Of Will and Can and Must

We lay down our work-worn tools

Of ‘will’ and ‘can’ and ‘must’

Twilight cascades onyx pools

Over tents of dust

Thought, the scoundrel that he is

Boldly rakes its deep

Ethereal parenthesis

Twixt toiling and sleep

Quiet quickens with the dirge

Where night-shadows lay

Overhead the silent surge

Of dark moments splay

Deep within us thought alone

Bears the settlement

Of what 'will', 'can', 'must' have done

Where this day is spent

Morning meanders in air

Beyond nocturne shore

Lowering to thresholds where

This day will be no more

‘Will’ and ‘can’ and ‘must’ return

Weighting mortal touch

By their test we love and learn

Lessons of life and such

© Janet Martin

Who pushes you through the day; Will, Can or Must?

 

Like a Tree...

To you

I am like a tree

My limbs are all you see

You do not see the roots, the core

Or love’s leaf-tears scattered on the floor

And oh, you

Do not hear

Life’s summer-song echoing of years

Nor do you see the sapling at my knee

Reaching, ever reaching for youth’s cupped eternity

And you

Do not know

How swift a tree can grow

All you see is rain and sun and snow

As days to weeks to seasons flow

No, to you

I am like a tree

My limbs are the only thing you see

…and I am content to hold you in my seasoned arms

For soon enough you must learn to weather your own storms

© Janet Martin

...For The 'Heaven' Of It

Poetics Aside has us pondering voyages today...

I've been working at spring-cleaning so I suppose right now my family thinks cleaning, laundry and cooking is all I do;)

(they do not read my blog:)

Maybe to you my voyage seems to be a bit like housewife hell

My dear, someday I hope your dreams will find the heaven in its swell

And if it were but laundry-mop-and-dishes metronome

Perhaps it would be drudgery but oh, it is for Home

Maybe my voyage seems unglamorous, dust-cloths and brooms

Are not so very amorous, tis true; but in these rooms

I touch the Place of happiness for this is where we come

Away from gawking greediness to this; our home sweet home

…and I suppose there is no title for the pro of scrubbing pots

Or wiping up of cookie crumbs; picking forget-me-nots

And maybe all these miles I’ve vacuumed seem an aimless tome

But I have yet to find a kinder destiny than Home

© Janet Martin

I been asked by my kids, and even hubby on occasion; 'don't you ever get sick of your life?', or 'how do you stand it?'

I tell them its not always the doing but the Cause that gives me utmost pleasure!

The Journey of a Poet's Heart

 PAD Challenge day 2: write a voyage poem

The journey of a poet’s heart defies

The commonness of ordinary things

For threaded through life’s hellos and good-byes

We find frayed filigree of our heart-strings

My, my, how thought traverses fluently

The Bygone with its everlasting keep

Why, just this morning It murmured to me

Rousing my want from nothingness of sleep

I reach to touch its warm whisper again

It fades to naught; save in my weeping pen

The journey of a poet’s heart implores

Each space of air diurnal to the crowds

A money-minded man glibly ignores

The agony of gold on gilded clouds

But we, vexed by word-possibility

Are spellbound by a wounded, wafting thought

Or haunted by a world that cannot be

Save for the bravery of bleeding jot

Like pipe-smoke on a sultry summer’s eve

The curl of consonants and vowels weave

The journey of a poet’s heart regales

Perimeters achieved by ink alone

Dusk droops its dark on moorland yet unveils

A world only to bards and beggars known

We suffer, yet delight within the thirst

Of paintings framed where drifters pause to see

This Thing by which we are both blessed and cursed

As Night and Day lays bare its poetry  

While we scavenge its deep for shadow-shards

Time’s autograph of Hours disregards

© Janet Martin

The last line in this poem is the first line that 'hatched' as I pondered the journey of a poet's heart, but that  is the way it is...sometimes we climb backwards to get to the beginning!

Voyagers of Awesome Now

PAD Challenge Day 2: Write a voyage poem

Time rolls from future to past

On each side its eons flow

Yet each footprint memory-cast

Is walked in the Awesome Now

What is gone we cannot seize

What will come, we cannot tell

But The Awesome Now exceeds

Past or future; live it well

Looking back or far ahead

Distracts with its why and how  

Look around, my love, instead

For we tread Time’s Awesome Now

© Janet Martin

Of Faithfulness and Finish-lines

PAD Challenge Day 1: Write a beginning and ending poem

It is not in how we begin

That tests what is inside

But it is how we finish

That will prove how hard we tried

No, the beginning of a race

Is not where we define

Man’s strength of character and will

But at the finish-line

Endurance is not proven where

We start with burst of youth

But as we reach the finish-line

The end reveals the truth

© Janet Martin

May these words be our earthly farewell victory-cry...

 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim. 4:7

Something...

I’m listening to Something

Tossed upon the breeze

In my heart an ocean

Spills its memories

Something ‘bout the morning

Slipping into noon

Rouses a returning

Of hours gone too soon

Moment-tempest trickles

Soundless, yet I hear

Something like sun-sparkles

Strum the atmosphere

There is no retracing

Footfalls lost to time

Save for interlacing

Of your thought in mine

I’m listening to Something

Wafting on the breeze

In my heart an ocean

Spills its memories

Janet~

The Beginning of You

Writer's Digest PAD Challenge kicks off with two-for-two-Tuesday! Topic; Write a beginning poem and an ending poem!

The beginning of you
Ended the girl I knew
For quite another
...for when we met, my dear
I watched her disappear
as I became a Mother

Endings become beginnings
This is Time's ageless endeavor
But one thing will never end, my dear
For a mother is a mother forever

Janet~