Let's Sit A Bit...

 Happy June!!

Come, let’s just sit a bit my dear, and watch the garden grow

For soon its bloom will disappear beneath a sheath of snow

Come, let’s recline and watch the vine climb sunshine’s golden gate

In tints of mint and lime, let’s watch spring’s Paean celebrate

Come, let’s just sit a bit and leave those to-do lists alone

For even now Time’s grit and grin carves Beauty to the bone

And soon high noon of June wears hints of first green’s lullaby

The flower of the hour fades, June traded for July

Come, let’s just sit a bit and sip the wine of pure sunshine

Let’s let the lilt of leaf-song stir in us rapture divine

For from the barren limb the bud bursts into hymns of praise

And thrills our hearts with wonder at the art that fills man’s gaze

Come, let’s just sit a bit, my friend, for Time began its toll

In a garden, where we still feel God nearer to the soul

...and here In The Beginning of another year of bloom

The garden feels a little like Heaven’s grand waiting room

So, let’s just sit a bit and revel in the rush of Time

Let’s watch the world as it unfurls in swirls of mint and lime

Come, let’s recline and watch the vine before its brittle stem

Is all that remains of spring-summer’s unchained diadem

© Janet Martin

To The Class Of We Who Are Getting Older

Happy 55th birthday, Hubby!

 Wow, it feels like we simply spin a wheel and another year has passed!

Jim, here is your favorite kind of poem; short😊😍😝

Seasoned Thrills...

No use in pretending

What none can disguise

Where each day is sending

New kinds of surprise

in creak, grunt and groan

as we ease out of beds

and the only youth we own

is inside our heads

But that's okay, darling

If the good Lord so wills

We are just at the beginning

Of love's 'seasoned thrills'

So here's to hoping whatever we weather

We (try to) enjoy coping and discovering 'seasoned thrills' together!

Love, your wife

It’s the prick and the kick and the stumble

The sting in the un-compliment

That keeps the whole lot of us humble

And glad for the simple content

Of living each moment with honour

And knowing, no matter what waits

The One who has granted the hour

No Charge of His Mercy forsakes

It’s the hope and the joy of love’s promise

The looking for something Far More

That keeps the sad lot of us honest

With what only fools will ignore

For oh, what a pitiful struggle

If, after Time’s unflinching Must

All that we accrue for its trouble

Is nothing but ashes and dust

It’s the arm flung over a shoulder

The more selfless, tenderer touch

That keeps we who are getting older

From not minding it quite so much

Where there is no hope of returning

To lavish Youth’s lust of the eye

But always new seasons of learning

And always new reasons to try

It’s finding a beauty much sweeter

Than frames before visage unfurled

It’s seeing, as wrinkles run deeper

Life’s finest faces in the world

It’s tasting, in utter amazement

The flavors of kick-prick-and-sting

And finding a purer replacement

That only surrender can bring

It’s making the most of each moment

Where aches and pains will have their say

It’s seeing the gift, not the garment

It’s treasuring ev’ry new day

It’s laughing instead of lamenting

What none have the means to escape

It’s thanking instead of pretending

As the truth of lost youth takes shape

© Janet Martin

 
Psalm 40:4
Blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, who has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood!

 
Proverbs 16:20
Whoever heeds instruction will find success, and blessed is he who trusts in the LORD.

 "But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.

Jer.17:7

 For distress does not spring from the dust, and trouble does not sprout from the ground.

Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

However, if I were you, I would appeal to God and lay my cause before Him…

Job 5:6-8

If Your Son Was A Chip Off The Old Block

If your son was a chip off the old block

And followed the footsteps you laid

Would we know, would it show that he loved God

By laws he revered and obeyed

Would we see him reach for his Bible?

To look to his Father above

For life’s daily guidance and counsel

Would we see God’s light in his love

If your son was a chip off the old block

Inheriting more than your name

Would it make you humbly thankful?

Or sorrowfully fill you with shame

Would he be a man among men, sir?

Or ever remain just a boy

Would he, in his speech and his manner

Fulfill a father’s pride and joy

Would he be master of his vices

As he mirrors more than your face

Would he, by his words and his choices

Make this world a better place?

And, if as time passed, folk would mention

How much he is just like his dad

If your son was a chip off the old block

Would this make you happy or sad?

© Janet Martin

 
Proverbs 13:24
He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

Proverbs 23:24
The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.

Prov.10:1
A wise son maketh a glad father:

Middle-age Mother's Musing...

To let go without losing wonder

To sense on the tense tides of change

So much yet to master and ponder

So much yet for time to estrange

Where torn between worlds past and future

The present runs rife with life’s charge

And wounds that no surgeon can suture

Slashed deep in the heart of the barge

Where it is too late to untangle

Loosed threads that have severed their ties

While we are still trying to wrangle

The rebel that rouses our sighs

And rushes like winds through the wild woods

Charging like a maddened platoon

That crushes the bloom of lost childhoods

To shards shaped like echoes of June

Where oft, like a soft summer’s vesper

Time’s Maestro immerses the breeze

With murmurs of morrow and yester

Of maybes and memories

© Janet Martin

Whilst Sailing Life's Seas on the Sneeze of a Breeze (or Of This)

 So much joy

...and so much sorrow

where one is the other

awaits in the morrow...

So much to love 

in the living Of This;

Time is an ocean 

of moment-shaped stars

Dashing and splashing, 

now kick and now kiss

Surging and merging 

with Bygone’s blue bars

Holding and molding, 

so daring and wearing

And bolder, the older 

we get, so it seems

Peering and veering 

and sparing and sharing

Like wayfaring pilgrims 

on day-baring streams

So much to see 

in the lending Of This

Color and dolor, 

hunger, happiness

Giggling and wiggling, 

now burden, now bliss

Knee-slapping, hand-clapping, 

mouth-flapping mess

Ranting and planting,

granting pants with patches

Hoping while coping 

with ‘alright’ and ‘nope’

Dreaming and scheming,  

batten down the hatches

Trying to balance 

on budget’s tight rope

So much to lose 

in the learning of this

Carefully, prayerfully 

pause and proceed

Preaching and teaching, 

 revering what is

Knowing the Difference 

between want and need

Smiling whilst whiling 

the miles into mist

So much to weather, 

un-tether, retie

Skimming through glimmers 

where shimmers untwist

Into a wake of 

heart-aching good-bye

So much to miss 

in the leaving Of This

Laughter that echoes

 long past curtain-close

Fingers that linger 

to trace an abyss

Clinging to Time’s stinging 

nettle and rose

Gladder and sadder 

and dearer and sheerer

Dripping and slipping 

through Tempo that carves

With swirl and ebb and furl

a stranger’s mirror

Quivers of river 

like gossamer scarves

© Janet Martin