The Full Gamut...of Love

 For all the reluctance that some letting go sparks

there is always a whole gamut of new thrills waiting to be

held, if ever so briefly!

So then love and let go;

Life is sure to bestow

Fresh wonder-filled hellos

To buoy and to bless

A flowerful ‘oh my’

Cloud-pontoons drifting by

June yielding to July’s

Imminent happiness

A school-boy with a pup,

Sun-sparkly buttercup

A mug to refill up

With daybreak’s favourite brew

Innocence of a child,

Vagabond blooms run wild

And duty’s march beguiled

By beauty’s howdy-dee-do

Oatmeal cookie, mint tea,

A good book’s company

Slow teal song of the sea

Melting over bare feet

Smiles to hold back love’s tears

Where don’t-blink balladeers

Dance on what disappears

Like amber fields of wheat

Miss Mischief, halo-crowned

Small sorrows, laughter drowned

Leaf-lays that kinda sound

Like far-off waterfalls

Big shoes and little lads

(The wake-up call for dads)

An afternoon of ‘glads’

That deck sweet summer’s halls

The almost supper hour

The leaning shadow-tow’r

The promise of a flow’r

From earth’s bud-laden trove

Un-expectation’s bans

In sudden change of plans

The Faithfulness that spans

The full gamut of love

© Janet Martin

Barter

by Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

Life has loveliness to sell,
   All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.

 Life has loveliness to sell, 

 Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
   Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

 Spend all you have for loveliness,
Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstacy
Give all you have been, or could be.

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😊😉

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. 

James Russell Lowell