Saturday, January 2, 2016

The Truth About Truth...






Mostly truth does not need flaunting
Like a trophy on a shelf
With a showcase for its vaunting
Because truth speaks for itself

Mostly truth does not need shouting
Or a trumpet to be heard
For in spite of mouthy touting
Truth speaks loud without a word

© Janet Martin


Already...to the second day of 2016...





Already the date that cut the cord
To 2016, at midnight’s gong
Has joined those ranks ‘of former things’
And sealed its signature in song

Already the steady wedding of hours
Has claimed to Bygone’s misted courts
The grinning firstborn of New Year
That midnight both births and aborts

Already we sense the changeless change
Time exhales in spite of intent
To rearrange our habits, oh,
Already the day is sorrow-rent

…and bent with human-nature’s ways
Already we sense a falling apart
That would prevail, save for God’s grace
To wounds bleeding deep in the heart

© Janet Martin

Isa. 42:8-9
 "I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images. "Behold, the former things have come to pass, 
Now I declare new things;...

Laughing With the Laughing Morning




Day Two of 2016

Morning slides down heaven’s banister
Laughs like a carefree boy
Shakes a pillow until the sky
Is filled with feathered joy

It is winter in the country
Its sweeping solitude
Is blanketed in folds of white
Delight, earth’s-song subdued

…save for the sigh in the pine tree
Save for the lone wind’s cry
Save for the far-off murmur of
Time trickling from the sky

Something tickles yonder tresses
New day wiggles its toes
Never cold to the caresses
That tick and tock bestows

Morning slides down heaven’s banister
Lands in a laughing heap
At the feet of us kicking back the cloth
Of fluffy folds of sleep

© Janet Martin

Friday, January 1, 2016

Oh, What A Life





Discovery makes new the ancient; what a life is time
Like a moss-covered milestone on which eager children climb
Clueless at how far hours reach; or what its gate unbars
We, fresh-faced foreigners, stumble-tumble toward the stars
And earn the song that yester’s young-at-heart learned through Time’s strife
Singing like they, the blue and gray of oh, oh, what a life

The take-and-make of moments is a sacred bread to break
Its crumbs of living scatter pink across dusk’s fired lake
Rhapsody and soliloquy, ballad, sonnet and prose
Unfolds in new-old poetry like fathoms of a rose
And because we are learning often we forget to look
Until its petals are pressed between pages in Past's book

Time’s tapestry of touch and taste haste’s blue through us; the grass
Once green is brown and brittle where the little hours pass
Like shadows first before us then behind us; solitude
Is often-times the playground for life’s teeming echo-brood
...where we, tongue-tired beam and dream dreams, rosy-cheeked and rife
Still singing on time’s way its melody; oh, what a life

The eyes of true love, darling, never utter condemnation
But buoy our want and will toward time’s obligation
And we would all be crying without cause for joy, but oh
Oh, what a life; the knife that wields in winds that brutal blow
Melts in the hand of Time’s forgiveness; winter turns to spring
Oh, what a life; oh, what a song Time's children learn to sing

© Janet Martin

Dear 2016





Your days a-wait beyond a gate we cannot trace with eyes
Nor spell what scenes convene where now we guess with hopeful sighs
At melodies and memories that waft soft on the air
Not rendered yet; dear year ahead, I pray we tread with care
…this unblemished appointing that you lay beneath our feet
Like midnight snow anointing earth with fresh and unmarred street

Your uprightness and downrightness and forthwithness abides
Hinged to what none can change you spill Time’s will in virgin tides
Dear year, I pray we treat each day like a prize, rare and fine
Before it melts like midnight snow in morning-gold sunshine
And when the tide goes out, as we ponder its garnered days
Pray what we see will be a testament of humble praise

…to He who sifts and grants through grace-scarred hands these centuries
Who breathes upon the bud and breaks to bloom cupped mysteries
Who tends what He kind-lends; dear year, I pray your aftermath
Will be within our memory, a smile; a precious path
In thought’s embrace and as we trace the echoes that remain
Pray, as your tide recedes we did not live your days in vain

© Janet Martin

Last night we watched the year come in at my brother Dave's house 
These celebrations often include music because we are a family of listen-to-the-words music lovers and he told me he thinks I will love this song and I do,
and oh, I love the singer too. What a voice!
This is a good song to begin the new year and remind us that life is a river...Lets cherish each twinkle on its tide...