January...Part 1

Inspired by John Clare's January Poem

 

Still now as then we stoke the flame

And list to Old Man Winter’s wail

And turn a page where sages tame

The wanderer with paper sail

After we shake snow-droplets free

From swarthy brow and warm our toes

With fingers wrapped ‘round cups of tea

While ‘cross the lea a bold brawl blows

…and tweaks the squeaking, listless limb

Where once upon June-day we lolled

Beneath its winsome, green-tossed hymn

And long-forgotten bitter cold

That paints its frosted filigree

Across lost windows to a world

That teases us with fantasy

Of warmer days and buds unfurled

…though when the shed is full of wood

And supper’s pot is hot with stew

We whisper God and life is good

And winter has its beauties too

And we are not so very sad

Though trouble still rouses protest

And all the news seems very bad

The mouse still creeps from attic-nest

…to wander through the pantry where

Perchance some crumb of cake may lie

And love is like a rocking chair

Where mother sings a lullaby

That spirals like a thing of mist

And soon soft, oft-kissed baby-child

Startles us with the way time is

And rouses heart-storms keen and wild

…and we feel like the next of kin

To Old Man Winter as he weeps

And sears his tears on years of skin

Where everything slips from the keeps

Of outstretched arms like snow when warmed

So we plump pillows in home-nooks

Of creature-comforts, soothed and charmed

By sips of warmth and storybooks

…and all the progress man may boast

Cannot annul the pull of strings

Affixed somewhere beneath the most

Common or handsomest moorings

Where rich and poor alike endure

The ebb and flow of season-tide

And none of us can be too sure

Of what waits on the other side

…of where we are; the jugs and jars

That we tip to our trembling lips

Only to taste the salt of stars

And malt of scars, wisely equips

Us with the sense of something more

Than roar of gale and robust gust

That shakes the pine-wreathed cottage door

And strews earth’s floors with diamond-dust

…where outdoor’s air is like a glass

Poured full of iced-sun lemonade

For Father Time is thirsty as

A July farmer seeking shade

After heaping wagons with hay

This too shall pass; these shutters barred

Will soon be jiggled loose; grim gray

Gives way to sun-beam studded yard

And all the postcards we collect

Of fields tossed like a white-capped sea

Of parkas, mittens, scarf-swathed necks

Of Jack Frost’s awesome artistry

Will be replaced with lace of leaf

With zephyr’s lilt and gilt of green

January is like a Chief

Soon usurped by Youth, seventeen

…and all his surly threats of snow

That now we shovel from the drive

Will not triumph; soon earth will flow

With songs of ‘glad to be alive’

And winter, like a pail of ash

Splashed on a garden, dream-dew pearled

Where laughter spills and bare feet dash

Will deck the halls of Yester-world

...then snuggle beneath quilt or coat

And let the crackling blaze delight

Where summer worlds that seem remote

Draw nearer with each morn to night

Then stomp the snow from booted feet

For winter comes but once a year

Then let the merry kettle greet

Its shivers with a song of cheer

…where every season has its joy

And every joy its sorrow-sword

Then let each moment we employ

Be met with humble ‘thank-you Lord’

And pause to plunder through knee-deep

White-feathered wonder; feel its thrill

Where howling, growling gales soon sleep

And dawn is full of songbirds trill

© Janet Martin

 January by John Clare Part 1&2

(click on images to enlarge)

Hark, Hark, What Haunting Melody

Hark, hark, what haunting melody

Intrigues the poet where stark limb

Is primed with solemn poetry

And captures heart-throbs with its hymn

 Winter’s earth wears a snow white shroud

Yet shameless, showcases bare trees

Where suddenly silence roils loud

Like crashing surge of far-off seas

Intent we are on bent of dreams

Sometimes it seems that we forget

How verily the hour streams

With time’s moment-ous pirouette

…it authors haunting melodies

Which induce an unbridled urge

To wander beneath winter's trees

And listen to sweet summer’s dirge

© Janet Martin

...on that note I think I will bundle up and wander/ski beneath naked trees to listen to

sweet summer's dirge...

 because "nature gives to every season a beauty all its own" 

Charles Dickens

Renaissance Music

 Sometimes the music of Past seems to play loudest as we peer toward Future

‘Perhaps’ we say; skies clap with Dawn

Time's Maestro primed with wait-and-see

Moves a chimerical baton

As future turns to history

Don’t try to grip the haste of it

But savor each note as it spills

And stuns us with the taste of it

That runs us through with thrills and ills

…to waken, break in, heal the heart

And make us reel beneath the thrall

Of common-colored works of art

Making muse-icians of us all

We house in cages clothed in skin

The music-sheets of season-death

While ballads from veiled violins

Turn our heads and steal our breath

...where we are torn twixt sit or climb

Borne on a thousand melodies

That course with the sheer force of Time

Casting eighth-notes to memories 

© Janet Martin

Below is the original version of the above poem;
funny how changing one word or line can birth a complete over-haul:)

‘Perhaps’ we say; time claps its hands

Perhaps and someday’s wait-and-see

Unravels future’s foreign lands

To have and hold, then history

Don’t try to grip the haste of it

Savor the bit-by-bit that spills

And stuns us with the taste of it

That runs us through with thrills and ills

…to break and heal the human heart

And make us reel beneath a thrall

Where tug-of-war-like works of art

Makes mem’ry misers of us all

We house in cages clothed in skin

The diaries of seasons spent

And hardly know where to begin

Always caught between came and went

Where we are discontent to sit

Too long with nothing much to do

Yet drawn by the sheer force of it

To linger and drink in the view

© Janet Martin

Meditation on Mediation...

It was so great to have Melissa home for three days...

 

I touch upon my cheek a tear

And clutch within my heart a rose

But they are not enough, my dear

To let you go or hold you close

Ah, poetry, you are inept

No demiurgic verse can prove

The length and width or height and depth

Of simply this; a mother’s love

So when I long to have you near

In spite of what love hopes and knows

I touch upon my cheek a tear

And hold within my heart a rose

…and pray the Lord your way to keep

He knows exactly where you are

A mother’s love flows sure and deep

But God’s love is greater by far

© Janet Martin