Of Faded Fronds

How faded is thy garment, love

Thy brow is white as snow

And tattered is that virgin glove

We donned a year ago

How paper-thin is thy embrace

We weighted with our fears

How weary is thy patient face

Scarred with kisses and tears

How lovely and how terrible

The life-stains that we pressed

Without thought, unalterable

Against thy patient breast

And where we, giddy with new dreams

Hailed thy arrival, dear

Soon we fell prey to ancient schemes

And mistreated you, Year

What once was raw and real and keen

With best intention crowned

Are faded fronds of what-has-been

Like shadows on the ground

Now, near the threshold where farewell

And greeting coalesce

Ah, we are love-torn by a swell

Of joy-grief tenderness

Yet still, the Gate of parting looms

At midnight’s sev’ring gong

The New Year waiting with its blooms

Compels us to be strong

© Janet Martin

December's Rain

...well, so much for the plan to dry laundry out-doors...

December’s rain is a refrain

Unlike those splashes in July

It weeps from heaven’s lowered deeps

A morbid, midday lullaby

And pelts the window-pane with tears

Hard-wrung from frozen yester-years

Where every summer disappears

To gardens in thought’s eye

December’s rain evokes a strain

Of echoing farewells and dreams

It breaks the sky where heaven-sighs

Are too heavy for vapor-seams

And spills in autumn-postlude where

No leaf flounders upon its stair

Of pewter-gilded, groaning air

And moody-brooding streams

December’s rain is a freight train

That rushes through stiff-fingered trees

Its cargo spills to streets and hills

In cold, unfeeling melodies

As brave feet dash with common goal

Where fires warm both hands and soul

While December rain shiver-rolls

Across a world of seas

© Janet Martin

The Joy-bells of the Heart

I was mourning the passing of a season of song-favorites when it struck me; the joy of the Lord is not a season...Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. Ps. 47:1

The joy-bells of the heart

Need no season to ring

The Message of God’s love imparts

Hope’s ageless offering

While winnowing of air

Sweeps seasons to Past’s deep

God’s kind and tender loving care

Will never wane or sleep

...but peals from age to age

From hour unto hour

Where time’s incessant turning page

Can never dim its pow’r

But like an angel-choir

Filling the atmosphere

God’s mercy-message guides desire

And quells dark doubt and fear

The joy bells of the heart

In humble gladness ring

As melodies of hope impart

Worship to Christ the King

© Janet Martin

Aren't you glad the joy of Christmas is not simply a season?!

 

December's Dying Ember

A somber sort of poetry trickled through the air while I was out yesterday....like December's dying ember.

Tremor of tempest-tune teases the sky

Waning of afternoon whispers good-bye

Murmur of moment-swoon tickles the brook

Ribbon of silver through time’s storybook

Paupers on palace-lawns beneath God’s keep

Wander where the old year yawns half asleep

Summer-spent teasel and autumn-bent brush

Etched on an easel of winter-land hush

Joy’s gleaming trumpet and grief’s tolling bell

Serenade laughter and sorrow’s farewell

Fine intermingling, this gold, gray and blue

Exiling welcome gilds earth’s avenue

Wanton wind ambles through woodland’s lost crown

Moss-on-stone jewels bedeck her dull gown

Nevermore duels with daydreaming bliss

Hunger refuels the want of love’s kiss

December's embers are losing their glow
The heart remembers; a hearth in the snow
Truth's gentle bearing tempers restless youth
Rigid, yet caring where time runs, uncouth

Moments are more than God’s jest ‘neath the sun

Hours, the door to where All is begun

This Grand Before of life’s four-season years

Leads to a shore where all time disappears

© Janet Martin

Postlude...that's what the day after Christmas feels like

The day that long we waited for

Has all its moments drained

Its farewells waved from every door

Its mist-kissed pictures framed

Time’s glass has tipped to memory

The hours dripped into a sea

Where present slipped to history

Forevermore engrained

The afternoon that we supposed

Has wandered down a path

To join a coterie enclosed  

In living’s aftermath

The bantering bestowal of

Wee smattering of live, laugh, love

Has poured into that treasured trove

Of past’s insistent clasp

Its touch and taste has turned to naught

But echoes on a breeze

Its have and hold returned to thought

And love-wrought memories

For all our have-and-hold will be

For good or ill, soon reverie

And every Now brushed brazenly

Into Bygone with ease

Touch tenderly Time’s gifted Now

And do not miss its worth

Soon, soon its bitty bloom will blow

Beyond our grasping girth

For none can bend or change the laws

Of how what is becomes what was

So we should live full-well because

No day re-plays its birth

Fond yester-platters are licked clean

Its rose stripped of romance

Tomorrow’s yesterday is keen

With grace and second-chance

Before forevermore appeals

Without apology and seals

Time’s moment-more to ageless reels

Where thought returns to dance

© Janet Martin

We spent Christmas day on the 'home farm' where my husband grew up and where his brother now farms. I hope to bring you pictures from that farm in the coming year...it is so beautiful and I've never taken my camera there, until yesterday; I snatched a few photos in the lane...