On the Old Marina Restaurant... and Hunger

Generally when I've featured a business so far it has been family-connected:

A cousin with Thak Iron Works

A brother-in-law with Winding Road Maple Syrup

Another brother-in-law with Cardinal Wood products.

Tonight the place I'm showcasing is not really family but it felt like it! Everyone was so friendly and the jovial atmosphere lent the impression that we were all on a sort of mini-vacation! I'm referring to the Old Marina Restaurant, Cambridge Ont.

 Check out the link for location, hours, history, menus and photos.

I had no idea this place existed until a friend took me out last summer, so on the week-end, with everyone else gone hubby and I had a special and rare night out! After putting our names on the waiting list we were given a beeper and invited to enjoy drinks on the lower deck until 'beeped'.

...so we followed the walkway to lakeside seats...

I could have stayed there all evening watching the sun set but hubby thought he was about to fade away;-) after eating a rather meager lunch so we said we would take the first available table which turned out to be indoors.I wish I would have taken photos but I was too busy enjoying the view and the food!

Jim had their famous Puslinch Burger...

and I had the Greek Salad with Chicken.

Both were De-LISH! Mel our waitress, was cheerful and efficient. 

Hi Mel, thank-you:) and hope to see you soon!

The day was hungry so it ate up the sky

To the tune of a sea-song lullaby

The clock was hungry so it ate up the day

Leaving only memories on its tray

We were hungry and the food was great

So we ate every morsel on our plates

Hunger is life’s driving force, it seems

Hungry for dinner and darlings and dreams

Live, laugh and love, friend, loll on dusk’s dock

For Time is so hungry, always eating the clock

Life is hungry and it eats up years

Until suddenly the whole of it disappears

© Janet Martin

Will return to post hopefully soon. internet is down most of the time and I cannot upload anything.

Unravelled Ink

I let this poem unravel at free will, sort of like my thoughts when no one is around;-) 

This poem had no particular destiny. I enjoy those, never knowing where ink will take me or how far.

The first line I typed was 'where merchandise of tick and tock'... that didn't feel like the springboard I was looking for so I walked outside where the sun was trying to tickle away the early morning mist...

my little front porch sometimes feels like the end of a dock hinged to a landscape always drenched with season-song...

The mold of centuries expands

To hold another drip

Demands, commands and reprimands

Eke from time’s loosened grip

The end of docks holds stars in eyes

Where thinkers come to feel

The pause of clocks upon the fall and ris-

-ing sea-song reel

The will and want of east to west

Is weighted with Request

It battles like a hungry beast

Within the human breast

Horizon-lines bar, then unlock

Time’s mimed two-tone appeal

Where merchandise of tick and tock

Is crushed beneath its wheel

The sky was dark as ink atop

Time’s drop of you and me

A breath-whisper of pink can stop

-per darkness awesomely

And then the mold of centuries

Expands; its hold a Thing

Of moments turned to memories

On time’s temporal string

© Janet Martin

What do you think about when you putter about the house and yard? 

Last night the long week-end endless stream of traffic on a generally sort-of quiet rural road sparked my interest. I wondered what the scene was before vehicle doors slammed for the last time and they pulled from driveways to…where?

...perhaps to sit at the end of a dock and think about what, for what?

Is there anything more valuable Here than holding dearly and revering the certainty of There?

Part of me follows them in envious wanderlust and the other part revels in the familiar friendliness of a tree and garden oasis I call home.

Happy Victoria Day Weekend!

The Dilemma of One A.M.

It’s one a.m.

The traffic on the street

Wears slippers

So as not to disturb

The dreamland drifters

It’s one a.m.

Silence drips with stars

And the hush-hush

After-hours-rush

Of far-away cars

It’s one a.m.

The moon is white

And I cannot quite decide

Is it good morning

Or good-night?

© Janet Martin

An Unexpected Host...

Forever is an unexpected Host

Future to past a subtle interchange

Before and ever-after juxtaposed

Like speeding north and south-bound phantom trains

One weighted with Unknown’s eternity

The other with what nevermore can be

And we, it seems straddle the middle track

Caught twixt looking ahead and looking back

Slow down, whoa now, you hasting Thing of need

Where rare and priceless diamond-farthings bleed

I thought I loved you then, but oh, but now

My love has multiplied ten-thousand fold

The seeds have grown, how full the heart-sheaves bow

Where youth, eager for more than they can hold

Are unaware as yet of what we learned

As once upon a time our hunger burned

Like theirs, but oh, but now we cannot grasp

The ease with which the future becomes past

Then, an epiphany of common awe

Stuns us with the deftness of mortal law

Forever never alters its firm stance

Nor can it be persuaded to recoil

Should we on bended knee plead one last dance

With what has become victim of Time’s spoil

There is a Forever that waits beyond

This ballyhoo on earth’s wee  blue-dot pond

But oh, the Forever that first we taste

Comes on us with suave, unforgiving haste

Striking a sword to heart-chords innermost

Forever is an unexpected Host

© Janet Martin

It suddenly struck me like a punch to the gut tonight! Today was so noisy and busy I didn’t really have any thinking time and then tonight while working outside it dawned on me that today a New Forever begins…This week-end Victoria, our ‘baby’ joins the youth group and she will have a somewhat busier social-life leaving mom with many more ‘alone’ evenings and... Time on her hands?! 

I’m trying to remember what those things were that I thought I would do WAY back when I didn’t have time to do anything but look after a family of growing-ness!

Forever seems to add to its archives far too much far too quickly...

Love Loves

Love loves

and we cannot turn it down

We may turn away from it

Utter excuses of unworthiness

Feeling justified then

in our rejection of it,

or our disappointment in it

But love loves

in spite of us

...we cannot turn it down

This is why Jesus came

to teach us how to love

Then imperfection

can put on perfection

not because of who we are

But because of who He is

Thereby

Love loves

and we cannot turn it down

In spite of what we think

or do

or say

or think we ought to think

or do

 or say

Love loves

and we may turn away from it

But

we cannot turn it down

We would always be unworthy

but for Jesus

His love allows us to say 'yes'

in spite of ourselves...

in our weaknesses,
In our brokenness

in shortcomings,

in our gross need

of forgiveness

He so loves us

as we ought to love one another

We cannot turn it down

In spite of our unworthiness

We can say 'yes'

'Yes' to His strength,
'Yes' to His healing,

'Yes' to His fulness

'Yes' to His grace

Because the Father of Love

Is perfect

Filling with worth

our flawed imitations

of Love

Janet~

 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.…1 John 4:9-11

Since someone handed words of appreciation and love back to me with a 'no thank-you', siting shortcomings and weaknesses as reasons, I have been pondering Love.
If we wait until we are without weakness or imperfection then no one could love or be loved
until Heaven!

Prayer For the Day

Dear Lord, help us to trust in You

Though we cannot understand it

In our earth-dimmed point of view

Fill our need as You see fit

Dear Lord, let every prayer we raise

Be more than pious words we spill

But rouse in us hope’s humble praise

And faith’s submission to your will

Dear Lord, guide every step we take

For oft we stumble and we slip

Still, let Your promises awake

Love’s sweet, assuring fellowship

Dear Lord, help us to do our part

And not to weigh with pride, the price

But teach us how, in hand and heart

To be a living sacrifice

© Janet Martin