Little People...

(It is taking me a ridiculous amount of time to read Little Women but there are so many layers to Louisa May Alcott's writing so I meander rather than race through pages...)

According to the talkers of today we are deceived

Insisting God is not Supreme like forefathers believed

And that belief in Jesus is akin to fairy-tales

While morning pours from Outer Shores to More’s uplifted grails

According to the talkers we are wiser now than they

Who sought a Higher Power; they see no reason to pray

But scoff that holy sacrament and toss God to the street

While bud to bloom unfolds from ordained holds beneath our feet

According to the talkers we are shells without a soul

Then what is faith, hope, love and trust if death is living’s goal?

The intellect of godless fools like blind leading the blind

Insists there really are no rules for hapless humankind

According to the talkers we are gods, this world a throne

The kingdom-power-glory something everyone can own

And never mind the rhetoric of hell or heaven-joys

According to the talkers satisfied by word-wise noise

…while floodgates holding morning spill and fill night’s dark with light

To Existence, a mere coincidence of science; right?

While Reason seeds and feeds the needs from sustenance of sod

According to the talkers creed, today we don’t need God

© Janet Martin

A local council has opted for 'a moment of silence' rather than prayer at their council meetings...one speaker reported that he expected a far stronger opposition to the suggestion than they got, and 'it's really no big deal!'

 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Jesus~ KJV 

How Soft a Summer's Day...

How soft a summer’s day

Can ease the light away

And tease the air with twilight where

The stars come out to play

How swift a summer’s noon

Falls prey to vesper-tune

Like the romance of love’s first glance

In a slow-dance called June

How soon a summer’s worth

Of flowers deck the earth

Where bloom succumbs and thus becomes

The full-circle of birth

How still a summer’s tears

Can seep away in years

We linger where its painted stair

Lowers and disappears

How smooth a summer's sky

Can wring an hour dry

Where whispers slip in moments drip

-ping to the by-and-by

How soft a summer’s day

Can strum a life away

Beneath a brush where eons rush

In rivers gold and gray

© Janet Martin

...When It Is Summer

It's wikem-day! hurray!  

... but when it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. wikipedia

It’s silver-frothed laughter a-drift on gold dusk

Soft-clothed in chambray of red roses and musk

A mist mantled meadow, dew-dust elixir

Of dawn dipped in diamonds when it is summer

It’s dinner aboard flora-frigates of June

Its pink morning moorings and high blue-sky noon

Where dog-days and heatwaves and green free-ways blur

And we are all neighbors when it is summer

It’s bare-feet in flip-flops, time’s sun-sparkle splash  

It’s lingering on maple-drawn shadow-sash

Its cricket-choirs, camp-fires, earth-wide garden-rooms

Its Color unstoppered from flasks filled with blooms

It’s shores washed with sea-song and corridors hung

With ponds full of children and fronds jewel-strung

Its bracken-strewn hollows where bronze breezes stir  

The lap-lap of hours when it is summer

© Janet Martin

Upsy-daisy

We pretend we’re brave,

Wave and tell them to ‘fly’

And to reach for the rooftops

Of dream-sequined sky

We pretend we're ready

...with unsteady grin

We clap while the hour

Fills its bubble-skin

We pretend we’re excited

In spite of the fear

That swirls summer’s laughter

With winter-stark tear

  

We pretend we’re stronger

Than we really are

And lend them a shoulder

As they reach for the stars

© Janet Martin

Sweet, Sweet June

The green of May can never stay but climbs the tallest trees

As Dandelion gold unfolds in soft-swept silver seas

The Thing that long we pined for in the wintry afternoon

Unfurls in girlish pink of lupine, peony and June

The lilac-breeze and white-frothed melodies of orchard-tress

Falls prey to yesterday as May dons farewell’s emptiness

And we hunt for permission slips signed by the blue-eyed sky

To linger longer on the turf of bloom and butterfly

The footing of an hour, like a bower gold and gray

Is fragile as the halo on welkin of waking day

It disappears in moments filling years, where tears of time

Trickle in tick-by-tock descent the ladder that we climb

New little boys dash from dawn’s doors, their mothers learn new prayers

A new old generation surrenders to rocking chairs

And ever new, the old, though never reimbursing hours

Eases the petal from its fold and refills June with flowers 

 The green of May can never stay, the banter of the breeze
Unfolds its Dandelion-gold to soft-swept silver seas

 As every Thing we pined for in cold, storm-lorn afternoon

Unfurls in pink of lupine, peony and sweet, sweet June

© Janet Martin