So Much To Love and Life Is Too Short and Make the Most of Moments

PAD Challenge day 9: Time for our second Two for Tuesday of the month!
 Pick one prompt or use both…your choice!

1. Write a love poem. All you need is love.
2. Write an anti-love poem. Or not.

So much happiness in one wee flower

So much life in the lilt of an hour

So much sunshine in spite of the rain

So much pleasure to sweeten the pain

So much joy in the presence of friends

So much beauty; nature’s compliments

So much potential sifting like sand

So much to love in the moment at hand

© Janet Martin

Life is too short to un-love you

to miss the thrill of the old

to find in the grind of kindness

a pocket lined with sheer gold

where the heart, like a vault of treasure

shimmers beneath our skin

where life is too short to measure

the mementos tucked within 

 © Janet Martin

Make the most of moments

simple as they seem

these soft-spill the sparkle

that fulfills the dream

Make the most of moments

slipping like silk stars

through the flue of high noon

into dusk-blue jars 

Make the most of moments

sun and shadow kissed

tomorrow today's brunt

will be yester's mist 

 © Janet Martin

Things About Your Mother You Should Know...

PAD Challenge day 9: Time for our second Two for Tuesday of the month!
 Pick one prompt or use both…your choice!

1. Write a love poem. All you need is love.
2. Write an anti-love poem. Or not.

 Her children rise up and call her blessed;
    her husband also, and he praises her:

Prov.31:28

Dear Son and/or Daughter

from your mother

Your mother will always love you

With heart-strings ironclad

When you hurt she suffers with you

Your triumphs make her glad

From the first time she held you near

From your first newborn cry

Love became life itself, my dear

Bigger than summer's sky

Her love for you gives purpose to

Life’s mundane tasks because

A Love bigger than hers shines through

The little things she does

He helps her through the hardest parts

This Charge God rendered her

Is not for Woman Faint of Heart

When she becomes Mother

For you her dreams and reasons change

For pangs of birth begin

A mother's life-long labor-pains

Hug, hold, let go, scold, grin

Her prayers could fill up an ocean

Your cares become hers too

Hers is a dogged devotion

Unwavering and true

Her teaching becomes her learning

Her learning brings heartaches

So forgive her while she is earning

Her certificate of mistakes

For all she really longs for

In her imperfect best

Is motherhood's highest honor

That you will call her blessed

Then whether mother is thirty-two

Or wizened ninety-five

Love her, for oh, she will love you

As long as she is alive

© Janet Martin

Monday Morning Mantra (for a week not met yet)

 This poem started in my head in the night 

when troubles I face and might face 

took my eyes off grace...

 

 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. 

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Matt.26:41

Better to pray than fret

Worry is worthless, dear

For steps and miles not taken yet

Better to trust than fear

Better to yield the weight

Of ‘what if’ to the One

Who flings ajar night’s starry gate

And ushers in the sun

Better to touch the hem

Of He who knows our need

Better to hold His hand, my friend

And let Him take the lead 

Better to bear the sweep

Of seasons by God's grace

Better to count blessings, not sheep

 Or troubles we might face

Better to bow the head

And sense Him in each breath

Better to break a crust of bread

Than gorge on feasts of death

Better to bear life's cares

Than to be vainly thrilled

Better bent knees than easy chairs

And selfish plans fulfilled

Better to breathe a prayer

Better to search His word

And cling to better comfort where

Love’s law is undeterred

© Janet Martin

Jealousy Allowed;-)

PAD Challenge day 7: For today’s prompt, write a jealous poem.
Maybe you’re jealous.
Or maybe someone else is jealous of you–or someone else.

'I'm jealous', whispered my friend
as she smiled
and squeezed my hand

while I beamed
like only
new Grandmothers can

Janet Martin~

Whisper a Picture...

 Above, proud auntie holding 'precious moments'

Cherish mere moments lest life disappears

Sealed in an ocean of soft-surging years

Siphon a stanza from time’s teeming laws

Salvage an anthem from Past’s gaping jaws

Precious, oh precious time’s most treasured gems

Measured in moments that become… poems

Whisper a picture in tincture of ink

Nature in limbo while poised on spring’s brink

Shimmer of mist flung o’er meadows at dawn

Grandpa’s firm handshake or wee babe’s big yawn

Flickers of shadow and light where July

Tickles the willow-wick tickling the sky

Tremor of moonlight on shimmer of sea

Murmur of midnight-rain pelting the lea

My, but a moment seems swift as a sigh

Yet, tempo of tick-tock can swallow the sky

So, borrow the Time to rhyme life’s common days

Into a token of worship and praise

Not over-looking the moment we hold

But humbly tasting its apple of gold

Cherishing moments lest life disappears

Into the current of days turned to years

© Janet Martin

After Forgiveness...

  PAD challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

 

After the bold, bare facts of love have etched their indelible knell

Like landmarks on a glove that pulses with worlds too complex to spell

After the cold, hard truth smacks us in faces once brave with fool’s scorn

After the heart has weathered being stretched, crushed, broken, hunger-torn

We learn to live, to love and give instead of scheming how to get

The aftertaste of wonder lingers; hope soft-mingled with regret

After we reach much higher than the ways that naked eye can see

After Forgiveness, God’s grace hones from bones of pride, humility

© Janet Martin