Safe Harbor

There are moments and memories I’ll share with you
Many words I will share as well
There are miles I would gladly retrace with you
And even some secrets I’d tell….
But then there are words that are sacred and rare
Music of memories I’ll never share
Oh, you may know me and know me quite well
But there are some memories I never will tell

There are some memories I’ll keep to myself
To share them would tarnish them sadly
I keep them hidden in my soul on a shelf
And there I will harbor them gladly
Though many the moments I’ll happily share
Never will I my entire soul bare
For here and there is a memory
Intended wholly and solely for me

Janet~

If I Could Meet Me......

If I saw myself cross the street today
On my way to where I was going
Would I watch me go and hear myself say
‘Now there’s someone I wouldn’t mind knowing’
Or would I be in a hurry with no time to pause
To wave or catch my eye
Too busy with me and my life because
It’s just me, myself and I

If I saw myself cross the street today
Would I wish to get to know her?
Or would I hear my other self say
‘We’re better off without her’…….
If I could meet me unexpectedly
Which one of me would be showing?
….oh I can walk away from everyone in the world
But one; would I be worth knowing?

Janet~

Drawing.....

First she helps them hold the pencil
And together they begin
Drawing
Drawing a picture, a portrait of them……

Little hand, now fully capable of grasping the pencil
Continues to sketch; she watches them
Drawing,
Every so often guiding the precious hand….

In the pictures she sees pieces of her
in pieces of them
Yet they complete her; they are her children
And she is mother…
Drawing from them......
....and they, from her

Carefully watching and guiding the pen
Portrait of a mother and her children……
Drawing......
Pictures in the wind....

....first He helps her hold the pencil,
they begin drawing,
He watches her,
Every so often guiding her precious hand....
In the picture little pieces of Him
begin to show in her....
Yes, He completes her.....
He is the Father,
She a child.

Janet~

I Didn't Know......

I didn’t know when I was a little girl
Yellow-haired and big blue-eyed
And I would sit and stare at the world
Wonderful and wide
Wishing I would grow a little quicker
I didn’t know then that youth is a flicker,
A flash
And then it is gone
A splash
In the river, surging on
I thought time was a freight train steady and slow
An all day rain with no where to go
When I was a girl........
Oh, I didn’t know….

And I didn’t know when I was young
That childhood is a song too quickly sung
Or that love is not just a fuzzy birthday card
But that love can hurt and love can be hard...........
And dreams are a luxury afforded by youth
Before we are troubled with life’s bolder truth
And I didn’t know as I gazed past today
How quickly tomorrow is yesterday
And the lips that sigh and the feet that dance
Would soon realize that youth is a glance
Swept away in Time’s vast, misty sea
And dreams are a day that used to be……….

And I didn’t know as I sat rocking you, my dear baby
How fast you would try to be a lady
And I want to tell you about a short sweet ride
As you gaze into the blue; dreaming about being a bride
But I would never snatch your dreams away
Because soon your tomorrow will be yesterday
And you’ll sing a song in the twilight’s glow
About being young and what 'I didn't know.......
When I was a girl, yellow-haired and blue-eyed
Staring out at a world so wonderful and wide………'

Janet~

Picture: my third birthday holding
my 'fuzzy' birthday card.....
( I know, it's hard to tell:)

Dirge for the Year Departed.....

The winds have wept a mournful dirge
The seas have moaned a madrigal
The pale moon and the stars converge
To join this tongue-less musical
The hill a quiet vigil keeps
As the last fading minute weeps……

And here we gather throng on throng
In solemn, pensive reverie
The trite expression of the tongue
Cannot beckon now to thee
Slipping through Time’s misty veil
Silent beauty; ethereal

So what of fiercest tears we’ve shed
What of the dew-drop or the rose
They are as laughter of the dead
Obscure in history’s repose
All that has been again will be
Such is this mortality

Then ash to ash and dust to dust
The fair and evil quickly pass
And all the mortal gains we trust
Are temporal as the terrene grass
On this veiled porch mankind must wait
And dream and search and contemplate……..

….the purpose of this fleeting hour
The deeper meaning of it all
Life; the picture of a flower
The seed, the bud, the bloom, the fall
As one more quick year softly slips
From the whisper of our lips

Some lift their glass to lesser gods
And praise the merits of their lust
Forgetting, ‘neath their feet the sod
Waits to reclaim their wealth of dust
But wiser men humbly resign
Their dividends to One divine…..

Though winds may weep a mournful dirge
Though seas may quote a madrigal
Time and eternity converge
Somewhere beyond this darkened veil
Life does not end beneath the sod
Time is our pathway up to God…………..

Janet~

Summer Song on a Winter Night

It trickles from the starry tresses
Falls like teardrops from the moon
And its tender note caresses
With a soft and winsome tune
Drifting from each haunt and hilltop
From the pine tree robed in white
Muffled by a snowy carpet
Soulful sonnet of the night

Plaintive strain of playful breezes
Rippling ‘cross a field of green
Warm the laughing wind that teases
Boughs where once the snow had been
Scent of pear and cherry blossom
Wafting o’er a pleasant sea
Skipping now on winter’s bosom
Summer’s gentle melody

Halt the chilling gale now dashing
Unconfined by leaf or flower
I can hear a sonnet splashing
From a warm and muted hour
Murmuring from over yonder
Where the purple twilight spawns
An orchestra of warmth and wonder
Melting on the violet lawns……

Here beside the glowing fire
Some may hear the cold wind moan
But beneath its calloused ire
I can hear a sweeter tone
Singing to me hymns of summer
‘Neath a low and lazy moon
From the frigid arms of winter
I can hear the song of June

Janet~

The In-mate.....

Silently, invisibly
He unsettles the
Otherwise calm and unruffled
Meditation
Brooding, yet innocently
Masterminding
Waves of
Tormenting vexation
In the dead of night
Or soft rose dawn
Haunting, extreme silences
With an inaudible moan
While others slumber
In midnight’s palm
Without a care
This inmate murmurs
Plaintive notes
Upon the quivering
Frosty air…………..
No small thing, he
Employing idle thought
As hope and human misery
Become entangled
In a helpless knot
Through bars of light
His shadow moves
Imprisoned not by guilt,
But by his love
He pays his dues
In vexing notes
The ever-present
Muse……….
Feeding a slow-burning fire
Of reverence and
Desire

Janet~

Passage-way......

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives
All others lie dormant beneath Time’s vast skies
Or sleep in the depths of phantom seas
Tangible only in memories
Today is the first day of our here evermore
Before it slumbers forever on Past’s hazy shore

Today is the bridge to our hopes and our dreams
The moments in which opportunity gleams
Soon they surrender to coffers of dust
Moments remembered, of rubies and rust
Today is the first day of what is yet to be
On our one way passage to eternity

Janet~