Showing posts with label storm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label storm. Show all posts

Monday, February 27, 2023

In Winter's Storm (there is no place like home)

 Nothing like a winter storm to rekindle thankfulness for home!



Here winks the lure of friendly fireside
Cheering the labor’r toward eventide
Here, with loved ones to gather and to sup
Fruit of love’s labor filling plate and cup
Here the tea kettle, while centuries wing
Pours fresh-steeped comfort for pauper and king
Here, like a haven while wild wind-beasts brawl
Home in winter’s storm, is sweetest of all

Here wish-lists dwindle, snuggly satisfied
With hugs and slippers, while the countryside
Is tossed, lost in white brumal gusting swell
As Old Man Winter pummels hill and dell
…and we, borne on parchment catamaran
Sail into ancient worlds and back again
Where no matter how fair the climes we roam
Nothing compares to winter’s home-sweet-home

Here happiness is like a warm handshake
A steaming ‘cup o’ and a bite o’ cake
Here hobbies are like mini getaways
Here mother sometimes pauses work and plays
Here we have nowhere else we’d rather be
Than watching birds flit from feeder to tree
And wrangling thankfulness into a poem
As we thank God for winter’s home, sweet home

Here beckons the gold halo of lamplight
Here little tots are tucked in extra tight
And all is quiet save the howling gale
That overflows contentment’s hallowed grail
That crackles and pops as flame-dancers leap
And book soft-plops as reader falls asleep
Lulled by the lays that rake the leafless loam
While kindling thankful praise for home, sweet home

© Janet Martin



Thursday, April 15, 2021

For Sailors on Life's Sea

 Life is no pleasure-cruise; Soul’s sacred ship is not a yacht...

Below, a rough sketch of a picture that formed in my mind
as I wrote this poem...


The sea of life is filled with precious barks of humankind
Uncharted waters spill across eastern horizon-line
Where we, all deftly drawn toward where we have never been
Need to learn how to trust the Lord who orders the Unseen

For fear is like a fiend that wreaks havoc where moments break
It draws our eyes from God who promised never to forsake
Peter could walk on water while his gaze was fixed on He
Who beckoned ‘come’ though wild the tempest tossed the roiling sea

The stormy gale will not prevail though sometimes, so it seems
The love of God will never fail though loss may shatter dreams
Hope, like an anchor will secure faith’s bark in Mercy’s keep
To grant assurance as we face today’s uncharted deep

Life is no pleasure-cruise; Soul’s sacred ship is not a yacht
Time's rocks and waves may dash and bruise us in a course, hard-fought
But, as we cling to the life-line unfurled at Calvary
Love's firm anchor of hope secures barks of humanity

© Janet Martin









Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Then, When The Storms of Life...


 this song never gets old...


Ah, here we go again
Armed for life’s high and low
With love to bind the wounds of men
With grace whereby we go

Day breaks and draws us through
A myriad of halls
Until the sky is navy blue
As noiseless, the night falls

Where in between these banks
Of sky and sea and sod
We offer up a life of thanks
And leave the rest to God

For both heaven and earth
And the fullness thereof
Belongs to He who renders birth
And tends His flock with love

Then, when we are afraid
As trouble tests our will
Let’s lift our eyes to He who made
Today and abides still

His love will never fail
His love will never cease
Then, when the storms of life assail
His love will give us peace

© Janet Martin

Romans 8:35-39

 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  
As it is written:“For Your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”  
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 
neither angels nor principalities, 
neither the present nor the future, 
nor any powers,  
neither height nor depth,
 nor anything else in all creation, 
will be able to separate us from the love of God 
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Hallelujah!


Saturday, January 18, 2020

Storm-stoked...


 When I started writing this poem the snow was still held at bay,
but the winds have escalated and begin to add substance 
to the forecast of a big storm today.


The sky hangs low with unshed snow
The wailing wind begins to blow
Into each crevice, crease and nook
The vines that drape the boist’rous brook
Rattle; summer’s skeletal trace
Like scattered spools of tangled lace
Or ink-stains from a stoppered sea
That spilled vague strains of poetry
Still waiting to be recognized
By brittle frond and sprig disguised

The grumbling gale bullies the bush
And rakes the woodland’s solemn hush
A hoodlum looking for a fight
Harassing everything in sight
It storms the streets and marketplace
A hunter eager to give chase
To any unsuspecting prey
Not battened down or tucked away
So hang onto your hat, my friend
Or you may not see it again

The wind-chill seeps through walls it seems
And wakens simple fireside dreams
It makes the courtier of books
Content in modest, nested nooks
Where wanderlust’s tug is assuaged
Twixt sips of tea and turn of page
And everywhere we wish to roam
Does not compare to home, sweet home
Where paper ships on paper seas
Transport us anywhere we please

So, let the weight of lowered height
Burst through barred gates in white o’er white
White petals and white butterflies
White diamond-studded stars and sighs
White whispers on a white-washed path
White garnish on white aftermath
Unbroken save the curlicue
That spirals from the chimney flue
Or here and there a little bird
By ruffled feathers undeterred

© Janet Martin


Saturday, April 14, 2018

Sometimes I Feel Like a Foolish Virgin...or Humbly Happy


*“Sometimes I feel like a foolish virgin” I remarked as we scrambled about collecting extension cords, looking for flashlights, dashed to Drayton for gas for the generator etc.. …
but I’m so thankful, since the kids are older these storms are not quite as stressful as they used to be.
Jim usually misses out on the 'excitement'.
Due to his breakdown a few days ago he is trying to make it home in time for a
(Hopefully-will-happen) Easter dinner with his family that we are hosting tomorrow!)

 While gathering extension cords it reminded me of a power-outage, likely 20+ years ago, when our best-neighbor-in-the-world connected enough cords to reach from his generator to our house so the girls could have a night-light and listen to their 
Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round cassette to go to sleep! 
Some kindnesses we NEVER forget! 
(like coffee and hot chocolate and pop delivered to our back door, 
like come-use-our-shower-microwave-coffeemaker etc!)
Thank-you Bill and Patty!
 

That's the thing about trouble; it makes us remember…

Makes me humbly count my ‘happy’
Makes me take stock of the rest
Like the trucker on the highway
And the birdie in its nest

And the people not so ‘lucky’
As to have a ‘home-sweet-home
Makes me turn my little thank-you
Into a prayer and/or poem

Makes me contemplate ‘possibly’
How the wise keep lamps prepared
While the foolish rummage madly
…procrastination-despaired

Makes me think upon the kindness
Of good neighbors and good friends
And the second-mile stretched highways
That it seems trouble extends

Makes me humbly count my ‘happy’
Makes me try not to forget
To try harder to be ready
For the storm not unleashed... yet

© Janet Martin

'Possibly' is Procrastination's best ally!
There is one For Sure we cannot afford to procrastinate!!

*Matt 25:1-13
 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

I bought this flashlight the other day, hoping to keep mine from going missing on 'pirate ships, under-the-couch-cushion camp-outs, and other kiddo-adventures;-) 


Friday, November 6, 2015

Given Time...

  



That riot of russet-bronze-red is stripped
The wind, a rogue; rowdy, steel finger-tipped
Those honeyed afternoons we stirred and sipped
Like tea, have drained their sunny, sylvan seas
From windowed walls we watch Fall’s tears run wild
They roar across the corpse of summer’s child
No more a lady-love, soft-gloved and mild
But like a train that thunders through palled trees

These skeletons that once crooned lullabies
And blurred life's lazy day with sleepy sighs
Stand rigid beneath brooding, frigid skies
Like naked minstrels waiting for their cue
The banter of a buxom, blue-eyed breeze
The baton that birthed bonny melodies
Have turned to frosted farewell eulogies
We empathize; we feel Time’s swindling too

It growls and howls in every crease and crack
A hungry predator primed for attack
We draw the knitted shawl across our backs
For we have learned that what must come will pass
And given Time the swindler will restore
To hulls culled by its hand, hope’s repertoire
And all the earth will laugh with leaves once more
Our cups refilled with mint and sassafras

© Janet Martin 

After the storm roared through a sudden lull ensued...
We are left to pick up the pieces, mostly branches though
I pulled the trampoline out of the apple tree...
and the neighbor's coverall is stripped!