poetry

Of tears

Or

Season-smiles

For yester-years

How is it?

One click of a key

Evokes

Familiar misery

‘Mornin’ darlin’’

And ‘farewell’

Falling prey

To the

Same

Knell?

How is it?

That the paradise

Of laughter

In a lover’s eyes

Dissolves

In oceans

Instantly

With one half-breath

Click of

A key?

© Janet Martin

Of Things Snowy and Sacred

When each tree is dressed in its winter-best

And earth is tucked deep ‘neath a downy spread

When green-sheen turns plush as a splendid hush

Wraps all creation in frost-whispered thread

When hope’s gracious Giver unfurls a white river

In snowflake fathoms of sugar-spun lace

When mortality reads God’s poetry

Spelled not with ink, but in colors of grace

We pause on its page, speechless and spellbound

Surely we are treading on holy ground

When white is a cape and the sky is its drape

As heaven and landscape coalesce

Picket-fence, pine and brooding timberline

Dissolving into amaranthine tress

Where every gust is a sparkle-thrust

Of diamond deliverance; each dull rampart

Transformed to a thing fit for any king

Who here can imitate this Painter’s art?

As each cheerless sprig is grand; glory-crowned

Surely we are standing on holy ground

When riot of red is shivered and shed

Save for the garnet of crab-apple gem

When bud bled bare is an echo somewhere

Beneath barred bastion of blizzard-hem

Where farm battle-field of labor is sealed

Seed-time and harvest in ordained repose

Soft, we recall summer’s mute madrigal

Of mist-mantled morning and dew-kissed rose

We touch the fringe of Someone awesome-gowned

Surely we are living on holy ground

© Janet Martin

We are in a blizzard warning; school’s cancelled, we are bracing for severe, maybe even record-breaking cold temps! Yesterday was much milder, perfect for skiing. Since the ice-storm two weeks ago the snow on ice has created perfect cross-country skiing conditions; all the fields completely covered.

The Mighty One, God, the Lord

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun

to its setting.

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth. Ps. 50:1-2

Poetry...

I cannot run away, it seems

From thought to thought and dream to dreams

They swirl and twirl and intertwine

Vexatious, intangible vine

Until I set its tendrils free

In little threads of poetry

Summer, winter, zephyr and gale

Muse-metered murmur, raw regale

Of seeker, slayer, somber-sweet

Plethora of passions compete

Until I set its fires free

In picture-frames of poetry

I cannot run away, it seems

From parting’s ever-testing streams

Soon the enticement of romance

Returns its dividends of chance

And where a sad, old tear would be

I seal its grief in poetry

© Janet Martin

But this...

From yonder brink a pool of pink

Expands into a sea of gold

And none of us can dare to think

Of what this mighty tide may hold

But simply trust the One who wills

The dawn to break across the hills

Oh, who will rest beneath its crest

Ere twilight sweeps the wooded ridge

Twixt earthly sod and heaven-best

And who can know what mercies bridge

Life’s gaping void of mortal woe?

Ah this, by God’s kind grace we go

The hour consumes time’s jasmine blooms

Washing its summer to a shore

Where pantomime of season-rooms

And petals strewn across its floor

Never utter one guarantee

But this; its end, eternity

© Janet Martin

They Never Really Met...

 

He always called her by her first name

Though they had never met.

At the grocery store

or, while he was refereeing a hockey-game

he would skate over to the glass

and grin,

‘Hi Janet, how’s it going?’

She always smiled and said ‘fine’

because she could never remember his name…

He had that uncanny gift of never forgetting a name

though they never really met;

…Friend of a friend.

The other week at the checkout

he said, 'Hi Janet, have a good Christmas!'

And she said 'thanks, you too' and she remembered his name

‘Rick’.

They never really met.

They never will.

Rick died today.

© Janet Martin

 

Rest in peace, Rick.

Thursday Thoughts of Thanks on Friday...

It’s not always easy

Life’s struggle and stumble

Yet it’s these imperfections

Which help keep us humble

***

Sink to your chin

In a tub full of bubbles

Tomorrow is waiting

With a new set of troubles…

***

We cannot edit moments

They sift through our embrace

Ephemeral deliverance

Forever etched in place

So we should treat its mercy

With grateful, utmost grace

These drops soon paint a picture

That no one can erase

***

Equipped with God’s promises

Beautiful stead

We have within us

Everything we need

***

God bless the happiness of noise

And never-ending mess of toys

And heaven’s best; our little boys

 

***

Nature inspires and comforts the heart…

Each day is a canvas of Masterpiece art

***

…But no matter how many miracles fall

Babies are surely the sweetest of all

***

In the muddle of laundry and toast crumbs and such

I’ve felt the beautiful, breath-taking touch

Of something that leaves me full-speechlessly stirred

In heavens too holy for commonplace word

***

This is a Friday unlike any other

Treasure its gifted refrain

For this special Friday of virgin allotment

Will never be granted again!

© Janet Martin

Echoes of Shangri La

There, where the sea runs its melody

Over a shore of footfalls erased

Replaced, until retrospect’s recall

Is suddenly, surreptitiously graced

With keen remembrances skimming the blue

The having and holding and missing of you…

There are many ways to make love, I suppose

Samurai beaches or second mile sweeps

Where sacrifice bleeds colors of the rose

Into the wanting and waiting-drenched deeps

As hope, faith and trust tune tresses of blue

In loving and longing and needing of you…

Ethereal Edens echoing soft

Where once we danced, ere the invasion of

Moments drew us from the Shangri la

Of uninterrupted making love

Better the echo than never to know

Words to a song we whispered long ago

© Janet Martin

Recognize the beauty of love in your hand

Soon its soft echo will silver the sand…

Time's Tender Turbulence...a 'sort-of Sonnet'

We all must bear Time’s tender turbulence

A tide coursing from heaven's ether source

It gathers in its mighty, muted force

Intangible deaths and deliverance

Then rushes o’er a brink into a sea

Where oft we search in vain for its lost shore

But cannot tread Time’s spent for-never-more

And so we brace for storms that yet must be

Before the Captain guides our vessels where

Time does not hinder us from here to there

The footfall of a moment rends the air

In soundless and boundless intensity

Its dividend of brief uncertainty

Soon tugs the ribbons from a wee girl’s hair

And laces traces of silver-soft proof

Where many midnights kissed our dreams of dust

And disappointed schemes of wanderlust

Though we have ducked and tried to stand aloof

There is no bastion for fool’s lament

Where we can hide or escape Time’s intent

…so we embrace the kiss from its abyss

Storm cannot dissuade the morning sun

See how its tide, mighty yet moment-spun

Bestows allotments of heaven-lent bliss

Dumbfounded then, we cannot curse the sweep

Tugging life’s best and worst into its surge

We are compelled by morning’s mercy-urge

To love and laugh and touch and taste and weep

While moments course in river’s through the air

Time's tender turbulence we all must bear

© Janet Martin

I wrote the first two stanzas then looked up to see the Creator stunning the morning landscape with Majesty!

Missing Parts...

I’ve stood at my heart-and-mind mirror

To stare past reflections of ‘ought’

And covered the skyline with whispers

Never cut free from my thought

The words I have never written

Would cover the sky and the sea

Where tears are the voice of the smitten

And silence its full agony

Down where the lane dips to nothing

Where meadow-grass and blue sky touch

I think there must be an ocean

Filled with lost poems and such

Honor must wear its thorns bravely

Siphon its crimson and drink

The cup of loneliness, baby

Fills wildernesses with ink

© Janet~

Soft Among the Reeds They Wake...

Soft, soft among the reeds they wake

To wander ‘cross the sky

A glimmer on time’s winter lake

Into the by and by

Moon-mellow moments spill to naught

Then daylight tips the scale

Before its blue and gold is caught

In midnight’s mystic grail

From far-off shores to home-front door

This breaking, taking wake

Of kissing you and missing you

Tucks years into its strake

© Janet Martin

Of Well-springs and Wonder

Well-spring of wonder

Merciful Morning

Soothes yester-heaviness

From troubled brow

Somewhere between

Dusk-darkness and dawning

God fills the hour

With Morning’s new Now

Just as the New Year

Melds o’er the departed

Merciful Morning

Melts night’s ebony

Light fills the ocean

Of onyx impression

Well-spring of wonder

In grace-symphony

See, heaven’s hand

He held Jordan’s waters

Doom and deliverance

Meet at death’s brink

See how He fills

Night’s hollow with morning

Kneel at His well-spring

Of mercy and drink

© Janet Martin

Over and over morning melts the night and Grace extends His arm.

Tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’  For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.  He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:22-24

Mine, Mine, Mine...and please, don't call me greedy

Darling, please, don’t call me selfish

but sometimes I’m not willing

to share your words

with anyone

so I lock them away

for my eyes only to read.

The heart is a gracious keeper.

Sometimes I feel

green-color greedy for your laugh-lines

where only I

want to kiss them

and run my fingers

across those curves

familiar only to me.

And when you are asleep

and I am not

I even want the silence that wraps us

to be mine

to fill with thoughts

entitled

Us~

© Janet Martin

The Shaping of Thought...

They fall like seeds to the wayside of living

Or drift like leaves on a half-written sigh…

Darling, we all need someone to talk to

Word fills the oceans between you and I

They speak our stories; unborn desire

Trembles in font of relinquished turmoil

Somehow the midnight evokes a rare nuance

Lost in the shuffle of mid-morning moil

Mind-scripted manna and silver sun-sparkle

Captured, then molded to shape our thought

 Ink-flavored morsels of loving and longing

Keening the tresses of what yet is not...

Quick little creatures; might fills their meek bearing

Wafting ‘cross miles with the click of a key

Sealed on a stage between covers of parchment

Painting those pictures only thought can see

They fill our diaries and journals; our passion

Ever the hunter for word’s perfect ploy

Finger-tip fragments of heart-soul expression

Spilling in sonnets of sorrow or joy

Darling, without them we simply have kisses

Kisses grow cold when our lips cannot touch

Word, lovely word fills the ocean between us

Shaping the echo of whispers and such…

© Janet~

Of Eons and Ink

The swell of spilled ink

Falls from ether brink

And none of us knows its full reach

Its thought-river rolls

From the whisper of souls

To thrill and to comfort and teach

We grapple inside

At the tug of its tide

Craving, rebelling, we fight

Keen intercourse

Of thought finding voice

Trembling and trusting, we write

Over Time’s ramparts

And ocean of years

Ink-rivers surge to a place

Of heart touching heart

Though oceans apart

Eons and ink interlace

© Janet Martin

Happy New Year!  

(Lord willing this little creek will keep trickling:)

J~