Who, If Not For Poets?

It’s one a.m.; traffic is muffled on black velvet streets

Where want of slumber and the taunt of poetry competes

As soundless warriors of hunger and hope dredge the deep

To find amongst the masses, poets not yet fast asleep

The night is like an inkwell full of words waiting to be

They rankle in recesses vexed with ‘almost poetry’

Then let the dreamers dream their dreams in lands of sweet repose

No one can tame the Muse’s will as every poet knows

The rose is void of form or beauty until it breaks free

And word is like a storm of duty without poetry

For who, if not for poets, will potential poem find?

And who, if not for poets, can paint pictures on the wind?

Hark, hark, the dark is deeper after one a.m., my dear

The Quiet like a keeper of the poet’s smile and tear

Where words beguile in spite of common senses such as sleep

For who, if not for poets, will snare whispers from the deep?

© Janet Martin

Lest Honesty Becomes Us...

It's the splashes of perfect happiness that keep us dancing in the rain!

In time we learn there’s no such thing as perfect happiness

Its paradise is full of holes and hunger’s emptiness

And so we count our blessings and find reasons to be glad

Lest honesty unbridled lets love’s longing drive us mad

The soul is never fully satisfied, but oh, we try

Though hands and pockets cannot hold delight’s constant supply

For, even in the best of times, in time we come to grips

That perfect happiness is like a kiss upon the lips

Youth pursues pretty pictures dangling like a silhouette

Their happiness a safe hold in a house not broken yet

Where love in all its loveliness holds a lifetime to teach

...that perfect happiness is always almost within reach

In time we learn that life, in spite of love yields loneliness

Its paradise a treasure trove of kind forgetfulness

Where oft we name our blessings, humbled by the joys we’ve had

Lest honesty becomes us and love’s longing drives us mad

© Janet Martin

Life Goes On...

Sorrow swings its sickle, reaps...

We who yet remain, pause, weep

Then return to learn, yearn, trod

Living's way to faithful God 

A week ago my friend said good-bye to her mother.

We gathered to 'weep with those who weep'

 ...then life hurried us back to 'promises to keep'

Thoughts and prayers remain to sustain...

Life goes on

And so does death

Live life well

With every breath

Soon its dust-to-dust will lie

In God’s trust beneath the sky

Life goes on

And death does too

No one knows

When life is through

Thus for life’s swift gift of days

We should give God all the praise

© Janet Martin

The Garden...

PAD Challenge 21: For today’s prompt, pick an object (any object), make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Soon, soon we can begin making this year's garden-memories!
 a few fond flash-backs

It favors mouth with flavor and the hand with work to do

It lets us greet our neighbors with an extra gourd or two

It teaches perseverance in a classroom flower-strewed

And at the first appearance of fresh shoots, faith is renewed

It turns the common labourer into an artist, oh,

And Tommy learns to name the weeds and vegetables that grow

A patience-testing paradise; this heaven-whispered sod

Where, after we have done our best, the rest is up to God

A turnip-tater temple, walls of sunshine, floors of dirt

A sanctuary where bees, breezes and butterflies flirt

A let’s-go-to-the-garden for a little getaway

A quiet place to work and worship, plant, prune, pluck and pray

A never-quite-like-we-saw-it in dreamland’s oracles

But always awed amazement, where seed-grace grants miracles

A sweat-inducing glory-land where hand and heart re-learn

How fruit of humble labor is love and life’s best return

© Janet Martin

Loveliness of Task

PAD Prompt 20: For today’s prompt, write a task poem.

Of all the loveliness of life, in want and need's duress

Of finding finest treasures in measures of mundane-ness

(Though we may not always have sought or even thought to ask)

We often overlook the common loveliness of Task

The evidence of Providence is in each gifted breath

He grants through Adam’s curse, a chance to taste the bread of worth

Where often in the moil of toil we take and break and eat

Forgetful of Task’s loveliness that favors hands and feet

…and though the glance-value of come and go seems small and plain

If we live to give it our best we will not strive in vain

The saddest state of being, seeing only form and face

And missing how the loveliness of Task spills from God’s grace

© Janet Martin

The best way to -re-appreciate Task is to not feel well enough to perform them for a little while, then we covet the smile of Ordinary and Task! 

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,

Col. 3:23