Heart's Content

Some simple-king things that make this heart glad!

(I'm having a 'to-my-heart's-content-writing-day while Victoria plays the piano...

simple things for common kings:)

Tell me, how much is ‘heart’s content’?

It seems the heart is wish-whim bent

It begs, it prays, it pleads and bleeds

And often wants more than it needs

Yet somehow feels as rich as kings

With life’s simple everyday things

A mail-box with a Christmas card

A lone leaf etched on winter’s yard

A baby’s smile, no any smile

Makes us feel richer by a mile

With all the things a heart can hold

Dearer by far than hordes of gold

Red woolly hats, warm, fuzzy mitts
Chubby-cheeked 'bubbas' soft as kitts
Feet walking with nowhere to be
 With one-and-only-you with me
Snow-sugared welkin overhead
And every hill a feather-bed

The heart, though it is prone to wish

Is like an overflowing dish

When it begins to recognize

How simple things are living’s prize

And nothing in the whole world brings

True happiness like simple things

A mug of steaming ‘second cup’

A family with which to sup

A hand to hold and lips to kiss

Tell me, what is better than this?

A whole head full of words to use

In poetry or love; you choose

A heaven wild with pinkest pink

A laughing child, a book to drink

Piano-plink, Bing Crosby’s voice

A plate of tasty sweet-treat choice

A morning, still smooth and unmarred

A teenage face with eyes dream-starred

A winter woodland paradise

A sudden steal-my-breath surprise

Because the love I have for you

Feels like a bike shiny and new

And then I sing and sing and sing

Spurred by the happiness you bring

And to my heart’s content I grin

Glad for this weathered bag of skin

That houses more than blood and bones

It is a vault of precious stones

That tames the beast of wish and whim

And pours joy right up to the brim

A nook of vine-wisped look-at-me

A brook of sun-kissed poetry

A fenceless field of azure sky

Above a grove where dreamers lie

To soak in moments mercy-spilt

Where childish voices waft and lilt

…and satisfy the heart’s content

No greedy gain, no money spent

Just one wide open afternoon

Where it is always middle-June

And everyone is rich as kings

In a heart glad with simple things

© Janet Martin

No Mere Existence, This!

 Josh Turner's breath-stealing rendition of this song  reminds us to make certain of our salvation!

  

While I was writing this we received awful news; 

the 16 yr. old son of someone my husband knows very well 

was killed this morning in a snowmobile accident!

Please pray for Wayne and Doreen Gingrich and family!

He leaves behind three older brothers.

No mere existence, this; the sacred fount

That grants each day of grace runs full and free

Before the call when all will give account

And who knows when that solemn Then will be

Where bold, cold boast of Unbelief will fail

As it beholds the truth of Satan’s lies

While mysteries of faith will rend the veil

That tortures sight with agonizing ‘whys’

No mere existence, this; no trite tick-tocks

Though they might lull us into apathy

If we ignore the door that death both locks

And flings wide into vast eternity

The Giver of the spring that fills Time’s This

That spills into a new Today of Grace

Is not willing that any soul should miss

The gift He came to give to human race

Bethlehem’s babe became Calvary’s Lamb

To satisfy the wrath of God; God’s son

Became once and for all, pardon’s I AM

And saves us from the wrath that is to come

No mere existence this; each sacred breath

Draws us nearer to Soul’s Forevermore

No mere existence this; where body’s death

Closes and opens a most awesome Door

© Janet Martin

Master Maestro (#2)

 I pulled over to take a few snow-shots at a local old-order Mennonite church
when from behind the church came a tractor with snow-blower . 

 The driver encouraged me to feel free to go behind the church to see the beautiful snow on pines...

 The pines framed the resting place of those gone before, with a holy hush....

This poem is a spin-off of the previous poem...(See Master Maestro #1 here) 

Time’s age-old arrangement begets

Estrangement; pink-gold pirouettes

Fall like snowflakes that melt and set

-tle echoes on the air

‘Hello, my love’, New day cajoles

Then spills its farewell-sugared bowls

Through gloves once new, now full of holes

From living’s wear and tear

Darkness recedes, unveils the ‘yet’

That forms what soon shapes retrospect

While slowly we gain new respect

For ways as old as time

Where time is like a Father, kind

Though he can never change his mind

About a song soon left behind

Like a gong’s fading chime

This birthplace laced with guilt and grace

Brushes days like tears from a face

As hungry arms reach and embrace

The matrix of joy; grief

It leads to where soft wind-song moans

Across a plot of rotting bones

Stippled with cold name-engraved stones

Testifying time’s Chief

Come, come, futile to stand and stare

At what we think we cannot bear

The Giver of time's who-what-where

Cradles its fragile nod

Look, look, night fades. We are immersed

In more than it may seem at first

The death to which this flesh is cursed

Opens the gate to God

 ©Janet Martin

Master Maestro (#1)

Time’s age-old arrangement begets

With chimes of sunrises and sets

O’er climes of sculpted silhouettes

Etched on ether pink-gold

…a mockery of much we knew

And thought that we were privy to

Where tick by tock’s subtle ado

Turns everybody old

Darkness recedes and then the day

Bleeds colors to earth’s charcoal tray

Once heedless we caroused ‘hey-hey’

Aroused by youth’s hurrah

Glibly enthralled by sky-wide reams

Too small to hold our hopes and dreams

We lollygagged and roared through streams

That drew us to ‘aha’

...and commanded new love for life

These sands beneath our feet run rife

With lands asleep, felled by a knife

Of subtle ticks and tocks

Where They, once arrogant and loud

Fell prey to oracles, head bowed

And took their places in a crowd

Crowned by the kiss of clocks

(last verse, optional)

Come, come, soon this plain such-and such

Will strum heartstrings with tender touch

The sum of music-sheets we clutch

Succumbs to Bygone’s grave

Look, look, night fades, earth is immersed

In shades that rouse a poet’s thirst

Whereby we are both blessed and cursed

With what dust-minstrels crave

© Janet Martin

(See Master-Maestro #2 here)

Elemental Evaluation

 I was going to rave about the cold til I remembered the girl I talked to on Sunday from Red Lake who used to live here and she told me one gets used to the cold unless its 30 below!

She said there's just no getting used to those temps!

But then I thought of friends quite far south of us and how they would view our weather as frigid so...it all comes back to the elementary synopsis of how major something is 

depends on what we compare it to!

There is always someone with less

There is always someone with more

There is always someone whose happiness

Leaves someone else quite sore

So we should just be glad

With what life lends and grants

Because, ‘Have’ always turns to ‘Had’

And echoes of a dance

And we should never boast

Because there’s always those

Who laugh at us justly because

We’re standing on their toes

© Janet Martin