Thursday, July 5, 2018

Shades of Green and In Between...



The distant sheen that layers shades of green on misted green
Or hazy hues of baby blues with deeper hues between
Fringes the frames where good and ill will thrill and aggravate
And no one tames the flower-brush that frills hills, fence and gate

Time’s sentimental serenade persuades us to ‘enjoy’
To pause and play in pools of shade with little girl or boy
Before we gaze, amazed too late at what we missed somehow
Where season-songs surge and abate while we push-push the plow

The finery of wake and sleep and leap and fly and fall
Finagles from the leafy tree a tender madrigal
It teaches us to sing along beneath the albatross
Of learning to let go where every gain is hinged to loss

…and barefoot dancers don’t need answers on a sunny day
Yet ignoring the obvious won’t make it go away
Where all the colors of the world unfurl their pearl and flare
If only to become a swirl of silver on the air

Ah, who can bear to dwell too long on what is gone; oh no
The distant sheen that layers shades of green will turn to snow
Where oh, this moment-mist is far more than Time's tinted nod
It is the highway we all take to travel back to God

© Janet Martin

Time...
Eccles.3


People have been writing and singing about Time for a long, long Time.... 
(here are just a few;-)

... treasure its moment-measure!



Wednesday, July 4, 2018

On Finding The Tender Balance...


 Has your Duty-side started the Tug-of-war with your Dreamer-side yet?!
 I find Summer sparks its duel constantly!

Early morning child-care bonus??? I get to see the sun come up,
( sometimes a morning poem needs to be finished in the afternoon because that's when babies sleep!)

Skyline resurrects the backdrop
That at twilight slipped away
From the velvet vault of tick-tock
Thus begins a new Today
Want and worship wakes our hunger
Feet touch down on trampled sod
Where dawn’s welcome mat is anchored
In the faithfulness of God

Don’t give up; each cup of morning
God fills with *coffee mercy once more
Though Pink Daybreak leaves its mooring
Dusk soon draws it back to shore
Laden with Past’s precious splashes
Prone to spark a storm within
Who could guess the surf that crashes
Beneath this frail veil of skin

Fancy fills the dreamer’s pockets
Duty rules the doer’s list
Summer softly solders lockets
Filled with echo-laden mist
Pray we find the tender balance
Bit ‘o duty, bit ‘o dream
Where dawn’s quiver full of moments
Fades like ripples on a stream

© Janet Martin

* coffee lovers, click on this link to hear some happy 'news'!






Tuesday, July 3, 2018

For July-lovers







Ahoy! The joy that thwarts life’s hunger-pangs for what is not
Is July-colored, darling; spilling from clay flower-pots
And winding beneath blue sky promises fulfilled; earth’s seams
Brimming with faith’s unfolded wings where hope of harvest beams

Ho-ho! The woe we know too well wears pretty pink, my dear
The happiness we dreamed about when winter howled is here
The jars that harbour flower-stars and cricket-songs and such
Tip and begin to pour the grin of Heaven through our touch

Aha! The law of love lavishes lanes with chamomile
The awe of nature’s treasure trove refurbishes our smile
Where we are all too willing to be beguiled without guilt
Ere petals strew the path with aftermath of season spilt

Hooray! Today we traipse the thoroughfare of green-gold-tan
A gallery of masterpieces charms the bare-foot fan
Where Queen Ann’s lace and chicory and vine-embellished clime
Tickles the lea with sweet July in good, old summertime

© Janet Martin



Monday, July 2, 2018

Momentous Tids and Bits

This neighbour, who plows my garden every fall and does the first till every spring 
laid his wife of 42 years, to rest on Saturday.

"The verse that keeps coming to my heart for him", I remarked to Victoria on our way home from the funeral visitation last week (as we both were struck by his utterly bereaved countenance)
Here is a man who took care of his suffering/bed-ridden wife for many years!
yet even so, death came unexpectedly...

(This was the 2nd Saturday in a row that I attended a funeral at the church of my childhood.
plus a few visitations during the week...
a sign that I'm getting older and nearer to the 'outer ripples' of this generation?:)


....then there was Canada Day...already again!

A year beginning to feel a little like a firework fizzle...flare and fade!
...or like a sun-sparkle on sea and sand; we stare amazed, reach but can never grasp
its shimmer through our fingers!


Ah, ache we cannot quell where well we know what moments mete
The breaking and the binding of its swell like fields of wheat
Where seasons sprout; the clout of teeny tick by tock supreme
Whilst death reminds us to regard moments with high esteem

Ah, beauty meets the eye and poets sigh and farmers grin
For seed begets the fruit where soon the harvest will begin
The quest for satisfaction a thirst nothing can fulfill
Unless we recognize the prize that moments cup and spill

Ah, tender troubadour, you tease us with your give and take
Meandering through gardens weaving echoes in your wake
Where we cannot afford to miss one glorious syllable
Of summer’s silver-speckled sea-song’s ‘so-long canticle’

We grasp and clasp dawn’s fading flow’r; a wonder full of woes
Dismantles moments of an hour like petals from a rose
The sway of night to day murmurs summer’s sweet green to gold
Compelling us to look closer at moments in our hold

Ah, happiness, to find you is no secret if we see
That you are here and now; not an elusive destiny 
The laughter of a child, a garden flower-wild, a brook
A you-and-me that makes the 'we', we dare not overlook

© Janet Martin





One of the little guys I babysit was delighted when I told him he may pick the green grapes to put in his loader because first-year vines need to put all their energy into the plant!