Time's Testing Tempest

Come; touch your faith to morning’s sky

Where Hope’s new fathoms gleam

Time has not shut her weathered eye

Nor sealed its silent stream

Come; mercy’s well-spring is not dry

So drink its pure esteem

For else the heart will vacant die

A pulse without a dream

What wild or wondrous joys yet wait

 Beyond this frigid rime?

Come; climb aboard morning’s frigate

We sail the seas of Time

The mistral must amalgamate

With bonny-breeze sublime

Ice cannot solder winter’s gate

Nor quell spring’s kinder clime

We cannot barter with the air

Nor weather-choosers be

And all must suffer ill and fair

Upon Time’s tempest-sea

So come; dawn spills from moorings where

Cold dark shuttered its lea

This waking dream its fruit will bare

Beneath the blooming tree

© Janet Martin

Come on, all…we can do it; Another snow day!

Dear Old Man Winter

 The drift just ahead on the crest of the hill near our house is so high that the road was impassable. Even the snow-plow was declined passage until a tractor and snow-blower could make room to push the snow back. Countless vehicles were stuck and ditched last night and this morning! A lot of roads were/are closed. We're in a little break until round two tomorrow.

Dear old man winter,

I must write you tonight

For we are so weary

Of white topped with white

The patience of patrons

Is worn to a shred

Optimism seems

To be on its last thread

For frost-bitten fingers

And ch-ch-chattering teeth

Are aching for some kind of

Sun-gold reprieve

And dear old man winter

I wondered if you can

Stray from your lone color to

Say…something like tan?

I know that you have

A reputation to keep

But look; your reputation

Is ten feet deep

And even if you let

Sweet sunshine smile

Your icy-cold presence

Would last quite a while

And we prefer highways

Black, not muffled white

Your gale is a fiend

Howling morn, noon and night

Delivering faithfully

White wrapped in white

And I wondered if possibly

There could be respite?

Somewhere it seems

In a far memory

I recall the gleam

Of a wind-rippled sea

And oceans of barley

Mornings drenched in dew

Where the lark dips and rises

Up into the blue

…dear old man winter

I will go now

Outside I hear you

As you seethe and blow

But if perchance

You’d care to rest for a bit

I thought I would tell you

We’d appreciate it,

Sun-cerely,

J-J-J-Janet~

Strange What One Can Hear at Night...

Strange what one can hear at night

When there’s nothing playing

But wind on white

Strange what one can almost touch

As the wind reminds us

Of Time’s passing and such

Strange how the wind moaning slightly off-key

Stirs things like a

Long-forgotten memory

Strange what a little wind-song can do

Rising and falling

Between me and you

Strange what one can hear at night

When there's nothing but wind-song

And firelight 

J~

Of Bard and Battleground...

The battleground where wars are waged that only One can see

Can make or break the strongest bard in unformed poesy

The tear that never dims the eye, but burns the midnight oil

Slays legions only thought descries as enemies recoil

The sword where faith and hope takes wing would falter in despair

If want were satisfied with things and fate our only prayer

But peace and joy their gifts employ in kind simplicity

Its Giver helps us to destroy thought’s evil enemy

The rogues that bully branch and bush in winter-wild torment

Recruit allies to crush the soul in bitter, vile dissent

But, though the elements unleash their raging escadrille

Thought proves where its allegiance lies when battle-cries are still

The bard must bear, unlike the rest uncommon agonies

Sometimes the air cannot attest to heart-intricacies

Word-thirsty battle-cries reverberate without a sound

Where bard and pen must mitigate thought’s brutal battleground

© Janet Martin

T'was The Night Before Superbowl 2014

Having a little fun with my friend Jen tonight:)

T’was the night before Super-bowl; all through the house

Cushions were collected for the floor by the couch

The big screen was polished with uttermost care

Then turned to be certain there would be no glare

For t’would be a sad pity to miss carelessly

The touch-down that clinches the Vince Lombardi trophy

While mama makes chili and brownies and bread

Visions of Broncos celebrating danced in her head

She was fussing over last-minute touches a bit

Making sure everyone would have somewhere to sit

When there rose in the next room a most horrible clatter

And she rushed in to see what awful thing was the matter

The room weighed with dread of an impending storm

Though the furniture glistened in fresh polished charm

There was more to the ominous, electric air

‘cause Dad, he was perched on the edge of his chair

He looked like a cross between bear and giraffe

While son was nigh purple from trying not to laugh

So with hands on her hips she demanded, ‘say, tell

What could be the reason for such a blood-curdling yell

Why the neighbors must wonder ‘bout the crazies next door’

And ‘for goodness sakes will someone tell me, why the roar?’

Then Senior stood up with an ominous growl

While son couldn’t help it; he began to howl

With laughter, incensing the victim of rage

Papa circled like a tiger prepared to sprint from his cage

Then he roared, I have failed as a father, Miz Mox

My son is a fan of the Seattle Sea Hawks

I fed him and clothed him and taught him to throw

The long kick, the tackle, interception…you know?

But tell me how could I have missed this, my dear?

Somehow I neglected to teach him how to cheer

His head drooped, shoulders slumped, ire a-spent

The grandfather clock clucked in tick-tock lament

When suddenly he rose up to his full middle-age height

‘By junipers’, he shouted, ‘everything is all right!

Bring on the nachos and chili, my friends

Because tomorrow night here is where it all ends

On Manning, on Welker, on Decker, on Koppen

On Thomas and Caldwell, on Holliday, Johnson

Bring on the tackle, the rush, the touch-down

Let Hail Mary pass be the star in your crown

For son, let me tell you, fans might be choosers

But in every game there are winners and losers

And soon you will learn it, I have no doubt

It's all over but the crying when the clock runs out

Tomorrow night son, tears will wash your face clean

When the Broncos win Superbowl 2014

 

© Janet Martin

Worth waiting for...

 Waiting for the above while watching white waves whistle and blow across a sea of snow...See below snapped just now:)

We wait long

For those things worth waiting for

Long after summer is washed from the shore

Through white winter wonderlands

Warm April rain

Until it is summer once again

We wait

For love suffers long

Holding tight to the hope

Harbored in hearts

While fall strips green slope

And winter, spring, summer

Their circuits attend

We wait

For love cannot pretend

Nor does it surrender

Its faith to fate

When the thing we wait for

Is worth the wait

© Janet~

If you use your imagination there is a slight similarity...right?

A 'Sort-of Parody' to...On Looking Up By Chance at the Constellations

this morning the sky went from this...

to this...

...to this, within 45 minutes.

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud…RobertFrost

…ah, perhaps,

but this sky-dome bears witness to all human plight

Sparking the hunger in love-songs we write

In the night while the rush of its rain-song is lent

To fuel hugs and kisses and passion’s storm spent

‘Neath the low bars of brooding ere dawn breathes awry

The cocoon of darkness where hope’s butterfly

Wafts to waking wonder; we comb past’s lament

To salvage the best of Time’s sheer filament

For we, peon-masters of mute moment-mirth

Scatter fumbling footprints beneath heaven’s girth

And the floating of clouds; mother’s chasing the hem

Of childhood and girlhood on its diadem

And we cannot wait with eyes squeezed tightly shut

In the hoping of holding what cannot be caught

Save a frame shaped in thought; while the eons of sky

Wait long, long above us; buds break, bloom then die

As four-season circuits unravel their plight

And shrivel to nothing youth’s buxom delight

Yet all the while over vast century-shift

The frigates of Eden’s maiden voyage drift

Blue-gray, coral-gold, white fleets silver-crowned

Sailing on ether oceans uncharted, unbound

Above plebeian passage of cradle to grave

Where all things human must muster and brave

The moods of the sky; planet-stippled wraith

We suffer its fortune of flood, famine faith

Midnight rain, morning sun, noon-aria, nocturne

Beneath aerial awning we live, love and learn

Though we would wait long in the sky for much more

Than vapor flotilla on seas with no shore

Here we are stunned every hour by its song

Where nothing remains what it is very long…

© Janet Martin

Moment-moil

This little soil on which we toil

And covet mercy’s moment-moil

Is but the launching pad whereby

We learn life’s leap of faith

And fly

This little plot we fill with thought

Of home-sweet-home, earth’s heaven-dot

Is but a sparkle on sod-sea

Whereby we reach

Eternity

This little want is but the taunt

Of things to come somewhere beyond

This little soil on which we toil

And covet mercy’s

Moment-moil

© Janet Martin