Dusk Doggerel

When Brantley isn't horsing around with auntie or Uncle 

he likes to stand at the kitchen window and look out at the world.

            Tonight after supper as he stood there I wondered if he wondered where his world went...

Now trundles through the countryside

A drifter known as Eventide

His coat is velvet dark-blue-dyed

Soft, soft his footsteps fall

And in the ebbing light of day

While vesper’s benedictions play

Croft and hillside slip, slip away

Beneath a shapeless shawl

And all that we have left to see

Of this small day that used to be

Are memories of you and me

No drifter can rescind

He wanders up and down the street

Across bare fields once bronze with wheat

I hear him whistle, low and sweet

Or is it just the wind

He climbs time’s seasoned belvederes

And flings the coat he’s worn for years

Across a world that disappears

In windows framing black

Save ribbons trailing purple-pink

Along the paling tree-lined brink

He waves his farewell wand, I think

With starry bric-a-brac

© Janet Martin

Mighty Mite...

 *Something happened yesterday that reminded me to never-mind-the-mess-moments,

even when it looks like a toy-book-popcorn blizzard hit the house😏

(these pics taken after the popcorn was cleaned up:)

*...for all the slips, stumbles, scoldings, patience loss

the little lad could have mentioned, he told the bus-driver this!

(I picked up 2 older siblings of one of the little girls in my childcare yesterday after school)

Big Sister told me why she was laughing when they got off the bus

Bus driver: Do you have someone new picking you up today?

Little Brother: yup! Her name is Janet and she believes in God!"

and then, Big Sister continued, 'the bus-driver said, me too!'

That 'me too'  instantly changed how they regarded Bus Driver!

Our lives are shaped by moments...

masterpieces are made with brushstrokes and breath-notes!

Let's be mindful artists/composers!
Because
There's a lot at the mercy of moments...

Much, much more than just mere moments

Melting ‘neath sun’s heat, like snow

Meting out in breath-sized morsels

Much more than we’ll ever know

More than muted mist of morning

Kissed with whispers, bronze, gray, pink

More than birth to death, my darling

Falls the thrall of moment-ink

Far beyond triumphant touchdowns

Or the frowns which test our grit

From a moment long-forgotten

Someone hearkens back to it

Then, a moment seems quite sacred

What a weighted mighty mite

As its melds to printed pages

And ages long slipped from sight

Until someone tries the footing

Tastes the pudding, stirs the dust

Stumbling-blocks and stepping-stones, love

Poured into a moment’s Must

What a chariot, this war-room

Battle-plans subject to how

Choices fill the mite of moments

With the height of here and now

© Janet Martin
 

Un-common Wealth on Common Ground

 We all growl like bears;
    we moan mournfully like doves.

Isa. 59:11

Who can one’s worth or wisdom prove?

Or life’s full fortune count

The giver and the taker, love

Supplied by the same fount

Allowances of day to day

Provide a common wealth

God first gives what He takes away

Man owns nothing himself

…but owes his very breath to He

Whose grant we supplicate

And offer up Want’s frantic plea

That often bids us wait

…as Mercy drips like a fresh peach

From chins of much demand

Where both giver and taker reach

Into the selfsame Hand

For what we give He gives us first

God holds the spoon we lick

Where we would all be misers, cursed

With love of purse and brick

But for kind pricks and kicks to wake

Us to the mouth we feed

Ah, both giver and taker break

A loaf of common need

...and therefore have one common boast

No pompous look-at-me

For giver-taker’s least and most

Is simply what we see

The Hand that cups the sands of time

And all its peopled noise

Gives giver and taker the clime

Of living’s sorrow-joys

© Janet Martin


Thinking of all you Iowa-ans digging out of a blizzard...
(how do I know? Hubby is headed that way with a load of pigs needing unloading today
but he was told last night they have three days of digging out to do!!)
H-m-m-m!

sidenote: Jim just called (afternoon) Pigs delivered.
...and he said, the pigs look better than he does! lol!

Our precip came in rain and rain and MORE rain!!!

There's something about a rainy day that finds its way to a poet's pen
a musician's melody,
and a day-dreamer's dancing-feet,
so it seems...

Singin' in the Rain Gene Kelly 

Daybreak...

For pessimist or optimist...

 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, 

for I have put my trust in you. 

Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.

Ps.143:8

A tremor oe’r the treeline where a dark wave snuffed its thoroughfare

And slipped night's sea across sight’s colored walkways in between

Is softening star-stippled deep where we are all still half-asleep

As tides recede and charcoal dons halcyon gold-blue-green

The door to evermore swings wide and time is like a beaming bride

Because, hinged to eons of yore love’s never-before waits

A blush upon dawn’s yawning east; heaven lays out a banquet feast

Come, come the Keeper pleads and bleeds ajar far yonder gates

A smoky silhouette of limbs is set against Hope's newborn hymns

The skyline like a choir sings and wakes a tranquil world

Where promises of God abide; His grace anoints the morning-tide

That sweeps across the countryside in love’s banner unfurled

© Janet Martin


okay, I admit...'the skyline choir' is a little sulky today, lashing its 'teary hymns' against drab sweeps but we all know its just a little weather-tantrum and it will pass😉