Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Ebb and Flow of High and Low


Waiting for pipe inspection😐
So in case you think you are having a bad day,
you could be the guy who will need to slip-slide into the septic-tank hole
to do the inspection and possibly change a pipe! 
While it was a much needed rain we received it certainly
made this task miserable!
and, oh my stars!! what a mess!
 We never know what a week will bring and it's good we don't, right?!
While this is simply trouble (not trial) it can still feel messy.
NOTHING quite gets one's attention like the gurgling sink
and toilet that says 'septic tank is full'
I am so thankful it is not mid-winter!
Because this chore was on our to-do list last fall
 but Jim never had a free week-end to tackle it.

So thankful Jim just returned from the load we were so disappointed he had to do on Sunday
(because of another driver's truck breakdown)
But, if he hadn't done it he would have been nowhere near home on a Tuesday!
So much to be thankful for in spite of...
 


managed to salvage some mint-tea before the plot was obliterated

Life, as so eloquently stated in this line from 
The Song in the Green Thorn Tree by James Barke
Book 2 in the life of the poet Robert Burns

Where faith and fear do battle for the Whole
Where hope and dread in constant conflict vie
Where Joy ignites an anthem in the soul
Where certain sorrow waits with its reply
Where ebb and flow of high and low tide sweeps
Across a shoreline where man laughs and weeps

Where bud loom weaves the bloom that sheds its leaves
Where holding sires the pain of letting go
Where hello and farewell delights and grieves
Where what tomorrow brings we never know
Where heaven nurtures earth with rain and sun
Where from first breath at birth death has begun

Where strength and weakness always coexist
Where boast is but the means to tend to need
Where what we see is never all there is
Where who knows what an ending will precede
Where what we thought we knew often defies
The subject privy to life’s lows and highs

Where God is always, always over all
Where He will never leave us or forsake
Where waves of circumstances rise and fall
Where His promise no high or low can break
Where He abides through mileage bright or dim
Where we are on life’s passage back to Him

Where we, if we are wise will start to see
With speech dumbfounded in our meek surprise
The wonder of ‘not I, but Christ in me’
Where without Him our vessel would capsize
Where ebb and flow of high and low soft-draw
The passenger of time across its law

© Janet Martin

John 16:33
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. 
In this world you will have trouble.
 But take heart! 
I have overcome the world.

Alternative title for this poem could be
Ebb and Flow, Pardon the Pun😊😉

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Sensational Summer...Thank You, God









Love to lie beneath the branches list’ning to leaf-melodies
Love to catch the scent of roses lobbed upon the buoyant breeze
Love to taste the thrill of morning, mist-enshrouded silver-green
Love to wander where the westward welkin weaves ribbons of e’en
Love to linger where the fingerprint of God is everywhere
Love to feel His Presence whisper anxiety into prayer

Love to watch two-second spangles in the puddles on the lane
Love to listen to the lyrics of a warm, soft summer rain
Love to feel the sweet sensation of youth in a shell, well worn
Love to share the exaltation of a flower freshly born
Love to savour the fine flavour of a lovely summer day
Love to humbly thank the Giver when I bow my head to pray

© Janet Martin

Psalm 104:1

O LORD my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty... 

June Is...






June is a poet’s quill
An inkwell filled with flowers
From dawn to dusk its ballads spill
From beauty’s bloom-bent bowers
To render breathless awe
Where Splendor overflows
Like a buffer to Murphy’s law
Where we suffer his woes

June is a gallery
Of frameless pictures hung
Showcasing the diversity
Of One second to none
While squires of low degree
Grapple with rebel ink
To wrangle into poetry
Green-gold-blue-purple-pink

June is a lover’s quarrel
Between the hand and heart
Duty tethers the hand to toil
While beauty spills its art
And fills the heart with fires
Edict cannot suppress
Until verse satisfies desire’s
Unbridled happiness

June is heaven’s foothills
Thirty days deep and wide
Where azure height and green fount spills
Across the countryside
It beckons to the Bard
Who knows she cannot sleep
Until she gathers into word
A memento to keep

© Janet Martin

 I wish you could join me to 
hear the orchestra of flowers playing as
robin, chipping sparrow, gold finch and chickadee 
tweet-tweet and trill their little hearts out outside my window...
now, one more picture because...
last night when I drained the bathtub the toilet and kitchen sink started gurgling 😢

...if all goes as planned
this will be a mound of dirt by the end of the day...boo-hoo!
Stay tuned😐
 (I did plant some of the herbs in pots for a reason
and this area is always planted with the awareness
that every so many years it will be uprooted completely.)

and here is the pinnacle of all June poems

What Is So Rare As A Day in June

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;
No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,
For our couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,
And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,
'Tis for the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
The soul partakes the season's youth,
And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe
Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,
Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. 

Monday, June 22, 2020

Happiness and Garden/Flower Poemlets

 
Each time that we seek to impress
We rob ourselves of happiness
Better to praise the One who grants
The ways and means to sing and dance

***

Happiness is the heart’s applause
Though scarred with hard regrets
Hope balances its scale because
God forgives and forgets

***

How can one be an atheist
And be a gardener too
How can one watch a bud untwist
Yet deny you-know-Who

***

Don’t wait until it is too late
To sit where flowers nod
The mettle of petals soon fades
And garnishes the sod

This is the day the Lord has made
Don’t wait to give Him laud
The petals round our Soul soon fade
And return us to God

© Janet Martin


 
 
 If you are a garden and poem lover chances are you too 
have savored these inspired words by
 Dorothy Frances Gurney
(esp. the 2nd last stanza)
 
THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled. 

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.
 
And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.
 
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth
.
For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease.

 D.F.G.