Two Sentences about Learning to Say Good-bye...Good-bye

Homemade muffins and freshly-picked flowers don’t fill  heart-hollows but still, oh, we try to create creature comforts to cushion love’s hard parts as mouths but not hearts learn to say good-bye,

Books full of words may kindly distract us while cards holding heart-pieces bite the eye as we brave two syllables harder than most words we must learn to master…good-bye, good-bye

© Janet Martin

It doesn’t matter how often we say it, this is one word that practice does not make easier!

 I just gave Rob (our son-in-law)’s mom a big good-bye teary mother-to-mother hug as her visit ends and she flies back to Nova Scotia later today.

Laughter Swells...

Arrival hails as dawn impales earth’s dome

A gong, red-golden tolls, folds purple deep

Life stirs where twilight blurred and stilled with sleep

The boulevards of far-from-here to home

Morning’s gradual smile becomes a grin

Of lark and cricket-lay, its barking dust

Draws us toward its holy, howling Must

Where hunger stokes The Warrior within

Yesterday’s tatters, scattered beyond reach

Will not be gathered: Morning offers New

The mileage on its virgin avenue

Awaits, where spades and garden-gates beseech

Hoe-to-shoulder, hand-to-wheel, oh my

The bread of idleness can starve the soul

Fat cheeks and pockets cannot make us Whole

Though greed rapes need, it cannot satisfy

Farewell’s mute knell stokes morning’s pealing bells

The foot-soldiers of moments, left-foot-right

March into battle; soon it will be night

Morning opens full-wide; her laughter swells

© Janet Martin

...For Those Lost Sheep

Oh God, to die and meet You then

When every lie professed by men

Is laid bare at the judgement bar

Oh God, to reckon Who You are

After the Day of grace is spent

And it is too late to repent

Where choice has sealed our destiny

For this, oh God; eternity

Should cause we who believe to weep

And pray and pray for those lost sheep

© Janet Martin

She is an atheist, my son said sadly.

The thought of it makes me want to scream and weep and wail, I say.

Me too, said Matt.

Then we must pray and pray! I urge,

Because we are not talking about any old thing here,

We’re talking about eternity;

That on

And on

And on

And on

And on

….Place.

 The Parable of the Lost Sheep
…"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. "What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? "If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.…Matt.18:11-13

To Those Who Pause To Hear...

 

Here's to enjoying today's extravagances!

Extravagant, Nature’s slow-dance

Croons in bud-to-blooming things

Leaf-song lyrics, rose-red romance

Zephyr soft as angel-wings

Summer heaps earth like a platter

Hill and hollow, moor and heath

Over-flows with blossom-matter

Siphoned from fountains beneath

Barefoot banter wades through shadows

Deep and cool, grass oceans surge

Past the purple-thistle meadow

Where skylines and shorelines merge

…and the floor beneath the maple

Is a door for dreams that crowd

In through sun and shadow-dappled

Branches skimming lazy cloud

Chipping sparrow, dipping swallow

Dripping honey-suckle sigh

Barley, corn, rye, wheat-drenched fallow

Strum the harp-strings of blue sky

Tempest of ten-thousand flowers

Rolls across the countryside

Where an afternoon of hours

Falls like petals to its tide

Painter of Past’s still-life montage

Dips a brush into lush jars

Heavy with the scent of dew-dust

Peach and seraphim of stars

Nothing can hold back His music

God imbues the atmosphere

With common extravagances

Stunning those who pause to hear

© Janet Martin