A Few Things Learned In Fifty-plus Years

Happy 50th Birthday to my beautiful sister, Lucy

(sharing a few things I've learned in my own 50+)

(photo credit; Brittany Ruppert)

To touch without clutching

To look without wanting

To have without holding

Save deep in the heart

To taste life more slowly

For each breath is holy

Where alone and lonely

Are worlds apart

To be kind and tender

For we share the splendor

And brunt of hope, hunger

And try-try again

Where stumble and fumble

Helps to keep us humble

And laughter full-free is

Life’s best medicine

To bask in the beauty

Of task’s humble duty

For who knows what mis’ry

Its taper may snuff

To try not to borrow

The weight of tomorrow

Today’s joy and sorrow

Are more than enough

To cherish the treasure

Of each moment-measure

Where burden and pleasure

Keep pace, side by side

Where trust tests our self-will

Where faith none can prove til

With fires of trial

Our idyll is tried

To speak with intention

And gentle affection

To earn through correction

The wisdom it brings

To scavenge the coffers

That dawn-to-dusk proffers

For the best this life offers

Is its simple things

To drink coffee often

And where our curves soften

Delight in the cotton

Of baggy night-shirts

To fling flirty answers

Where laundry-line dancers

Are quite the romancers

In flapping denims and skirts

To pray without ceasing

For every season

Has every reason

To call upon God

Where no one is able

To set supper’s table

Save for mercy’s staples

Of seed-sun-rain-sod

To find the word 'grandma'

Fits nicely with 'mama'

Then not mind the drama

Of sprightly white hair

But to start embracing

That old woman facing (well, maybe not you...yet😉😝)

Our puzzled expression

When/if we look in the mirror

To give without ration

For love and compassion

No matter the fashion

Are welcomed by all

To work with devoutness

And honour its commonness

For in the King’s service

No chore is too small

To forgive each other

And love one another

We’re all sister-brother

And creatures of need

Then, to be more gracious

For each life is precious

Whatever our age is

Or country or creed

…and, just to be thankful

For spoon, mouth or handful

For Time is a candle

And life is a gift

Filled with death and yearning

And hearts always learning

The art of returning

To the Giver of it

© Janet Martin

Give thanks to the LORD,
 for he is good; his love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1

Moment-Mementos

 Ah, comforting sorrow for always tomorrow 

begins what is ending and ends what begins...

Momentous mementos

In sock-footed tempos

Pray, where does the day go

Nay, where go the years

While love learns to savor

The essence and flavor

Of Present’s kind favor

That soft disappears

Ah, momentous kindling

Of moment-pence dwindling

Where pay-off is mingling

With love’s daily loss

Ah, swift and sound spending

Of round and round vending

With dusk soon upending

Blue towers of dross

Momentous abandon

Like notes of a canon

Ah, breath-stealing ocean

Of laughter and tears

Soft-folding the bower

Soft-holding the flower

Soft-molding the hour

That soft-disappears

Momentous mementos 

A mayhem of rainbows

A love-song of echoes

Darling, draw me near

For here in the molding 

The hard part of holding

Is softly unfolding

What will disappear

© Janet Martin

Hereafter...

 

Yesterday I had the hilarious pleasure of reading for the first time, the above gem-of-a-book written

 by Dr. Seuss for 'us older/obselete children' 😊

someone suggested at my sister's birthday party it might inspire my poem for today!

In a way it has but unfortunately not with the  

fantastic funny-bone that some fortunate writers are blessed to have;

 For the little I know, this one thing I have learned...
 We cannot thrive unless we work with what God gave us:)

This poem is inspired by bits and pieces of the week-end; 

conversation at my sister's 50th birthday party,

 Emily Dickinson's poetry and

a daughter whose due-date for New Baby is tomorrow!

Who knows what waits hereafter

Where mite-y/mighty moments haste

Will loss have earned the laughter

That gain can never taste

Will sorrow’s badge of honour

Bestow a fuller joy

And press its crown upon Her

Who bore its girl or boy

Will hunger be a blessing

And indulgence a curse

And scars the sacred dressing

Of labor, reimbursed

And will we learn through teaching

As seasons come and go

We are all tall when reaching

And small in What We Know

© Janet Martin

Ah, March, Spring's Preface

In spite of the 'b-r-r-r-risk' beginning to the week we may still feel optimistic
because it's March and sunny today! and we can look forward to temps minus
the minus-dash in front of the digit😁

 ...an expansion of Saturday's poem March Mosaic 

because it barely brushed the surface of Spring's Preface!

 (my, how we welcome those bashful buds that begin to stir in greenhouses and grocery-stores!)

The girth of earth is brown with mud and mirth of winter’s waning tide

A modest panoramic wake of mute and matted countryside

The joy of expectation poised on thatched patchwork of bronze and brass

Waits at a gate with baited breath for innocence of soft green grass

The dark wind wails and waves a wand of pussy-willow pillowed fronds

Where rusty reeds like ragamuffins shiver in ditches and ponds

The bashful bud begins to stir beneath the whisper of a dream

And hope makes dreamers of us all where winter has run out of steam

Anticipation is a gift that keeps the weight of dread at bay

March grants to weathered hearts a lift where blue and gold duels with gray

The distance between here and there excites and invites us to dance

Upon a welcome mat where morning wears the air of first romance

The saucy robins reappears and cheers us with its lusty trill

The kiss of sun is warm and charms the chill of storm to giddy thrill

The pitter-pat of rain-drop splat is like laughter or music-notes

Because we know within its flow a wonder-world of flowers floats

Those white decoys that March deploys is but Jack Frost's noisy retreat

A blust'ring bit of fluff-bluff as gruff ruffians fall to defeat

Where canvases of color throb beneath the somber aftermath

Of gales, as violet-gilded trails emerge to purge death from earth's path

And picnic-baskets find frayed blankets on brook-banks, in meadow-rooms

Ah March, your stiff-starched orderlies sweep out the world with woolly brooms

On battlefields where winter yields but not without one last fierce fling

Ah March, you are the age-old star that leads us from winter to spring

© Janet Martin

March Mosaic...

The snow recedes leaving the impression of earth at low tide...

The girth of earth is brown with mud and mirth of winter’s waning tide

A modest panoramic sweep of mute and matted countryside

The joy of expectation poised on thatched patchwork of bronze and brass

Waits at a gate with baited breath for innocence of soft green grass

The dark wind wails and wakes the wand of pussy-willow pillowed fronds

Where rusty reeds like ragamuffins shiver in ditches and ponds

The bashful bud begins to stir beneath the whisper of a dream

And hope makes dreamers of us all where winter has run out of steam

© Janet Martin

Timeless...

 No matter how long ago a Book was written, when it is Truth it is timeless.

I was marveling to someone how so much of what is written in the book

A Man called Peter is still as relevant today as then...

And then it hit me; because it is truth and truth is Timeless.

No wonder Jesus said, 

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Matt. 24:35

Ah, trustworthy Truth with nothing to hide

Where man can find comfort in Time's dogged tide

In a world of confusion and ignorance

Truth flies the banner of deliverance

Truth flies the banner of God's assurance!

This is a page-spread from Peter Marshall's Sermon

The American Dream preached in the late 30's to early or mid-40's

yet seems spoken for today!

 (click on image to enlarge)

Always unhindered

Through summer and winter

Tick-tock’s ready tinder

Kindles steady change

Where future-faced forces

From past-based resources

Cannot thwart the courses

Fools try to derange  

Always unflinching

Through whirling and inching

Unfurling and cinching

Where tides tug and chase

As over and under

And through us the thunder

Of moments woo wonder

New moments replace

Always unmoving

Its evidence proving

In spite of man’s ruling

The matters of fact

Where all else estranges

What all else exchanges

But all of time’s changes

Leaves the truth intact

© Janet Martin

For the Whole American Dream message click here