Someday...Summer

 Watching this mega snow-blower thinking; Dear Summer...

Someday you’ll tumble through wide-open windows

Filling our laughter with sparkle and sun

Spilling your pink petal-mirth on the meadows

Where now a sonnet of snowflake is spun

Someday the highway will wind like a ribbon

…ebony shimmer of dreams to the sky

Come, gentle wind, won’t you hearken our bidding?

Lavish the air with a warm lullaby

Someday the front porch will wear kool-aid kisses

Now it is frozen in winter respite

While we dream of things the summer-heart misses

Lost in an ocean of white over white

Someday we’ll fling back these cold, frozen sashes

Thrill to the trill of your long-waited charms

While reveling in golden warmth as it splashes

Over the windowsill into our arms

© Janet Martin

Blue-collar Heroes

 

Image source

Blue-collar brave-hearts

They’ve got no medals

No badges on their

Coat-sleeves or lapels

Working class warrior

Seeking no glory

Fighting life’s battle

And doing it well

Obscure battalion

Work-force deployment

Wielding their armor

Of steering-wheel, cart

Low-dollar hero

Invisible valor

Witnessed by One

As they give from the heart

Courageous convoy

Gallant and glorious

Punching the clock

While nobody applauds

Silently sacrificing

Over and over

Second-mile soldiers because

This is love

Blue-collar brave-hearts

They’ve got no medals

No black-tie gala

Or work-hand trophy

Working class heroes

 The pulse of a nation

Fighting the battles

Of life faithfully

© Janet Martin

This is a modified re-post going out esp. for those on our winter highways and streets; patrols, truck-drivers, bus-drivers, crossing-guards, post and parcel delivery,snow-removal crews,hydro-workers and everyone trying to get to work on time!

Hang in there and Thank-you to our invisible heroes!

This Roller-coaster Rubric

Record highs and record lows

This will be the way of dust

But in spite of ebb and flows

Fear seeks faith; in God we trust

Sequences of rise-and-fall

Roller-coaster rendezvous

Surge-receding madrigal

Hallelujahs rival blues  

Gold and gray perplexing skies

Hearts weep as we hold-let-go

Still we scan our sweep of sighs

Count our blessings, not our woe

Season-rubrics vexes sod

Step by step we test its dust

Clinging to a changeless Rod

As we go; in God we trust

© Janet Martin

This morning the news speaks of record lows in temperatures and record highs coming for gas prices…We look up; in God we trust.

A slow warm-up will not be a bad thing; without it they predict drastic flooding.

Thursday Thoughts on Things Unknown

So many things uncertain, unknown

But one thing we know;

‘There’s no place like home’.

(Just had an e-mail letting us know Dad came home tonight. He was picked up this morning, came through an awful storm to find the roads closed to their home so they(mom and dad) went to my brother’s house until this evening. As he was leaving the hospital a nurse smiled at Dad and said he has the ‘breaking free’ smile. I’m sure tonight home is even sweeter though he rested well at Dave and Karen’s house.)

***

If we dwell on thunder-clouds that might unfold

We miss every joy-drop of mercy we hold

***

We cannot see beyond the moment slipping through our touch

Treasure, taste and reverence it, then leave the rest to God

***

Yesterday is over

Tomorrow; a maybe

Today is almost

A memory

***

Fear is a mountain

Dread is a stone

Faith is our foothold

Into its Unknown

***

Disappointment is always a present-past thing

Unknown is the hope to which we cling

***

We all are students

In the school of life

We didn’t know yesterday

What we do tonight

***

If I knew all I wished I knew

Of things Unknown and hidden

Then I know that what I know

I’d likely wish I didn’t

***

It is better to work with what we know

Than worry about what we don’t

Some things in time their proof will show

And some…I hope they won’t

***

If all that was left is what we know

Anticipation would lose its glow

***

How far the Unknown goes, who knows?

But this we know for sure

One life, one death, then the God we chose

Our soul-place will secure

© Janet Martin

Winter Evening and Other Things...

Piano notes clunk, plunk ripple and trill

Earth is refurbished with winter-white chill

Kettle is humming and ready for tea

Tomorrow hovers with its mystery

Dinner is over and daytime is too

Dusk drops its cover in frigid gray-blue

Today tucks memories into its fold

Tomorrow never tells what it will hold

Windows are dappled with icy chagrin

Outside the blackness of night settles in

Media repeats latest news-events

Tomorrow’s secrecy never relents

Retrospect ponders, wind wanders dark wood

Bible reminds us that still God is good

Telephone rings, we put dishes away

Tomorrow waits to become our today

© Janet Martin

We were discussing just now how it is good we don’t know what a day will bring…Who knew dawn-semi-calm would result in an all-day blizzard!?

Winter Warm-up

Put a log upon the hearth
Put a toddy in your mug
Come, let's watch wild winter's mirth
By the firelight on this rug

Put a slow song on the air
Let that blue wind seethe and whine
It is not too cold, my dear
With your whispers touching mine

Put an hour on the clock
Hang your robe where minutes fuss
Winter cannot break the lock
There is no one here...but us

Snow is cold but love is warm
Put a smile upon your lips
Ah, methinks I sense a storm
Not of flakes but fingertips

Janet~

Simple Wishes...in the Middle of Winter

…to sit upon a sun-beamed hill

And never need to move until

My cup of tea needs a re-fill

…to watch Old Winter’s bully breed

Drip, drip until spring’s sanguine seed

From Mother Earth’s dark womb is freed

…to use forgotten words like ‘spade’

And ‘gardening’ and ‘lemonade’

And ‘30 Celsius in shade’

…to hear the flap of flip-flop feet

To see noon ripple in the heat

Beneath calm, cumulus cloud-fleet

…or, just to sit upon May's hill

And listen to the lauding trill

Of morning-dove and daffodil

© Janet Martin

Ballad of Br-r-r-r

From this...

to this...

...within an hour!

Waist-deep stripped maples are rooted in white

Day-silence broken by stiff, creaking limb

Combing the air for sweet, softer respite

Naught do they find but a gale, grey and grim

Over a landscape of freshly-frothed cold

Dawn draws brief shadows in shivering gold…

We dream of green, not to pocket or spend

But that of carpets rolled out to the sky

When will the snow-dregs their last tiding send?

They spill fresh flurries in frigid reply

Combat is timid save for chimney flute

But the wind scorns its anemic dispute

Jack Frost has show-cased his art over-time

Though once he startled and awed still-life plot  

Now, how we covet the zeal of a rhyme

Dappled with violet and forget-me-not

Sallow sun bleeds through bleak, boreal blue

Before snarling storm snuffs its wick from our view

Where is the ballad of brook-song and bloom?

Where the affections of sun-kissed caress?

Is there a balm for this ice-stricken tomb?

Will gentle zephyr stroke Hope’s budded tress?

But as we reach out with numb finger-tips

Wild Old Man Winter roughly kisses our lips

© Janet Martin