Fantastic Freebies

 Photos of a few freebies that made my day...

For feasts spread on heaven’s buffet

For moss mantles on long-lost tombs

For miracles of flower-bells

Or hawthorn bush snow-white with blooms

For picnics beneath heaven's dome

For blue forget-me-not bouquet

And fodder for ten-thousand poems

Lavishing time's day-to-day

For green in sundry shade and sheen

For hills that waken wanderlust

For rain to wash the wide world clean

While we trample unconscious dust

…and fill heart-cups with hope and dream

And dance upon a fresh-spun day

Or idle by the giddy stream

To watch the minnows dart and play

For newborn calf, children that laugh

For people that we love and miss

For light that spawns sun-dappled lawns

For chubby baby-hug and kiss

For farmer’s whistling as they go

For lad that follows in his steps

For rills that bound with melted snow

And tumble to uncharted depths

 

For hedge, refurbished with spring’s leaf

And sedge rejuvenating a-ahs

For marsh-marigold gilded creek

And nature’s un-forgetting laws

For poetry of dusk-hushed lea

For winter’s holiday, hurray

For soil to plant and toil to grant

A well-earned rest after the day

For blue-eyed cares and bedtime prayers

For velvet vesper-lullabies

For songs to sing and simple things

That yield glimpses of paradise

For birds and butterflies and bees

For words to whisper what we think

For fair-as-flower memories 

And daylight's farewell, yellow-pink

For bread to break and meals to make

And garden-getaways at home

For bracken haunt and stilly lake

And wild-bloom, back-wood trails to roam

For sorrow spun in happy days

For every blessing free at large

We offer humble, grateful praise

To He who grants it a No Charge

© Janet Martin

Through Blue, Blue Deep

Daylight seeps through yon dark, blue deep

And loosens to the air

A whole new ‘Lord, guide, bless and keep

Us in Thy faithful care’

From coffers that scoffers deny

Love’s kindness intercedes

It folds the dark and fills the sky

And tends man’s countless needs

The evidence of Providence

Rustles in newborn leaves

It wakes the bluebells by the fence

Earth’s sable shroud conceives

From thought’s affairs the mouth declares

Hurrah and alas, oh

And concedes that in spite of airs

‘Tis but by grace we go

He holds us, nothing interferes

Though hope with fancy flirts

His covenanted Presence cheers

Us even when life hurts

Grace seeps through yonder blue, blue deep

Disguised as simple Day

A whole new ‘Lord guide, bless and keep’

Begins its come-what-may

© Janet Martin

These Are Flower-Hours...

These are flower hours

Don’t forget to pause

Lingering in bowers

Of nature’s applause

These are flower hours

May, June and July

Spill in lily-laughter

Thrilling every eye

These are flower-hours

Slow thy hastening

Lest we miss the best of

Nature’s offering

These are flower-hours

How we miss them so

While the winter showers

Earth with ice and snow

These are flowers hours

Mercy’s autograph

Spills to hills and gardens

Listen to earth laugh

These are flower hours

Mother, still thy sigh

Flowers are like children

Poised upon good-bye

© Janet Martin

On Blooming Where We're Planted

 Life is a blend of oohs and aahs and blues and blahs

Bloom where you’re planted

Don’t be disenchanted

By what God has granted

Whether gold or gray

The boon of an hour

Is like a noon shower

Or bud swooned to flower

Soon withered away

Time is a garden

Live, laugh, love, my darlin’

For we do not know when

Our last bloom will fade

And all that will linger

Of summer and winter

Are tender-sweet whispers

Of memories made

So bloom where you’re planted

And don’t take for-granted

The everyday banter

Of duty-bent trust

For soft slips the season

Its rhyme and its reason

A vexing profusion

Of diamonds and dust

© Janet Martin