What Are You Looking At? (if you are squeamish you may find one picture a little yech)

Sometimes during daycare I'm struck by the fact that I just said something I have never even thought, much less spoken, ever before like 

"Now Atlas, share your worms!" (because they all helped him collect them:)

 

The girls tried to show their worms by holding them between their fingers but 'Squirmy' wiggled much too much!!! 

I wish I could show you a play-by-play of one of them trying to keep hold of her worm!

 

Hunting for more 'treasure'

Janet: What are you looking at?

Them; A slug!!

What are you looking at, dear little child

Tell me what do you see?

A slug, a bug, a wiggly worm,

A cricket, a bumble bee

What are you chasing, sweet curious child?

With a leap and a dash and a crawl

A tiny tree toad, a butterfly

A beetle, an ant s-o-o small

What have you found, my pretty child

What are you looking at?

*A caterpillar, *a spider, a fly,

Now what do you think of that?

© Janet Martin

 *They learned that it does not work to fight over/tug-of-war with a caterpillar lol!!!

*Last week we watched a spider roll a fly in her web

And below, a little cuteness overload:)

September-Summer...a tweaked re-post:)

Azure air is all a flutter with leaf-yellow butterflies

Where good-morning’s molten hello fades into saffron good-byes

Glints of scarlet tint the treetops hinting at autumnal crown

Finches chartreuse sun-bob deepens to a modest, mundane brown

...and the garden, once a busy wonderland for dreamer’s feet

Is a ghost-town filled with echoes of love’s 'let-go' bitter-sweet

While the whiles that long we longed for, call to us from Bygone’s shore

As we lean to grasp at laughter from a Place that is no more

...save in whispers; we are creatures born to brave want’s filament

Where the severing of seasons stirs an honest discontent

For the heart at best can harbor only jaded fragments, oh,

Of a Summer and a Garden in thought’s phantom picture-show

Then, with noses pressed to windows of Present, stalwart we peer

To yon shadow-stippled skylines full of future’s belvedere

As we touch the such-and-much that molds our fumbling fingertips

And we hug the have-and-hold that with the gold of autumn slips

To the folds of farewell’s fortress; ah, this fellowship of days

Is a free-fall overflowing with Time’s ever-weaning ways

While it draws an awed awareness of the sacredness of This

How the blush and rush of moments burns us with a lover’s kiss

Then turns cold, and we are old and summer-longs of quickened youth

Are like hazy, far-off outlines of a life before the truth

Of trite tick-tock seared its tally in the valleys of our skin

And the tree that sheds its glory feels to us like next of kin

For we sense in its undoing the hierarchy of all life

How its blooming and its beauty will fall prey to autumn’s knife

And the summer-long we longed for slips through fingertips to naught

Save the picture-shows we harbor in our hearts and in our thought

As we stand upon the fault-line that will winnow with its sighs

Frames filled with fields flushed with harvest and hushed mother-like good-byes

Where the fullness of a season rankles reason with love's pains

And wonderment's invitation to attend what yet remains

© Janet Martin

Fringe Benefits

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

 ....Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; 

who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Ps.103;v.2&v.4

These glorious September-day benefits include a lot of pot-with-something-to-stir...

...a lot of bloom-savoring

...days of so much to do, so little rhyme;-)

Affixed to this perusal of abysmal toll and chime

We sense an immense Something hinged to the fringe we call Time

The parenthesis of what passes through us without thought

Keeps us poised twixt all that once was and all that yet is not

…where misers, spenders, dreamers, doers, dally, hurry, wait

Each on a common way toward Tomorrow’s abstract gate

And some of us will fret and fuss, meanwhile with grace regaled

And some of us will reach the place where its chase is unveiled

Ah, who knows who will move through the fringe hinged to who knows what?

And who of us is immune to the hierarchy of God?

For all the boast and blather that we gather, give, explore

It all comes down to this; What Is, is hinged to Something more

Sometimes in the small middle of this little leap of love

Lavished with utter beauty and devastation thereof

We sense an Immense Something hinged to this faith-fear-trust-doubt

Where time is but a fringe hinged to what life is all about

© Janet Martin

 

Thankful...To He Who Scatters Periwinkle Petal-stars On Grass

To He who scatters periwinkle, petal-stars on grass

And tunes galactic elements where cosmic orbs amass

Who spills his Supreme Signature on heaven’s boundless span

Yet left His throne supernal to put on the flesh of man

To He, born in a stable, King of kings and Lord of lords

To purchase soul-salvation; hope for mortal sin-cursed hoards

…who would not disregard proud, hard-hearted hypocrisy

Of those who taught the Law but hated love’s humility

…who walked among the people and talked of A Better Way

And told them of a Father to whom everyone could pray

How love, not Law would prove discipleship of heart and mind

He blessed the poor, the pure in heart; the meek, merciful,kind

To He, though throngs despised him for His fearless reprimands

Still, thousands upon thousands followed this Galilean

 Their hatred, like storm-maddened skies, blood-thirsty with revenge

Insisted on a sacrifice they could not comprehend

To He, Lion of Judah led like a Lamb to death’s cross

With the cry ‘it is finished’ vanquished Guilt’s fixed albatross

As colors He created when He stated ‘let there be’

Were swallowed in the noonday dark of blood-washed Calvary

To who overcame the grave and waved aside the Stone

That could not seal the Triumph of ’Father, Thy will be done’

To He who proved the victory bought through obedience

And left mankind Love’s Legacy that never, ever ends

We thank Him, Father, Son and Spirit, only faith can know

Heart-hunger, who could bear it; save through Mercy’s overflow

We praise Him for the promise that succeeds earth’s sorrow-strife

If we believe we will receive His gift; Eternal Life

© Janet Martin

Intro...

Along the flight of hill to hill

On daybreak-burnished path

The postlude of spent season spills

Amaranth aftermath

Hush, hush, lush labyrinth of leaf

And buxom, boisterous bloom

The mother of harvested sheaf

Insists upon your plume

Her belvedere of there to Here

Unbridled, idles not

But weans the velveteen veneer

From wood and garden plot

Where shuttle of an ether loom

With deft dexterity

Unravels while weaving; womb-tomb

Her primed propinquity

The highlight of summer-dream dims

It runs bud-caldrons dry

And strums the limb rife with life-hymns

To spectral lullaby

Hush, hush, plush petal-paradise

Earth’s Guerdon of decay

Delights the straggler with a prize

Not yet whispered away

© Janet Martin