Colombian

 PAD challenge Day 19: make a color the title of your poem.

If I had to choose

only one hue from life’s color spectrum

it would have to be you

…You who rouses me from sleep

in aromatic pleasantries

Let others steep virtuous green teas

I prefer you; Platonist teaser

of Colombian romance

filling my taste-buds

with morning’s first dance

I close my eyes now

…ah yes, supple and slow

you unleash the miracle

of Colombian glow

not in the east

or past hills to the south

but swallow

after swallow

in my mouth

© Janet Martin

Azure

PAD Challenge day 19: make a color your title and write your poem

I lost her in your endless eyes

While she was chasing butterflies

Through fields of periwinkle youth

Before the cuff of crimson truth

Dragged her through mud and umber dirt

Where still nature’s four seasons flirt

With things like holding-letting-go

And emerald isles and white-white snow

She turns, startled to realize

She lost herself in azure eyes

…forgetting that in tick of clocks

Come silver sighs through golden locks

Where time takes flight
In dark and light,

Its ebony, chartreuse disguise

Yielding at noon to azure eyes

And there, ah, there, she twirled and danced

To melodies by love enhanced

Letting the hour have its way

Before your azure turned to gray

And giddy kiss of coral dawn

Drew charcoal shadows on the lawn

Beneath an awning sequin-swept

And where your azure laughter wept

She disappeared; you kiss her face

But now a woman takes her place

© Janet Martin

When Springtime Spills in Daffodils...

 I took a picture of this dell on my walk the other night...it is waiting for spring to spill in daffodils and green, and lilacs and forget-me-not. These trees, like most around here are ready to begin healing after a grueling winter that just does not want to quit.

When springtime spills in daffodils

And tattered dells don robes of green

…and babbling brooks wear blue-sky sheen

…and apple trees flaunt blossom frills

Then little lads kick off their shoes

And earth is glad in rainbow hues

When springtime spills in daffodils

 Gold kiss to Mother Nature’s muse

Then springtime jots forget-me-not

Where now the copse is dull and bare

Without wild flowers in her hair

Or lilacs in her wooded lot

Where daydreams waken as we lie

Half-sleeping ‘neath an azure sky

Then springtime jots forget-me-not

Like ellipses scattered awry

When springtime laughs on garden paths

And tickles dust between bare toes

And splashes freckles on Fred’s nose

Winking where winter poured its wrath

And ice-white barrenness had been

When the whole world is young and green

And springtime laughs on garden paths

Then everyone is seventeen

© Janet Martin

Weathered by Weather...

We have had one truly warm day since last fall.(Oct.12,2013 was perfect weather but we really have had very little to get excited about weather-wise since then) I don't believe in grumbling about weather but it is okay to wish, right?  After so much snow and rain the lawn is a soggy mattress. Robins are anxiously waiting for worms and we are anxious to get out and clean up after last Dec.'s ice-storm. The branches have been buried in snow ever since! side-note; exactly a year ago we were cleaning up after April's ice-storm. Both storms resulted in huge and long power-outages so I am not really complaining about a bit of snow this week, or rain, yet we are all hungry for sun and thinking of farmers becoming more restless with each passing week of patience-testing...

PAD challenge day 18: write a weather poem

Love me with your lips of gold
Darling, I am not a king
But a beggar shivering
Where your eye is gray and cold

I would lie prostrate and still
In the middle-afternoon
Just to feel your whisper swoon
Over me in violet thrill

Did I mention, I am cold?
My defense of you is weak
Where you kiss my weathered cheek  
Philanderer; bullish and bold

You embellish your advance
With bird-song and nature-lilt
Scorned, I huddled 'neath a quilt
Subjected to raw romance

...of sub-zero April gray
Love should not keep score, but oh
I miss your golden laughter so
Darling, have you lost you way?

 Janet Martin

More Than Tears

  

May I be moved

To more than tears

As I think
of Jesus Christ

Love left Heaven

To become

For my sin,

Sacrifice

May I be moved

To more than awe

Jesus,
As I contemplate

Your Perfection

Bathed in red

Pleading for

My hopeless state

May I be moved

To more than this;

Recognition
Of my need

As His blood

And righteousness

Defends Adam’s

Sin-cursed seed

May I be moved

Beyond myself

Lips, fingers
And footsteps shod

With touch-wonder

As I live

Every day

To serve my God

© Janet Martin

Full Atonement

 

Full atonement, can it be?

Every sin-stain washed away

Words seem trite; how can I say

'Thank-you for Your love for me'?

Full atonement, not in part

Ah redemption, Mercy's gift

Satisfies that hopeless rift

 Twixt His Heaven and my heart

Full atonement,diadem

Pressed in thorns upon His head

Holiest of Holy pled

'Oh my Father, forgive them'

Full atonement; God so loves

Everyone. Will we believe

And His wondrous gift recieve

That only the cross would prove?

Full atonement; dare we face

When this little life is done

Judgement day, Father and Son 

Having rejected His grace? 

Full atonement, thank-you Lord

For the sacrifice you made

As sin's awful debt was paid

Through Your blood on Calv'ry poured

 Janet Martin

For God so loved the world

that He gave His only begotten Son

that whosoever believeth in Him

should not perish but have

everlasting life

For God sent not His Son into the world

to condemn the world;

but that the world through Him

might be saved

John 3: 16-17

More Easter Poems here.

Without This Hope

Without This Hope

we symbolize

In pictures

of a cross

Our faith would be

a painted guise

Of damnation

and dross

Without This Hope mortality would suffer without cause

Death would be our destiny without Hope through the cross

Without This Hope in our Lord each touch, each job done well

Would be a steppingstone toward a brink of endless hell

Without this hope

Of saving grace

What comfort

Could there be?

To know there is

No resting-place

For all eternity

Without This Hope

No joy could thrive

How futile

Every plea

If Jesus Christ

Did not forgive

And set the

Sinner free

© Janet Martin

I know I've shared this song before but its one of my all-time favorites.

  

 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.  Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 

 “O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Cor. 15: 50-58

This Aching, Breaking Tide

Listening to Celtic Thunder spawns sudden, unexpected poetry...the beginning of this song sparked a sense akin to a tidal wave...

This aching, breaking tide

Dashes against a wall

Of morning-noon-and-night

Heart-wrenching madrigal

Silk silver on a street

Beneath our feet that dance

This aching, breaking tidal-wave

Perplexes thought’s romance

For kisses soon grow cold

And arms can never hold

The surge of moments passing through

Time’s glass of gray and gold

‘Aha, aha’, we say

And clench a foolish fist

This aching, breaking tidal-wave

Dissolves in vapor mist

The night is seldom heard

And where the morning stirred

We dash headlong into its waters

Of hope undeterred

Ere noon soon poises on

Earth’s morning-night divide

Before its little lilt will join

Time’s aching, breaking tide

The sound of silence roars

And pours through bolted doors

While we are busy making plans

And filling hands with chores

A pocket full of dreams

Drains into morn-noon-night

We stuff our cheeks with drops gleaned from

Its aching, breaking tide

© Janet Martin

Easter Poem Meditation...tweaked repost

He could have sent a prophet
A servant, meek and low
To bear the sword of evil
And hatred's cruel blow
He could have sent a king of earth
A pauper or a priest
He had the pow'r to place His worth
Within a mindless beast
He could have sent His angels
Legions to fill the sky
To spare Himself the anguish
Of watching His Son die
He could have, with one uttered word
Declared all man forgiven

 Or from His supreme visage stirred
The rocks to shout salvation
But no, He chose to put on flesh
The Sacred Son of Heaven
Became a servant unto men
In form, lowly and human
Upon a cross He gave Himself
A King and Royal Priest
And not one drop of love withheld
As death’s curse was released
He could have sent an army
To face the fiends of hell
But He loved us so completely
That He sent Himself

Janet

 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.…Phil.2:6-8

Rocking Baby to Sleep...

Mothers have many a memory to keep

Kiss-cradle-hug-a-bye-hold-and-release

But the memory of rocking my babies to sleep

Returns now and then in bittersweet peace

‘Rock-a-bye baby in the tree top’

‘Hush little baby, don’t say a word’

Sleep, baby, sleep’ and ‘the weasel goes pop’

‘Neath little star its sweet echo is stirred

Soft on the bosom of mothers they sleep

Warm in the arms that are holding the world

Yes, Mothers have many a memory to keep

But none like the rocking of wee boy or girl

‘Lullaby, goodnight and close your wee eyes’

Soon the bright morning will steal you away

Lullaby, goodnight, my, my how time flies

Let me hold heaven as long as I may…

© Janet Martin

Recently the little guy I babysit needed a little extra rocking due to being sick with colds etc…it stirred many a beautiful memory as I sang the old familiar lullabies to him long after he fell asleep.

These little guys also reminded me of a poem I memorized as a girl because I thought it suited my little brothers at the time.

Lullaby

Bedtime come fo' little boys
Po' little lamb.
Too tiahed out to make a noise,
Po' little lamb.
You gwine t' have to-morrer sho'?
Yes, you tole me dat befo',
Don't you fool me, chile, no mo',
Po' little lamb.

You been bad de livelong day,
Po' little lamb.
Th'owin' stones an' runnin' 'way,
Po' little lamb.
My, but you 's a-runnin' wil',
Look jes' lak some po' folks chile;
Mam' gwine whup you atter while,
Po' little lamb.

Come hyeah! you mos' tiahed to def,
Po' little lamb.
Played yo'se'f clean out o' bref,
Po' little lamb.
See dem han's now--sich a sight!
Would you evah b'lieve dey's white?
Stan' still twell I wash 'em right,
Po' little lamb.

Jes' cain't hol' yo' haid up straight,
Po' little lamb.
Had n't oughter played so late,
Po' little lamb.
Mammy do' know whut she 'd do,
Ef de chillun's all lak you;
You 's a caution now fu' true,
Po' little lamb.

Lay yo' haid down in my lap,
Po' little lamb.
Y' ought to have a right good slap,
Po' little lamb.
You been runnin' roun' a heap.
Shet dem eyes an' don't you peep,
Dah now, dah now, go to sleep,
Po' little lamb.

Paul Laurence Dunbar :

Marching Orders...

Morning spills and fills a sea

With hope’s golden melody

Blue night-shadows seep away

Grace bestows another day

None can know its mystery

What will shape its legacy?

Touch its tide with faith, for oh

By the grace of God we go

Soon the night wind fills earth’s sigh

Today’s hello and good-bye

Writes its verse of love and life

Kiss of laughter, sting of strife

Beg the Lord for mercy, then

Off we go and try again

Surely in return for rest

We owe God our very best

© Janet Martin

For some reason getting up was hard this morning…but the last two lines suddenly jolted me out of bed.