Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts

Friday, September 13, 2019

A Mighty Force Invincible


Because of this love we often do things
we would never have chosen to do on our own
and we leave undone the things we once wanted to do.
Love is as strong as death when it once gets full possession of a person
 it will completely carry them away 
and love to God is indeed a mighty force …
Charles Spurgeon

We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19

 The poem below was inspired by the above wonder-full 
worth-your-well-spent-while message!


Lord, you know what we love the most and why we choose the things we do
You know that we are prone to boast; Lord, let our boast be love for You
For we do not love without cause; Your love came first and set man free
Then let earth resound with applause of death to self through love for Thee

Let love not fill its due (a pew) and mingle with the Sunday crowd
Then rush to Monday’s work-to-do and blush to speak your name out loud
But let us shout our claim to love (Your name) let hearts be overcome
To live with joy, not shame, because of what Your Love has saved us from

Let us enlist in love’s pure force and serve the Captain of the Soul
Nothing can veer love’s corps off course as we march God-ward to its goal
Then, with eyes set on Recompense let love suffer long and be kind
Let not one shred of evidence of the ‘old man’ remain behind

Let love completely carry us; a mighty force, invincible
We love because You first loved us; oh, glorious, flawless principle
Then, forbid we, once having heard should still shy like a skulking fool
No bone is broken by sheer word of unbelief’s cold ridicule

Lord, loose that sacred fire-storm that vanquishes all fear and doubt
Let love’s compelling force reform our utter being inside out
So that someday with heaven’s throngs in everlasting sweet accord
We’ll sing for aye the victor’s song ‘we love You, Lord, we love You, Lord

© Janet Martin



Monday, April 6, 2015

Tomorrow's Fields...



It is always planting season...
and harvest.

PAD invites us to write a 'things-not-as-it-appears' poem

It is hard to prepare for
What we cannot see
Tomorrow is always
A Mystery

No one can tell us
What its furrow shields
Yet, Today we are planting

Tomorrow's Fields
With its myst'ry will bear
The offspring of
What we planted there

© Janet Martin


Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Drifting of Moments...a Sonnet



 

The quiet will of moments has its way
The sojourner within its subtle clasp
Endures its offerings of gold and gray
As restless threads slip through our fumbling grasp
Darling, the wind tonight is blue and brusque
It rakes its talons ‘cross the frigid pond
Obliterating the moonbeam on its cusp
Pushing to an intangible beyond
Where summer’s past and future intertwine
As surreal dreams and echoes coalesce
Its boasts of air are neither thine nor mine
We reach in vain for illusion’s caress
While we surrender to the startling touch
Of ticking clocks, of falling flowers and such

The portend of a moment soon is null
Bleeding un-severed, joy and grief’s context
Corralled into a day; when it is full
It scales a phantom gate into the next
Darling, the hour does not reimburse
Its squandered breadth, nor is a glimpse unveiled
Of Time’s extent; this dust-spun universe
Cannot fathom eternity exhaled
Where moments in ethereal magnitude
Will never be; no hour, day or year
Earth’s numbered measure will our thought elude
As we pass from this noon-to-midnight sphere
Across the field the skyline silhouette
Yields to a little season’s pirouette

The bridegroom hungers for his precious bride
But he cannot pluck moments from Time’s clutch
Nor can a mother quell their ceaseless tide
As children scatter from beneath her touch
Darling, the air is charged with sweet suspense
For who can know what loiters in the mist
Of opportunity and recompense
We are young lovers waiting to be kissed
As we, God’s floods of wonderment embrace
Of sunbeam smiling soft against the cheek
Or heaven’s tears in metaphors of grace
Fill us with awe until we cannot speak
Outside a snowflake wafts then disappears
Like moments drifting softly into years

© Janet Martin



Monday, November 26, 2012

Who Knows?





Who knows what the impending season holds
Or landscapes poised to cradle the embrace
Of Time’s imbuement ere the past enfolds
The serenade of moments sealed in place

Who knows what may befall in the half-breath
Of present we inhale; history’s clasp
Exhales in laughter, tears, in life and death
Who knows what waits beyond our present-gasp?

Who sees the crypt groaning with broken dreams?
The obscure deaths within, not eulogized
Or where the private tear of sorrow gleams
Because we grieve alone the dream that died

And who can tell the measure of a man
Beneath the quiet veil of skin; God can

© Janet Martin

This morning, as I stared across the mute landscape
I caught myself wondering what would transpire before these fields are green again...

Friday, November 2, 2012

Of Moons and other Wonders



 image source:pinterest

PAD Prompt: Full Moon

It does not labor from the skyline like a sluggish beast
But slips above earth’s far elusive brim
A silver circle diadem ascending from the east
To garnish midnight’s muted, maudlin scrim

Since Eden’s birth the sun ignites the lunar lamp of dusk
Beneath its plaintive gaze of centuries
We live and die; earth-creature is but gasp of dust to dust
Sun, moon and stars, celestial deities

Beneath the gleam of astral rendering we plant and plow
The sun rules day, the moon and stars the night
While we of meeker stance must wipe the sweat-drop from the brow
And ponder things like God and death and life

What gracious kindness that Creator God did not declare
The night to be as deep and dark as hell
But breathed above the drop of earth resplendent radiance where
The mouths of men cannot its mystery tell

Thus, he who holds the glorious heavenly bodies in His grip
Knows the unknowns; and He is coming soon
We are not stranded here on some forgotten, drifting ship
To stare in hopeless wonder at the moon

© Janet Martin





Wednesday, October 17, 2012

One Certainty Abides...





Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt The Sonnet.


The SONNET is a poem, properly expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment. It consists of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to one of certain definite schemes. In the strict or Italian form it is divided into a major group of 8 lines (the octave) followed by a minor group of 6 lines (the sestet). An a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets. For the sestet there were two different possibilities: c-d-e-c-d-e and c-d-c-c-d-c. In time, other variants on this rhyming scheme were introduced, such as c-d-c-d-c-d.
The English form break the poem into 3 quatrains followed by a couplet. Each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean (English) sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet. Alternate Rhyme Scheme: a-a-b-b, c-c-d-d, e-e-f-f, g-g

Future does not conform to fantasy
We cannot glimpse the portend of its will
Nor does it murmur hints of good or ill
We press in moments to its mystery

Desires of the heart will ebb and flow
And fickle are the wishes of our want
The past seeks to remind, to teach or haunt
The wise man learns to learn then let it go

One knows our future’s intricate design
While we were still a whisper in the womb
He shaped the numbered days of our bloom
Into His perfect will our wills resign

One certainty abides in our defense
From seeds of choice we reap its consequence

© Janet Martin

Thursday, October 11, 2012

What is Longing?





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

Monday, October 1, 2012

Collaboration of Contrasts





Truth does not change
Earth surrenders each season
Night fills the hollow of deepening blue
I cannot arrange
Love’s tempestuous reason
Longing still follows the having of you

The more that I love you
The deeper I hunger
The deeper I hunger the fuller I love
Mysterious paradox
Driving me onward
Searching for something I know nothing of

Out in the shadows
The poplar trees shiver
Here in the quiet of autumn’s midnight
Symmetrical contrasts
Collaborate, quiver
In bittersweet torment and tender delight

© Janet Martin

Friday, September 21, 2012

Majestic Mystery





We must die
Again, again
To self
It’s hard to explain
but that is love
And each time we die
For Love,
For Him
We become
More alive
Immaculate equilibrium
And each time
we empty ourselves
Gasping and thin
He fills us
Fuller than we’ve ever been
That’s that way it is
With love
The exact opposite of
Normal
And logical
Or practical
The more we give
The more we have
The emptier we become
The fuller we are
Dying so we can truly live;
How can it be?
Oh wonderful, majestic
Mystery

© Janet Martin



Thursday, September 13, 2012

Trying to Make Sense of It All...



 These flowers are blooming beside the road.
Jesus said: "Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Luke 12:27



The dandelion beams, quite unabashed
Beneath the sprawling arches of the oak
The spruce and pine retain their common sash
Midst the flamboyant flare of autumn’s cloak
Nature; canvas of quiet miracles
Expounds life lessons in meek, wordless truth
It illustrates in petal-parables
A message fitted for senior or youth
A paradigm of wisdom is revealed
As we consider lilies of the field

***

We cannot spin the unknown on a wheel
And weave its filament to our thought
The threads we hold pass through a Higher Will
Though we may pull and strain against the knot
The human nature; it resists, rebels
A covetous and restless, striving throng
Whilst on the eve the song of sparrow swells
In praise to He who fills its mouth with song
We ought to raise our gifted threads to Him
Content to let His finger shape and trim

***

The Artist paints; His master-piece appears
Gradually; not in one afternoon
The acorn sprouts; it does not count the years
Before it reaches to the low-flung moon
And we, well we seem prone to boast or fret
Not at all like the lily of the field
It simply blooms while quickly we forget
And turn again to folly’s temporal yield
Who can explain His reason or His rhyme?
The answer to so many things, is Time

© Janet Martin

I have one child who is certain God forgot to give him/her a ‘special gift/talent’. Our reassurances/reminders otherwise will not persuade, so I tried to remind this one that not all things/gifts are revealed to us immediately. Realizations and master-pieces take time…
Sometimes waiting is a great Refiner. Being content with who God created us to be; THAT in itself is a great gift!

...and sometimes one can't see the forest for the trees!:)




Friday, August 31, 2012

The Vexation of the Unknown...





We cannot write away longing or desire
Nor diminish space by the hex of poetry
But we can languish in a syllable’s fire
And revel in the vexing of what still might be

J~

Monday, July 9, 2012

Gracious Insufficiencies




Of things too near and dear to me
It seems I cannot speak
Or breathe its form in inept verbal art
I tremble, for the pen I hold
Is powerful, yet weak
Too weak to spell the silence of the heart

Though pulses throb with quiet want
To spill its candid draught
The pen obeys the movement of the hand
The words I crave dangle and taunt
Unformed within my thought
Sealed just beyond my beckoning demand

Perhaps there are no syllables
To shape our deeper pines
Is this life’s gracious insufficiency?
Perhaps it is enough for us
To read between the lines
And understand what word can never be

© Janet Martin

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Imminent Mystery




Gazing toward the sky-line
I wonder what lies beyond…
…beyond the curve, the dip, the bend
That everlasting yawn
Yet, though I push toward it
I never reach its crest
But remain in the epicenter
Of north, south, east and west
So I’ll drink in the green and the purple
Of spring’s temporal diadem
Embracing the imminent mystery
Of the moment I am in

© Janet Martin

Friday, February 10, 2012

Manifold Mystery


What is the loveliness
You keep on your lips?
What scenes lay behind your closed eyes?
What do you ache for
In clenched finger-tips
What tunes your unspoken cries?
What draws your laughter?
What stirs your soul?
What weeps from inclines above?
What spawns the longing
That curses this world
Oh, do you think it is love?

***

What causes Him
To grant one more day
To a thankless and erring race?
What shapes His patience
Toward rebel-slaves
Addicted to sin’s vile disgrace
What tunes the mercy
That wakens the dawn?
What stirs His might from above?
What fills the vastness
Of centuries gone?
Oh, do you think it is love?

***

What forms desire?
Or then what fulfills it?
What is this double-edged sword?
What inflicts a wound?
But oh, then what heals it?
What is both race and reward?
What rends the heart
Like a lightning bolt
And yet is gentle as a dove?
What is this
Manifold mystery?
Oh, do you think it is love?

© Janet Martin


Friday, February 25, 2011

You........#2


It’s more than the comfortable feeling
Of slipping into a favorite pair of jeans
Or the warmth in the air
When your face is almost touching mine
Or the rush of expectation
As ball-point touches paper
The passion in a perfect word
It’s more than the meeting of glances
Across the room
Or seeing the icicle plunge to the ground
Because the sun was too warm
And the sky perfect blue
No……..the thrill I feel
In a moment like this
Can only be described in one word
You

Janet~

Monday, February 14, 2011

What Is This?


What is this?
This blend of desire and devotion
What is this?
This well of inexplicable emotion
A constant hunger, yet profound satisfaction
A perpetual need; a thing, yet an action
This shoulder of warmth and true contentment
What is it? This joy, wrought with disappointment?
What is this thing that grows as we’re giving?
The soul’s silent cry in every man living
It’s potential as vast as the sky above……
…….why it is this little thing called love

Janet~

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A Mystery


Who can explain love?
This thing we give and give
Yet can never give too much of
Or get enough…..

It is not a mere emotion
For emotions rise and fall
While love serves with devotion
Standing faithful through it all

Who can explain this four-letter word?
Leaving us most intensely stirred
Evoking within us life’s greatest pleasure
And deepest pain
Yet, it seems we love without measure
And it is impossible to love in vain
Though we may love and lose….
We love again

There is none so rich that he does not need it
And none so poor that he cannot have it
Love’s stores are never depleted
Yet useless if we try to save it

In love we hold, kiss and embrace
In love we let go as tears cover our face
In love we leap, in love we fly
In love we live, in love we die

Who can explain love?
This many-splendored desire
Mild as a cooing dove
Wild as a raging fire
Solid as a rock in the ocean
Yet soft as the mist on the sea
Is there any who can explain it?
This splendid mystery

Janet~

Monday, January 31, 2011

Common Ground


My dear, we all stand on the same brink
On the edge of a common abyss
There is none who can say
Tomorrow there will certainly be that or this…
There is no one so rich that he has been given
Power to see beyond this moment
There is none so poor that that he is immune
To the morrows grace or its torment
We are kindred-spirits in this regard
In the longing with which we love
Or in the love with which we long
We are bound by the chord of mortality
There is none so strong or wise that he can know
What mystery lies
Beyond the present ebb or flow
And so here we are joined
As we stand on the edge of the unknown
We are one, there is no one alone
Who can see what tomorrow will be
Or how far is eternity
But only this…
Who ever we are and wherever we go…….
God is

Janet~

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Second Thoughts.....


I should have fled
But then the red
Of twilights kiss captured my gaze
I should have run
The setting sun
Somehow set my mind a-blaze
I should have tip-toed out of sight
Beyond the clutches of the night
Before her fingers grasped my arm
And led me where the breeze was warm
Where winsome little shadows play
Unseen in bolder hours of day
I should have bolted but instead
Quite willingly I let you lead
Me far beyond the garden wall
Where sonnets of the midnight fall
In low and faint melancholy
Like the music of the sea
I should have torn my hand away
Before I followed in your sway
Yet, how can anyone decline
A stroll within a night so fine
I should have fled
Your lips so red
Softly turned to kiss me
I should have fled
But instead
I asked, Dear, did you miss me?

Janet~

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

To Dar......


Those tears in our eyes
The faltering of a weary hand
The darkened skies
They are not the end
But simply the reminder
Of our need for a higher Power
The Great Designer
He produces the flower
As we, the created
Adhere to our Creator
Knowing full well
He is Mediator
Twixt seen and unseen
Of what is to be
And what has been…..

Once she combed your hair
Helped you
Loved you and
Taught you to fly
Now, you return her
Gifts of love
One day at a time……
Those tears in your eye
The faltering hand
The wistful sigh
Because you do not understand
These are love’s pictures
A paradigm
Strength sent in whispers
Because of Him……..

The landscape sweeps
Beyond our view
But He who keeps
It; keeps us too
He sends those blue hills
We must climb
But holds us,
One step at a time
Though greener pastures
Draw the eye
We know that winter
Will pass by
And someday
You’ll look back and say
What a day that was
Yesterday………..

Hang in there, friend,
Love, Janet~