Gift of Time

Are you ever dumb-founded as you stand amidst heaps of pretty paper pulled away

after we pried at the parcel that granted Today?!

With every breath we pull the tulle of moments from its gift

Heirs, as it were, to grace and mercy meting day-to-day

Where, if we see the value ere its seasoned seasons drift

Wonder would confound us with humble joy and we would pray

…and we would break our bread with head bowed, too awed to complain

Nor would we trample ribbons wrought with naught but simple joy

Then, wholly, holy we would tread this ephemeral main

Toward the Ultimate Undoing of what clocks deploy

Time’s quantum, untallied until its final gasp is spent

Arranges rigors too complex for mortal might alone

This test of quest and wrest of wonder-fashioned filament

Orders the footsteps of a man to bow before God’s throne

And beseech Gift of Time to teach him how to fully live

And reach to touch the Hand that shows him how to fully love

Lest he tears at time’s tissue to get, forgetting to give

For to whom much is given, much is also lent to prove

© Janet Martin

Impressions of Summer

How soulful, strong and swift the song that slips from sea to sea

Where Maestro, music and baton move in sync flawlessly

O’er misted main and drifts of grain, o’er plain and hill and dale

Alloys ten-thousand tones as one to tune joy’s common scale

It fills the reaches of the mind

With thrills soon stilled and left behind

Too well this shell of dust to dust can trip on lust and hurt

While swells of nature’s arista drip to earth’s graves of dirt

Where bud to bloom is like a schooner laden with farewell

O'er purple lea morn's melody soon tolls dusk’s citadel

It stirs the blur beneath our feet

With hunger’s harvest, bitter-sweet

This orchestral, imperial succession of demise

Scatters its stars from lilied jars to *wonder's tattered prize

Where Thought is prone to grovel in a hovel of dismay

If it forgets to touch the threads that eve-tide whisks away

Today, o’er Bygone’s disrepair

Tips a grail nothing can despair

The banter of love’s paling plumes consumes our eyes and ears

Heaven’s decanter pours through rooms that the wise one reveres

This disappearing act that seems stacked against us at times

(We, merchants of clock's tick-and-tock and poets primed with rhymes)

Composes as the roses fade

Summer’s symphonic serenade

© Janet Martin

(*yes, the photo says 'to wonder-tattered sighs,
then, when I was doing the final finesse, 'wonder's tattered prize' taunted and
now I can't make up my mind which holds the deepest impression...
then, there is also 'wonder's paradise'!
Is there any paradise sweeter than wonder?!
Ah, delightful dilemma;-))

Yesterday, my friend and I, while standing midst a veritable rainbow of bloom,

mourned the subtle folding of green to gold,

knowing all too well what these symptoms hold...

The Heart Is Like a Yellow Umbrella

 Little 'twinkle-bug' is doing what all babies do...growing up WAY too fast!

...and tugging our hearts every-which-way but apart!

The heart is like a howling beast, hungry for what is not

Nay, it is like a cup that cradles seasons wrapped in thought

Or is it like a ragged rope worn thin with tug-of-war

Torn between what has been and who we were to who we are

The heart is like a harbor where time’s fleet of mem’ries rest

Or is it like a cargo ship atop a roiling crest?

Nay, it is like a vault with tender treasure in its keep

Where it is like a mother rocking her baby to sleep

The heart is like a patriarch that rules a palace, no

It is a beggar-child in search of crumbs to soothe its woe

Or is it like a poem pressed on pages, thin as air

Or perhaps like a pilgrim climbing mercy’s phantom stair

…or is the heart a hunter, plundering a world of whim

Nay, it is like the hunter’s prey, caught in a cage within

Or is it but the moderator of the flinty mind?

Where we would be too harsh, save for the heart, humble and kind

The heart is like a yellow umbrella tipped upside down

To catch a falling star and drops of sun-rain’s grin and frown

The heart is soft as silk and strong as steel, it holds; lets go

The heart is like a ping-pong ball that love bats to and fro

The heart is like a hammock, like a sock with holy holes

It pulses with the breath of life where deadly vice cajoles

Lone musketeer where faith and fear rankles its mortal bark

The heart is like a trembling minstrel singing in the dark

© Janet Martin

Of Enemy or Friend (and a few pho-etic Proverbs...)

Time’s dividend of touch and taste persuades us to pursue

The cue of enemy or Friend with whom we have to do

Ah, quickened leap of wake and sleep; each patron must decide

Whom they will serve with heart and soul where guilt and grace collide

The Truth, unless we seek it, cannot open up our eyes

Ah youth, then mine for it before your howling hunger dies

How numb we soon become when we are too preoccupied

With what we see instead of what we sense somewhere inside

We want for Much but much of what we want soon fades to naught

The prattle of a fool is nothing but noise swift forgot

How effortless the downward road, how hard the Upward climb

How pitiful the pomp and show of lords living for time

While man looks on the outward there is One who knows the heart

Where Friend and enemy within are near, yet far apart

Thus, while we live-love-labor in This Fleeting Thing That Is

Wisdom bids us remember, oh, we serve Much More than This

© Janet Martin

John Schmid raps a one-minutes sermon!

Lumps in our Throats...for moms

“Don’t worry too much”, my middle daughter tried to reassure me,

(as I 'expressed concerns' for her upcoming 'adventure')

 “like, just worry the normal mom-amount, okay? 

But not more than that! I’ll be fine!”

Ah, torn we are, twixt laughter and a lump lodged in our throats

Sweet Innocence is lovely without holes to fray its coats

My, but we’ve come a long way from those girlish, carefree days

When we scoffed at our anxious mother’s worry-tender ways

Now humble knees bend while pleas wend to God from helpless thought

And it is our turn to learn the trust our mothers sought

Where oft words would be reckless if first impulses would spew

But for ‘aha’; once we were wishful-thinking daughters too

Time is a patient Teacher; we all leave lost worlds behind

Surprised by changeless truths that youth is soon destined to find

Then torn we are twixt laughter for the girl she used to be

And tears; because the road is hard to true humility

How precious is the tick of clocks in childhood’s little leap

How pivotal this pit-stop; ‘now I lay me down to sleep’

For far too soon they drop their silver spoon and tiny coats

And leave us standing in the doorway with lumps in our throats

© Janet Martin

Years ago a local middle-aged DJ, Gary Doyle told his radio audience that he asked his mother how old he was when she stopped worrying about him.
She replied, I'll let you know!