Slumber-song

Autumn Lies Still…

Long the lazy laughter of its wooded hill and steep

Would lull the little boy or girl or mother fast asleep

But now the dark is empty of its softly sweeping sigh

The wide-flung window shuttered where Time open, shuts her eye

For night still bears its morning and the morning, afternoon

The tree that bore the hungry bud will sing new anthems soon

Do not despair although the air is charged with darker hours

The aftermath of what awaits will lead us back to flowers

Autumn lies still…

The gleaming rill is dappled with leaf-notes; its bank soft-lined

With amber-feathered echoes of what summer left behind

A marathon of memories and moments charge the air

Composing a strange montage of both triumph and despair

…where once we were the children splashing wind-kissed and footloose

Through leaves without much thought to hours or Time’s tightening noose

But oh, deeper appreciation of each season’s good and ill

Invites us to live, laugh and love where now autumn lies still

© Janet Martin

In Memory of Nathan Cirillo and all who pay the ultimate price for our freedom

 Image Source


Free to lie beneath the tree
and dream our dreams, in spite of tears
we walk the streets and splash through parks
where autumn gleams then disappears

Free to laugh the laughter of
the unafraid, while others die
to protect the country they love,
and thus protect both you and I

God, forgive when we forget
Freedom comes at such a price
Comfort us in this, our grief
of love's ultimate sacrifice

Janet~

Of Garnered Fields and Silvered Sedge

We didn’t know the ebb and flow

Of morn to night and blue to gold

Would weave with such unhurried ease

From bud to leaf to memories

And while we danced the dance of youth

Unhindered by Time’s timeless truth

We didn’t know how fast we’d fill

A book that opens at free will

…to spill upon thought’s cloven gaze

A filament of woven days

Where echoes wield a double edge

Of garnered field and silvered sedge

© Janet Martin

Memory Lane

In the dry part of summer

That dirt road turned to golden silk

Ribbon running through corn-clover mead

Feeding freedom in its ethereal ilk

Of unnamed destinies pooled in its thread

Bare-feet dashed, splashing

Down lanes to wild apple trees

Where picnic-baskets spilled their simple fare

In gentle childhood memories

And soda-cracker flavored air

They didn’t recognize the wealth

Of moments pressed into its grass

Where cotton-dresses seemed to shrink too fast

Beneath a blue-sky hour-glass

Insistent on replenishing the Past

…and then they grew too tall

To play where only children climb

Time’s endless afternoons without a care

Until the call of suppertime

Wafted on twilight's purple stair

..as they dashed, splashed

Through golden silk of summer shelled

And moth-balled corduroy of outgrown coats

Quite unaware of pens they held

Or little legacies they wrote

© Janet Martin

This poem took me on a sudden breath-stealing trip down memory-lane

Lest I Miss God's Ink

Lord, help me slow my feet to taste

The cotton-candy pink of dawn

Lest in my haste I miss the ink

And canvas that You write upon

Lord, in life’s blessed busyness

That heart and soul of love demands

Teach me the art of slowing down

To read the imprint of Your Hands

Lord, keen my senses to embrace

Each moment that attunes the air

And thereby recognize in them

The penmanship of loving care

© Janet Martin

They Did It Too

They did it too in olden days

That thing of base necessity

When all the ends didn’t quite meet

They just kept going

…so must we

They did it too, and could not stop

The clock from its insistent plea

Of letting go or getting old

They simply did it

…so will we

And just as they in ancient days

Passed through the trouble that must be

In day by daily strength and grace

From He who loves us

…so do we

They did it too and didn’t know

The Unknown's ‘what-must-be-will-be’

Waiting where morning follows night

They worked, hoped, prayed

…and so should we

© Janet Martin

It is simply too much

To try to carry

More than the grace of God allows

In the moment we are in…