Because The Best Things In Life Are Free...

This was going to be a poem for the prompt the other day but due to very on/off internet 

and very busy schedule it didn't happen. the internet is still weak at best. 

(Hoping it will work out the kinks on its own...)

also to add to blogging discouragement is a camera that only half-works 

so I'm borrowing another photo taken by my niece Brittany Ruppert

On a brighter note...enough baby-cuddles to make everything else worth it!

Have you ever had to pay

For a smile

Or a stroll in a

Warm summer rain

Or an entrance fee

To the free-flung isle

Where new day spills

A pink and golden train

Did you ever buy

The blue sky overhead

Or tickets

To nature’s symphony

Of brook-bird-breeze

Or the buzzing, busy bees

Or the soft, lisping lyric

In the tree

Or the hymn in the dimming of the day

Or the wild-flower garden at our feet

Or the awesome color-wheel of mauve-crimson-teal

On yon fringe where earth and heaven meet

Or the giggle or the grin of a child

Or the hush of a white wonder-world

Or the croon of a dove or the moon hung above

But beneath the Milky Way unfurled

Or the sheen of the greenest green of all

As earth dons shawls and frocks and frills

Or the trill of the lark or the still after dark

Or the way day empties and refills

Have you ever had to pay

For a hug

Or the tug when

Your heart-cup overflows

Or an entrance fee

To the perfect company

Of a baby with a

Little button nose…

© Janet Martin

 

But Then Always May...

A few days ago hubby remarked to me that in two months the days will start to get shorter 

and we are still waiting for weather to turn spring-like! 

At this point I think we would settle for anything in double-digits Celsius for a few days in a row!

Earth is an egg waiting to be cracked

Nature agog with the life it had lacked

April is always a bit of a tease

Driving hope wild with her billowing breeze

Hunger feeds on flower-gardens of thought

Dreamlands run rife with forget-me-not

Hollow the wind through the wooing world wings

Looking for lyrics barred in budded strings

I spy the whisper of green, virgin green

Seeping through deeps where threadbare sweeps had been

April is always a slow work of art

Playing with colors of weather and heart

Soon we will slip from the grip of the gale

Watch as a fleet of sweet blossoms sets sail

Soon we will wade in jade silver-starred streams

April is always a river of dreams

Soon Spring will fling violets to field and dell

Soon on yon hill will chime the jonquil bell

Soon trees will burst with a hip-hip-hooray

April is always first, but then always May

© Janet Martin 

After seeing the forecast I/we decided to spend the day outside ! 

Complete Confidence

PAD Challenge 24: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Complete (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then write your poem.

My dear, we are not on our own

(Although some days it may seem so)

The One who frames soul’s skin and bone

Is with us wherever we go

Then, when we feel a little small

Beside life’s tall mountain or task

He waits to help us through it all

And all we need to do is ask

© Janet Martin

 Philippians 4:13

 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

To My Family and Friends (with my blessing)

PAD Challenge 23: Time for our fourth (but not final) Two for Tuesday of the month! 

Pick one prompt or use both…your choice! 

1. Write a free poem.
2. Write a not free poem.

 Seems everything I dream is part of you...

You have taken (with my blessing)

What I used to call ‘me free time’

You make me feel undeserving

Of love's (often uphill) climb

Strange how we change what we wish for

From footloose and fancy-free

To the best life has to offer

When love turns ‘me’ into ‘we’

Once upon a long-gone freedom

I would dread The To-do List

That was before you and me and

All the love we would have missed

Love fills up life’s cup of laughter

And because not much is free

Love drains all but echoes after

Life turns time to memory

Keep on taking (with my blessing)

The 'me free time' I hear tell of

Because after Us there's nothing

I would rather have than love

© Janet Martin

As long as we love

there will always be

So much to do

and so little time!

Dear Father Time

PAD Challenge day 22: For today’s prompt, write a correspondence poem.

A new baby(for us a grand-daughter)

 always re-impacts me with the penmanship of Father Time...

photo credit: Brittany Ruppert

Dear Father Time, my, but your ink runs wild

I am grandmother yet I'm still a child

Beneath your touch, always fluent and firm

So much to let go and so much to learn

Salt-seasoned reasons to live, love and laugh

Beneath the flourish of your autograph

While round and round your carousel twirls

Slipping strange costumes over little girls

Bound to the beauty of duty and rhyme

Found in the truth of you, dear Father Time

Teach me to cherish the stroke of your pen

Teach me to teach morrow’s women and men

Teach me to walk, not weighed down with Unknown

But plant my feet on the street you set down

Now, drinking deep from the well of your ink

While a life-story is spilling its wink

While glory-days are not some far-off Thing

But the soft flutter, like butterfly’s wing

So, teach me to reach for flowers blooming grand

Dear Father Time, in the hours at hand

© Janet Martin