To Be A Gentle Man...

In order to raise honest, courageous younger men

we need honest, courageous, older role models.

Thank-you to all the Dads who have made this their goal,

...to love their loved ones with heart, hand and soul 

Strive to do the best you can

Son, to be a gentle man

In this world of haste and greed

Gentlemen are what we need

Men who do not live to please

Desires of selfish ease

Men who stand tall, strong and true

By small kindnesses they do

Men who travel second miles

Though an easy chair beguiles

Men who do not quit the fight
Though their hair is snowy white

Men who know what they believe

And thereby none can deceive

Men of courage, steely nerve

Through remembering Who they serve

Son, learn with humility

To be the best man you can be

…to accept your role with grace

Knowing God made you for this

Glad to stand for what is right

Vow to fight the goodly fight

Dream a dream, work with a plan

But son, still be a gentle man

Learn to value love with deed

One who serves not self, but need

 Listen to That Still Small Voice

Revere the effect of Choice

But mostly help us not forget

You learn by examples we set

© Love, Mom

Aka Janet Martin

Thank-you to my dad who strove to raise strong, gentle sons and daughters by example

Dear Dads,

 The Lord bless you
    and keep you; 
 the Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
    and give you peace.”’

Numbers 6:24-26 

Of Joys Lent

The Ides of June smile and slip through the deep green-laden tree

The tides of peony and lupine sail to memory

Wait, wait, the won’dring poet pleads with pen still poised to snare

The pictures of summer’s first love fading into thin air

The fond farewell of friendships is akin to flowers spent

Then lingers on our thought the glad remembrance of joy lent

For pleasure does not always pour its measure in a rose

But when it does we treasure it for soft its season flows

Love fills our calendars with appointments that we must keep

Wait, wait, the busy poet pleads where June days wake, then sleep

Its blessing like a freefall of contentment, bittersweet

Where joy lent sheds its moments like petals beneath our feet

Somewhere a land flows with red rose and little girl and boy

It gathers in its kind caress the echoes of lent joy

While, all the while the smile of God refurbishes the deep

Where bud of bloom and being offer new echoes to keep

© Janet Martin

"Wait, wait", I pleaded as the calendar startled me with realization 

that we are over halfway through one of my favorite months!

One of the little girls I babysit just completed junior kindergarten and announced 'the reason that summer is the best season ever is HOLIDAYS!!!'(do 4 yr. olds already think that?;)) 'but winter is a good season too', she continues, 'because

winter makes Christmas and then we get to celebrate Jesus!"

Well, how does anyone top that? I ask of you

A little child surely does lead us old fogies:)

Five little children here today to lead me;-)

 

Not Learned In Books

Love’s knife of disappointment rends

With unexpected ease

And life can pack a sucker-punch

That knocks us to our knees

The heart, though beating can be crushed

Or torn apart within

The art of learning, never rushed

In worlds beneath our skin

Love’s lessons are not taught in books

No prescript rules to naught

The law whereby we undertook

Its pleasures without thought

Still, we are never quite prepared

For what we did not know

Where, given time few, few are spared

Love’s subtle, cruel blow

We are a breed of common need

The greed of who we are

Is subject to the bitter seed

Of hunger’s holy war

God, help us, heal us from the hurt

Where love would be in vain

If we could not brush off its dirt

And try, try, try again

© Janet Martin

Where Footfalls Fade

Poetic Bloomings INFORM PROMPT: Collins Sestet

 

Tread softly, dear, the by and by

You think is far from here is nigh

The little boy that runs and plays

Will soon be lost to yesterdays

The carefree girl will dance and dream

Into that world of what has been

Tread softly, dear and do not pine

For morrows waiting down the line

Where soon, too soon you’ll realize

The value of each moment-prize

And how they meld, blue-gold-gray-green

Into that world of what has been

Tread softly, love, and live full, free

In every day God grants to thee

Soft, swift the gift of it folds to

Bygones that claim their daily due

Where footfalls fade, seen to unseen

Into that world of what has been

© Janet Martin

I dare every mom out there 'who misses her terrible' to read this without shedding a tear with Marilla;)

But oh, The Afternoon

The afternoon meanders like a brook in mid-July

It eddies through fringed maple-windows blue with bits of sky

It trickles where time’s humor smiles from unbarred isles aloft

And sparkles like a diamond coronet, yet, oh, so soft

Some think God spills His rarest ink in pink sunset and rise

But I have read fairest of letters on afternoon skies

Its ink so blue one can see through to on and on above

Its well so deep it seems to mirror metaphors for love

  

A meant-for-more-than-toiling epoch cupped twixt noon and night

An afternoon is surely a first-class, green-grass delight

Where haste begs to be gentled just enough to taste the hour

Borne from the bud of morn into a full and ample flow’r

Its field is like a yellow lake fenced by treed silhouette

It dallies where a chair, a book, a cup of tea is set

And oft we overlook this gift dressed in meek beggar’s spoil

Or trudge begrudgingly across its albatross of toil

White cotton-candy clouds appease the one who dares to lie

Beneath blue-collar luxuries; a wide, untrodden sky

A miniature vacation midst love’s common kiss and dance

Of to-do lists; an afternoon runs rife with life’s romance

Ah, soon its lilt like petals will spill into blue good-bye

Its rippling roster cradled, flushed with vesper lullaby

But until then, come, revel in time’s dear and daily boon

And dream a little dream upon sweet summer’s afternoon

© Janet Martin