Day's Sweater Is Shrinking, I'm Thinking...

 Could we have a heavy raincoat with the sweater, please?! It's cold, soggy stitching on time's loom today...

I struggle into the sleeves of a new you

Tell me, 

Are you shrinking?

For 

it seems to me you come to

Your end while I'm still busy thinking

And long before I am wont to undress

And 

let you be part of Past’s nothingness

There is always a little too little of you

Or 

do I rebel at your constraint

As 

Wanderlust weighs against my to-do

lists, 

Gratefulness exceeds my complaint

For lo, here you are tickling sleep from my skin

Tugging at my arm to begin again

© Janet Martin

My Little Place of Wonder, The Twinkle of time

PAD Challenge day 20: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “My (blank), the (blank),” replace the blanks with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. 

On Earth's space of Time I have been ordained a little place

of wonder at what passes and wondering what is next

In this pretext of largeness is the smallness I embrace

My life; my little place among The Many often vexed

as I, by unpredictability adeptly clothed 

In Ordinary Everyday; who knows what will occur

Before the light of day is snuffed; its offering betrothed

to What-Has-Been; life-changing footfalls soon a still-life blur

On Bygone's panorama and nobody is immune

To that which, looking back is like a surreal pantomime

Yet I am dearly grateful for each faded afternoon

...my little place of wonder in the Big Twinkle of Time

I wonder, as I wonder at the grace that let it be

How soon My Little Place of Wonder will be history

...and then I wonder, as I wonder at the smallness of it all

If I have left Something of worth on earth in my footfall

In this Pasture of Time my place is quite a little room

Yet, there will never be another me among its bloom

Janet Martin

...and the irony as I wrote of unpredictability;
a phone call to let me know that the little guy I babysit
will not be coming today

While Watching the Stream Flow Forward...

 Tonight we were out to celebrate my sister-in-law's fortieth birthday...(remember when we thought 40 was old?!;-). My youngest sister remarked to me that she can't imagine one of her boys living far away(I mentioned that Melissa will likely stay in Toronto for the summer because she pays rent whether she is there or not) and I suddenly tasted the full flavor that time insists on seasoning our years with...letting go again and again.

Eventually it becomes a way of life

…this yielding to the forward flow

Of hold-let-go-I-miss-you-so

Where love’s long reach is raw and rife

…with memories when times like these

Were still fear and far, far away

Before the breadth of yesterday

Snared years breath-soft as midnight’s breeze

…and we remember how it was

When we were glad that we could speak

'I love you' close against the cheek

Of those we held and dearly loved

Knowing Time, bent on moment-strife

Opens and closes doors with haste

...we grow accustomed to the taste

That has become a way of life

© Janet Martin

The First Petals of Spring

I'm not sure what kind of flower this is; no foliage but they caught my eye like a splash of sunbeams on a dreary land...they look like a dandelion at first glance but up close were quite different;-)

Those first petals are like medals on spring’s tattered attire

A kiss to weathered-beaten heath igniting hope’s desire

A grin akin to celebration buoys our step

Where first petals anoint the grave of winter’s waning tread

Those first petals assure us of earth’s ripe and ready room

As violet-dappled ditches spawn a season of new bloom

And we are drawn like beggars to drink its fragrance face-first

As hallelujahs flow from realms that long seemed winter-cursed

Those first petals are loveliest; a splash of modest mirth

If compared to gaudier plumes waiting within the earth

But they can never render what these fairest firstlings bring

And none are praised or lauded like the first petals of spring

© Janet Martin 

Their names may vary, depending on where they live but their popularity is universal and much celebrated...those first petals of spring! 

Spring, Swinging and Singing...

PAD Challenge day 17: For today’s prompt, write a swing poem.

To some, spring is the return of flowers

To others a warm-surly breeze

Strumming a harp,silver-strung with showers

Rousing the bud-giddy trees

Some think of spring as a pleasant green pasture

Courting time's hurrying way

I know it's spring when a little boy's laughter

Rings as he swings up-away

Up to the sky where his dreams soar so high

Pleasure of eons unfurled

Flying with freedom of bird, butterfly

Over the little world

Spring is a playground of fallow and garden

A dream-come-true paradise

And spring is the singing of afternoon children

Swinging 'neath heaven-blue eyes

Janet Martin~

 

 

 

In Time's Communal Flow

What you see and I see and we all see, my dear

In spite of our differences, is time disappear

This strange sky-river that runs through our skin

Designs the shorelines where days end and begin

Caught in its common tide of hold-and-let-go

We’re drawn together in time’s communal flow

…and we should afford nothing in this dust-to-dust span

But to love one another in every way that we can

© Janet Martin

After reading Ann's post I am haunted by the tearful words 'we just want to go home'...'

The mother’s chin trembles — and Ahmed whispers their heartbeat: “We just want to go home.”

And some dam in him lets go, crushed — and the man openly weeps.'

 A Holy Experience

Sometimes Blue Is An Invitation...

 

Sometimes blue is an invitation 

to sky-wide, country-side

afternoons...

 

  We toss aside duty, justified

by the beauty of time's calling, free-falling

boon...

 

Sometimes the tether of whether we 'should

or should not' is

released to the air...

 

...where we laugh at the sun laughing up at us

 laughing down, asking how 

it got there...

 

 Sometimes the shroud of Past, once green and proud

reminds us to walk slow,

explore

  

...the taste of a moment, letting it linger

before it dissolves in a torrent

of More

 

Sometimes blue is an invitation

to kick off our shoes and

dance...

...to take every slow road and back road and side road 

while we still have 

the chance

 

 Janet Martin~

I needed to run a quick errand this afternoon when suddenly the van veered down a back road and pushed me out! (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!;-)