Love's Souvenir

 (for all parents with loved ones moving out to return to school)

It is the color of August, bronze-burnished

It is the murmur of sky-high true blue

It is the whisper of hours relinquished

It is the longing in summer’s adieu

It is the almost touching of our fingers

It is the ache of a slow-breaking heart

It is the waft of soft echoes that linger

Where time dismantles its breath-taking art

It is the fading of flower-fringed fencerows

Petal-parts scattered on time’s avenue

It is a tug-of-heart flipside of hellos

It is love’s souvenir;  missing you

© Janet Martin

Melissa doesn't move until Sunday, 

but already I sense an immense missing-you ache...

The Thing That Counts

It’s not in the number of dollars we earn

Or in how much treasure we lay in store

The measure of pleasure in life’s return

Depends on Who we are doing it for

It’s not in whether skies are gray or blue

Or what this-or-that’s ultimatum will prove

The pleasure of all that we say and do

Depends, in the end, on its measure of love

How hollow the loveless laughter cold-rings

How shallow the self-aggrandizing toast

How lovely are life’s simple, common-place things

When love is the reason that matters most

© Janet Martin

Green Again...

The misty morning was motionless, save for one meandering cow...

 

When the ground is hard and dry, and the sky

Is hazy, a pallor that hovers aloft

We long for the green days to run their sigh

Under our feet like a carpet, soft

And then we are glad for the rain to drench

The lack-luster landscape and quench its thirst

As all that seemed lifeless is green again

After the rafters of heaven have burst

And blessings we never numbered before

Becomes something we are most thankful for

© Janet Martin

It's so nice to be able to walk across the soft, green lawn again where the ouch-ouch-ouch

of dry, brown  prickles used to be... 

What blessings have you re-noticed lately because

of the absence of it for a while. 

 What blessing do you re-value in your own life as you see another

learn to live without it, such as able body, able mind, the presence of a loved one, 

freedom, etc.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground;Isa.44:3

 Isaiah 55:1
"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk Without money and without cost.

More Than Mere Must

Oh Lord, you know

Our heart of hearts

Where somber, secret

Sorrow smarts

You hear those words

 We cannot speak

Save in a tear

Upon the cheek

Thank-you Lord

Then help us trust

Grant love to do more

Than Mere Must

© Janet Martin 

 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Ps.119:11

How Doth An August Day...

How doth an August day soft-fade

Like mist, sun-kissed and echo-frayed

In sunflower and loose-strife spires

In vibrato of cricket-choirs

In zinnia rainbows scattered where

Our step is slow and toes are bare

As dust and heat-sweet lazy haze

Winnows the street of August days

How doth an August day grow dim

And drain the summer of its vim

In moment-masterpieces blurred

In flit of finch and hummingbird

In orchard-fruit and garden fare

In poetry of yellow pear

It strums willow and poplar arch

And runs its touch o’er corn-field harps

...in full-moon halo, canning jars,

In blue lakes straked with silver stars

It falters in a mother's sighs

On altars beneath blue-some skies

In marigold and floppy hats

In lemonade and late-day naps

Soundless, it seeps from here to there

As silent streams wane summer's air

How doth an August day become

Peaches and cream, a purple plum

A splash upon bronzed avenue

In watermelon, rain-song, dew

It strips clock-ships of laughing hours

And scatters days like tattered flowers

While children clap and dash and play

There go-eth, go-eth August’s day

© Janet Martin