The June of Life...

The green embrace of leaf-spun lace

Refurbishes with song, June’s air

The amethyst of morning kissed

In mist, stirs in our hearts a prayer

The ancient crypt where today slipped

From us to it with calloused ease

Expands its room to claim the bloom

Of dew and dark-lashed memories

The years we strung while hours wrung

From tattling tongues life’s innocence

Banters dauntless on Time-tuned tress

Betraying churlish self-defence

Where moment-gold melts in our hold

Like high-noon from her azure throne

Or woodland glades before the shades

Of autumn raids its maiden-crown

The bravado of letting go

While clinging to our sanity

Becomes a fight of dark and light

And sorrow-sweetened agony

Once more the tent of June is bent

With the intent of peonies

Time’s noose feels looser in the ruse

Of summer’s honey-scented breeze

The rod of God tenderly shod

With mercy, spurs us to Time’s path

Of stalwart smiles and second miles

Where clover curves its quickened swathe

And grace becomes the total sum

Of every boast we dare to tout

We limp beneath love’s thorn-worn wreath

We cannot bear to live without

© Janet Martin

'Morning sounds like a water-fall outside my window', remarked Victoria as she paused to listen to the sparkle of new-born walnut-tree leaves,

 ...or maybe its the plush rush of breeze teasing peony-blushing bushes.

Ah, Day Slip Softly Over Me

Ah day, slip softly over me

In cloth of home-spun filigree

Then, drench my senses with your smile

And bar my thought from longing’s guile

This cup I hold, oh, kindly fill

And let the gold of moments spill

Between life’s memory-pages where

Love’s echo long will linger there

Ah, weave with your ethereal thread

Assurances greater than dread

And let me gratefully appraise

Time in its firm, insistent ways

Ah, day slip softly over me

A simple, June-some melody

Ere shadows reach then fade into

Dusk’s meadow of starlight on blue

…and as I pause to recollect

Those things that none can resurrect

I pray, oh let me keep a part

Of you forever in my heart

© Janet Martin

Birthday Thoughts...

I could repeat that well-worn phrase of how time flies and slips too fast

From days; or I could stand and pine for phantom shadows it has cast

Or I can pause and count the awesome gifts God grants in countless ways

Instead of silent sorrowing for what Past seals within its haze

I could persist in being kissed by wishing for what cannot be

Or I can celebrate the love of God in glad humility

For happiness is not a trait of physical accomplishment

But a learned ‘in whatever state I am therewith to be content’

I could lament for years long-spent, or covet what cannot be mine

Or I can learn, Time’s no return is unrelenting in design

And I can choose to live, laugh, love and ever make of it, the best

For none can tell when grief’s farewell will usher in our final rest

© Janet Martin 

Celebrating 48 years of Jesus' love!

Her Laughter Must Be June

Her laughter must be June

Where long she stood, gray-faced and grim

A sepulcher on every limb

Her down-cast eye lifts, filled with vim

And myriad of nature-tune  

I say, earth’s laughter must be June

She twirls, her summer-sheen

Becoming, where too long her head

Was bowed and veiled in somber thread

Her curves, stark, unappealing, dead

But now, where mourning once had been

Her laughter spills in gold and green

And we, wearied by many moons

Are gladly wooed by the romance

Of roses where our bare feet dance

In garden ball-rooms; hope’s fragrance

Like heaven-rendered love-song croons  

I say, earth’s laughter must be June

 She kisses with sun-sparkle swoon

The window where we waited, wild

With eagerness of dreaming child

While winter bullied and reviled

Each hollow, hillock, dell and dune

Before earth’s lush laughter of June

© Janet Martin

Sweet Hope

 Hope is a hallowed highway into the Great Unknown...

But this we know, it leads to streets of gold and Heaven's throne.

We press upon a silent stage

The poetry of soul and slope

 And from the nothingness of page

We sense a sweet, unfolding hope

…as green leaf ushered from mute bark

Earth’s bud and blossom luxury  

Inspires us, while it is dark

To hope for what we cannot see

…those things we cannot change or trade

Though for release oft we implore

Upon our heart of hearts is laid

The hope of better things in store

…and as we press on living’s page

The poetry of soul and slope

Its ink-drops fall from pinion-cage

In sweet and everlasting hope

© Janet Martin

The Tale Of a Man Named Lou (tweaked re-post)

Once, in a land of Lubadoo

There lived a man whose name was Lou

Sir Lou, in everybody’s eyes

Was perceived to be very wise

And often times with nodding head

They all agreed to what Lou said.

Sir Lou lived in a castle tall

Where roses climbed the old stone wall

In lovely red, year after year

The bloom of roses would appear

And many paused to gaze in awe

At the red roses that they saw

One day, restless and discontent,

Sir Lou stopped to inhale their scent

He shouted, “Hear what I’ll tell you

These red roses are really blue!”

Folks shook there heads at what Lou said

For how can blue one day be red?

But Lou walked up and down the street

And every day he would repeat

That what was red is really blue

And slowly folks agreed with Lou

For wasn’t Lou still, after all

That wise man in the castle tall?

Then came that sad and solemn day

Sir Lou was old and passed away

The mourners stood out on the street

Where rose-petals fell at their feet

They told their children ‘here lived Lou

Who taught us red is really blue’

Now no one questions anymore

What they had all believed before

As generation rise and fall

Blue roses climb the castle wall

It seems they never, ever knew

These roses were not always blue

Time’s centuries have come about

And no one stops to think or doubt

For who can say red is not blue?

Nobody here has heard of Lou

Or how one day he simply said

'These roses are not really red'

…and visitors are mystified

To hear folk speak with love and pride

At these blue roses; how they’ve grown

Year after year against the stone

 Ah, long forgotten is Sir Lou
 Who told someone that red was blue

The moral of this little tale

Is simply this; Truth does not fail

Though generations come and go

The truth remains unchanged and so

Before we teach that red is blue

We should make sure that it is true

Be careful then that none deceive

Lest generations thus believe

A vile untruth told to be true

For those red roses are not blue

Yet everyone within their youth

Were taught what others thought was truth

© Janet Martin

The girls were debating one day about how and why people believe what they do regarding the Bible. Everyone reads the same Book, but they understand it differently. I wrote this a year ago and something today made me think of this topic of Truth...that Unshakable, Unalterable Eternal Truth.

This...

 Life is so much more than just a leap beneath Time's sky...what it is all about begins the moment that we die!

This season sweep of highs and lows

Of hues in blues and bronze and rose

Of happiness and weary woes

Where faith and fear are juxtaposed

…this dot beneath a tent of sky

This plot of seed and harvest sigh

This cot of greeting and good-bye

And knowing Something more is nigh

…this span of reaching for God’s grace

This teaching and beseeching place

Where we cannot one step retrace

Or any spoken thought erase

…this is a marvel spun of air

A slender thread twixt here and There

While morning gilds Time’s thoroughfare

And God cradles us in His care

…this stairway to the great Unknown

This grasping gasp of grief and groan  

Leads past a marker made of stone

To He who sits on Heaven’s throne

© Janet Martin

Farmer and Gardener's Prayer

We place the seed within Thy soil

Our trust into Thy hand

We seek Thy strength for daily toil

Thy mercy for the land

Janet~