November's Signature

Yesterday we were treated to what I call November's signature prints...

Two contrasting ribbons melded, of gray and gold.

I was concerned when the snow came early and stayed,

that we might miss this bit of brooding beauty!

(yesterday's temps at last were mild enough to make melodious melting-snow music!)
"What's that sound? " asked little girl yesterday as we played outside.
"That, my dear, is the best sound in the world!" I replied
as I showed her where the water was running from the down-spout.
"That is the sound of melting snow!"

The sharp contrasts of bronze and brooding blue

Are signature prints of November’s art

Spellbound am I by earth and heaven’s hue

As landscapes, leaf-bereft still thrill the heart

Precious intermission, as rain and snow

Duel in unrelenting tug-of-cloud

Before autumn surrenders and lets go

And Old Man Winter gloats, star-stoked and proud

But now let November bid us farewell

In panoramas steeped in rum-hued sweeps

Let us first feel, like a slow-pealing bell

Wild longing in the wind that moans and weeps

…and let us stand stock still, drawn by an ache

Akin to motherhood as child is weaned

And starts to stretch the ties that cannot break

While what must be keeps soulful senses keened

November is like autumn-song’s postlude

A sax solo played by the barren tree

Or penetrating hymn of gratitude

That wafts across the field and out to sea

© Janet Martin

A Rhyme For Time's Fellow-travelers

PAD Challenge day 21:For today’s prompt, write a travel poem...

 

We’ve come so far together, by time’s common tether bound

The shift of days to years endears us to its trampled dust

While well-known yet uncharted territory breaks new ground  

As on yon brink dawn yawns, bright pink and unveils frames of trust

Evidence of fresh favor fills a tray that brims with grace

Daybreak is like a scepter stretched across a waking world

Where pilgrims of love’s providence cannot one mile retrace

Where we are all trailblazers on dawn’s virgin breadth unfurled

How well we should have learned by now the way we ought to go

But somehow human nature is a stubborn mule to train

And bent on taking wrong turns, blazing through Caution-taped ‘no’

Till oh, the reason for its warning becomes very plain

I’m glad, aren’t you, that we never travel the same day twice

But always we embark upon the verge of bygone years

To leave within its wake testaments of virtue and vice

While molding crowns of wisdom with the spoil of smiles and tears

…as seasons surge and merge, its color-wheel is like a loom

That weaves time’s fallen leaves; how swift its subtle shuttle flies

The momentum of moments metes the mortar for the tomb

As the tempo of tick and tock composes lullabies

Some say that time is nothing but dust on a wayward wind

Some think that life's highway leads to, not through the silent grave

Some do not want to think about what soon is left behind

Or that which stems time's tide like the shoreline annuls the wave

Time brings us all together, voyageurs of day to day

To weathered high and lows in this who-knows-what-waits- sojourn

Where hope-and-dream’s horizon line is always far away

But here and now runs rife with life’s momentous no-return

© Janet Martin

Like Shafts of Light

PAD Challenge day 20: For today’s prompt, write a light poem.

Futile to try to stopper ears

Or tie a blindfold good and tight

A poem disregards all spheres

And filters like a shaft of light

Through places that would not exist

Without a poet’s urge fulfilled

As jots and twirls of ink untwist

Into the art where Her heart spilled

Futile to steer Her by her arm

While poem’s unforbidden fruit

Dangles like plum-spangles, sun warm

And sweet as frost-kissed parsnip root

Where wild like ocean’s ebb and surge

Of waves that wash across the beach

She grapples with the tides that merge

With shafts of light just out of reach

© Janet Martin

Of Lifelong Learning...

...this is one of those days where poetry would pour from each pore

but Cutie-duty...

 ...and not-so-cute-Duty prevails!

 ...pegged this poem between phone-calls, hair-dryer hunt,

fire-tending, breakfast, etc.

Hope you all have a happy day!

 

We cannot thwart God’s hand unseen

But oh, we sure can make a mess

As we, impatient, ‘intervene’

In frames of would-be happiness

We cannot void the grace of God

But oh, we sure can prove its need

As we misinterpret Wait’s rod

And impatiently ‘intercede’

We cannot change what God has willed

But oh, we sure can leave a path

Of chaos and hard knocks fulfilled

In lifelong learning’s aftermath

© Janet Martin

Isa.55: 7-9

 Let the wicked man forsake his own way and the unrighteous man his own thoughts;

 let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, 

and to our God, for He will freely pardon.

 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 

 neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. 

 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

 so My ways are higher than your ways 

and My thoughts than your thoughts.…

Let's Get Real!

PAD Challenge day 20: For today’s prompt, write a light poem.

 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. 

Instead, they set it on a lamp-stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

 In the same way, let your light shine before others, 

that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matt.5:15-16

This monument in the Port of Sydney, struck a powerful chord when we visited last year.

Let's pray for passion to reach and help the needy in the chilling storms of life!

None of us can do it all but all of us can do something!

this photo was taken at the Sydney Merchant Mariner's Memorial.

Yes. Let’s get real. The way we feel should strike a kindred cord

For we all bear the brunt of love and longing’s two-edged sword

Then let’s be honest with each other; that which disappears

Hones and reshapes us with the carving knife of days and years

Where what we hold of moment gold soon falls prey to past’s knell

(For He who gives has the authority to take as well)

Then let’s get real and focus on the way we ought to live

And recognize that what we have God lent to us to give

For we are called to love each other and make this our aim

To shine the Light of Him through us and glorify His name

Yes. Let’s get real where Want’s appeal is never satisfied

Let’s lay up treasure far beyond this frond of dust and pride

Let’s make it our mission to focus on love’s reply

And pray to God to help us when our longing runs awry

Where we are altogether first-time travelers of Time

And none of us can see beyond this Very Present Clime/climb

Where pray then, all together, tethered by hope’s heart and soul

Let’s live to help each other as we press toward The Goal

For we are called to shine our light through good deeds, Self-denied

So that our Father up in Heaven may be glorified

© Janet Martin