Monday, January 7, 2013

Blog of the Week - Another Porch

Kids, this week we are happy to feature Janet Martin, of Another Porch, as our Blog of the Week. Janet, a Canadian living in Southern Ontario, writes wonderful poetry, and is very accomplished at writing form poetry, a talent I admire greatly. You will also find magnificent photos on her blog, showing the beauty of her area. She tells us she is a mother and wife, "one husband and four kids rich." Janet describes herself as a "lover of moments in the music of life", and her poetry often features her appreciation of nature's beauty and her gratitude for all of God's Creation. 



Here is one of Janet's poems  that I enjoyed in the last few weeks:




Embrace them,
All those beautiful ordinaries
Shaping our toil and strife
Embrace them
For beautiful ordinaries
Shape a life

Embrace them
The endless clean-up
and clutter
The chatter, the scatter
Of shoes, back-packs,
The scolding of Mother
Embrace them
The beautiful ordinaries
To which we become blind
Because in the still of retrospect
The ordinaries bind
The scattered fragments
Of duty’s strife
To color the pages
Of a beautiful life

© Janet Martin

and another:



There is no sturdy bulwark for the heart
To guard it from the boldness of your sigh
There is no sentinel to stand on guard
Or seal the echo dripping from the sky
Caught in the throat of midnight’s moody breeze
The elements of love and longing seep
For none can thwart the flow of memories
They rise and fall like billows of the deep
As yesterday puts on the muted robe
Of centuries that form the silent dust
The milkweed flings its silk across the globe
Heedless of where its silver seed is thrust
But we, the author of our private woes
Can never its full direness disclose

***

Wrapped in the velvet pleasure of your thought
Is all the goodness of this world I ask
It compensates for all the ‘what-is-not’
The mind is surely a mysterious flask
I lift my glass up to the weeping air
The wine of retrospect is bitter-sweet
The shadow-lull of summer’s empty chair
Are phantom waves receding from my feet
I trace the words you brushed against my cheek
Time cannot steal the laughter from love’s grin
Or snuff the whisper of the thoughts we speak
We seal their touch in vaults beneath our skin
For we, the keepers of love’s kind caress
Must cherish it with sacred tenderness

***

Life paints upon the canvas of our souls
Its intimate and panoramic art
Where none can hear the murmur that consoles
Or runs translucent fingers through the heart
And no one else can see the artist’s brush
The feathering of light against the dark
Or how the colors whirl and swirl and rush
In passion-surge where there is no bulwark
What color are the tears that midnight weeps?
Who shapes the imprint of our deepest sigh?
Or tears the lining from our hidden deep
Who lights the spark of wisdom in our eye?
We are the lone spectators of its whole
As life paints memories upon the soul

© Janet Martin

Isn't that beautiful? and still one more:


What is longing, this inferno
Burning, yearning hunger
This groaning internal reaching
For what?

Is longing
Self-induced affliction
Carnal appetite?
Or is it holy hungry
Of things spiritual,
out of sight?

What is longing?
It cries, un-heard
Un-hushed
Weeping in the dead of night
Moaning in the noon-day rush

What is longing?
Is it folly?
or is it real?
Is it perchance, earth’s lonely sorrow
That only Heaven can heal?

© Janet Martin



There are many more beautiful poems at Another Porch, so do drop by and explore. Janet, thank you for the beauty you remind us is all around, by writing what the view is like from your porch, through your eyes.

15 comments:

  1. Thank you for featuring Janet here, Sherry. Her words and images are always an inspiration to me and many others. She's got a rare gift.

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  2. Sherry, thank you for featuring Janet. Janet, I am always amazed how prolific you are. You never lack for inspiration and write beautiful verse. When you write poetry that rhymes, it never sounds contrived or forced, as some rhymers seem to. Definitely a good choice, Sherry!

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  3. Lovely lines. I'm a fan of sonnets, and Janet does a beautiful job with the form. Thanks for bringing her to my notice, Sherry.

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  4. Janet is an amazing poet who astounds me regularly with her gift. Thanks for featuring her poetry Sherry. And Janet, keep 'em coming so I can keeping mouthing 'wow'!

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  5. Thank-you so much, my kind and beautiful inspiration and friends.

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  6. I love the simplicity of your blog as well as your words, Janet! Thanks for sharing your poems with us :)

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  7. Beautiful Ordinaries is sublime! Thank you Sherry and Janet!

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  8. thanks for sharing a poet I hadn't discovered, love to find another blog to follow

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  9. My pleasure, kids. Yes, keep 'em coming, Janet! All those beautiful ordinaries!

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  10. Sherry, thank-you. Thank YOU all so much for your kind thoughts and words of encouragement.

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  11. These are so lovely Sherry--off to check out her blog now!

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  12. Sherry, I am thrilled to see Janet as your pick! She is totally amazing and so worthy :D I love Janet's voice and boy can she paint-these are stunning! Janet when is the book coming out?! ;D

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  13. I am completely touched. thank-you. Ella, you make me want to dare to dream;)

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