Friend to Friend...Happy Birthday, Sasha!

I'd bake a cake 

that we could share

Over a cup of tea

But,

I am here 

and you are there

So,

How 'bout poetry?

Happy Birthday, Sasha 💞  

(click link to check out her blog-posts where she shares
art, poetry and links to articles about writing etc.)

Thanks to the internet

and poetry we 'met'

 years ago

making possible some of these best words

we will ever know...

What pleasure it is to be able to send

Happy Birthday Wishes

 'to an old friend' 😀

I can't have tea with you but I can treat you to a few pics of Rita McNeil's Tea-Room in Nova Scotia!

It wakes within the human heart

The artwork of a smile

And makes us glad to be a part

Of this life for a while

Where often want and worry jars

The wishbones that we clutch

Where light of day soon turns to stars

Beneath the Painter’s touch

It writes a melody of hope

On bars of common ground

Its music often helps us cope

And keeps the spirit sound

And be its body far or near

No mere geography

Can thwart the art of it, my dear

Or what it means to me

It cheers us on where dusk to dawn

To dusk spins moment-thread

Into a place we look upon

But nevermore can tread

Yet dread is no defeater, no,

As pictures bind and wend

Time makes joy ever sweeter, oh,

In love of friend to friend

True beauty runs far deeper, love

Than the meter of gaze

And time is no Grim Reaper of

The harvest of spent days

If we have known the happiness

That makes worth all the rest

Found in the love of friend to friend

Then we have known life’s best

© Janet Martin

Daybreak Along the 401

Wrote this the first morning while driving...

actually, passenger-ing down the highway sipping coffee!

...although a freeway wake-up is many people's 'normal' 

it was quite a novelty to this rural-rooted 'girl'😀

Goldenrod soft kissed with mist

Freeway glazed with gold

Worship stirred by nature’s vist-

A rushing through time’s mold

Sumac lit by autumn’s torch

Rending greenwood haze

Rousing from thought’s heart-shaped porch

Wonder filled with praise

Heaven spills to earthy bars

Lights the lambent lea

Highlights pastel petal-stars

With God’s majesty

Diamond-studded dust of days

Gains another gem

Ruby set in golds and grays

Mercy’s diadem

Ditches brushed with silver sage

Traffic rushes by

On a grand four-season stage

Hinging earth to sky

Tree-tops glisten with the gilt

Of sun spilt to leaves

And wheels of gossamer silk

Spider-artist weaves

Asphalt ribbon carved through shale

Curve-cupped crooks and nooks

Mural of hill, stream and vale

Captures second looks

Salmon-tinted rock-juts, oh

Tail-light garnet dims

Cup of coffee savoured, slow

Where a new day brims

© Janet Martin

Echo-halls

I'm beginning to understand... when other people would say the week after a trip is bittersweet. 

Life just sort of picks up where we left it...(Lord willing) 

and sometimes one needs to stop and look at the pictures to relive it a bit! 

 (and remind ourselves 'we were there!':)

One of our main highlights of the trip was visiting (at long last) our son-in-law's family and home farm! Absolutely stunning...its backdrop the beautiful blue (and brown:) hues of the Bay of Fundy!

LOVED it!

Because arms cannot hold for long

The gifts that love imparts

Where farewell hugs and tugs are strong

God smiled and gave us hearts

Because He knew how Time would sketch

Frames of masterpiece art

He gave us walls that stretch and stretch

In halls within the heart

Because the wealth of take and give

Soon tunes Bygone’s ramparts

And echoes need a place to live

God smiled and gave us hearts

© Janet Martin

 Good memories! Thank-you.
(I wrote this while the 'so-long' hugs still tugged...)
Jim and I were thoroughly treated and spoiled by our 'east family'!

Life's Thanks Full...and 'Hello again':)

 Whether its in a little church in the valley by the wildwood...

 

...or the Notre-Dame Basilica

 God hears those who worship him in spirit and truth!

(Yet a time is coming and has now come 

when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, 

for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

John 4:23)

Life’s fiends of fear would paralyze the fount of Hope within

Where hunger-lords would rule the sighs that vex this cage of skin

Without a charge for something greater than time's push and pull

…to worship Love’s Creator with a heart humbly thanks-full

Life’s strife-anointed battlefields would drive us to despair

As rife the rush of hours wields its weapons made of air

Where change, a constant rival to what once we thought we knew

Makes struggles for survival more than flesh and blood ado

Life’s give and take would wake in us a doleful agony

The bread we break never enough to feed the soulful plea

But Love without exception to a world hate would destroy

Became the soul’s salvation making possible full joy

Life’s everlasting fortitude as generations pass

Fills hearts with holy gratitude where man’s days are as grass

But worth the hurt where want and need would be too much to bear

Without the Certainty of He who leads from here to There

© Janet Martin

We had a wonder-full, thanks-full trip!

 Often in the eastern province's scenic sweeps 

a church-spire would draw the eye

as it reached toward the sky!

This church's bells tolled through the valley one evening while we stopped 

to admire the view along the St. Lawrence River!