Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Collections of Today or (of Eternal Unreachable)

Today, the page on which every life-story is written!


A bevy of birds and blooms
cheers this time of year's incessant duty with beauty!!



Unreachable, the poses exhumed from Past’s picture-show
Untouchable, the roses that bloomed a summer ago
Unmovable, unchangeable, scenes of spent seasons splay
In an un-rearrangeable Collection of Today

Yesterday's lifeless embers cannot warm the outstretched hand
An empire of echoes is naught but a shadowland
So then, ere dusk erases what will never more return
Of today’s tender graces and of lessons yet to learn

...of names still warm with faces we can touch and cup and kiss
Before Framed Font/Want replaces Today’s Very Present ‘This’
Still very rife with reason at the mercy of Because
Before the soldered season of Collections of What Was

Let's live as if today was all we have, for so it is
Each hour rolling like a wave tolling Past's Genesis   
Composing the unchangeable, irretrievable play
Of eternal, unreachable Collections of Today

© Janet Martin

1 Tim.4 BSB
Godly Exhortation for Today...

Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith
 to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, 
2influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, 
whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.

3They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods 
that God has created to be received with thanksgiving
 by those who believe and know the truth.
  4For every creation of God is good, 
and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected, 
5because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

6By pointing out these things to the brothers, 
you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus,
 nourished by the words of faith 
and sound instruction that you have followed.

7But reject irreverent, silly myths.
 Instead, train yourself for godliness
. 8For physical exercise is of limited value, 
but godliness is valuable in every way, 
holding promise for the present life and for the one to come.
  9This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance.

10To this end we labor and strive,a 
because we have set our hope on the living God, 
who is the Savior of everyone, and especially of those who believe. 
11Command and teach these things.

12Let no one despise your youth, 
but set an example for the believers 
in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. 
13Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, 
to exhortation, and to teaching.

14Do not neglect the gift that is in you,
 which was given you through the prophecy spoken over you 
at the laying on of the hands of the elders. 
15Be diligent in these matters and absorbed in them, 
so that your progress will be evident to all. 
16Pay close attention to your life and to your teaching. 
Persevere in these things, 
for by so doing you will save both yourself 
and those who hear you.


Monday, August 15, 2022

Because We Never Know What Waits...

 





Because we never know what waits
While winter pounds on summer’s gates
While moments drip like diamond studs
Where Bygone’s velvet footfall thuds
On boulevards of misted gold
While what we have wafts through our hold
Like jewels we can never snare
But touch, as they slip to thin air

...we dare not stand and stare too long
Where life runs rife with yester-song
But thank God for each falling star
And make the most of where we are

© Janet Martin





Thursday, August 4, 2022

(Bygone's) Building Blocks



But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
Phil.3:13

..like empty jars
 

today's blush bars gleam with forms not yet filled
(below; yesterday's 'blush bars' because today's 'blush' was gray)
Victoria and I are hoping for a rainy day! It's been s-o-o-o-o long since we've had one!


Bygone; the sphere where yesteryear’s younger endearments waft
A metronome of steppingstones moss covered and mist-soft
Its stomping ground forever bound in volumes undeterred
Where brushstrokes of live, learn and love become a little blurred

Bygone; the age that preserves pages that are moment-laid
Where Now and Here will disappear to panoramas stayed
But, not quite yet; lest we forget to cherish what we hold
Before the sash of dust and ash snuffs today's splash of gold

Bygone; a world that is unfurled before our very eyes
A sea that slips through fingertips as moment-ships capsize
And drift into the silver-blue that seems to have no shore
But gathers in the groan and grin turned into days of yore

Bygone; futile to trace the isle of garnered live and learn
Better to take today and make it worth its no return
To trust the Hand that pours time’s sand-sparkles that soon will be
Fresh footfalls spilled to blocks that build Bygone’s Eternity

....like empty jars today's blush bars gleam with forms not yet filled
Where God allots life's varied jots and joys with which to build 
Then pray that we, with kind humility of servanthood
When day is done have made Bygone as lovely as we could 

© Janet Martin

Here's hoping today's footfalls spill into filled canning jars by tonight!





Saturday, July 16, 2022

See You Soon!

 A Few July Dusk shots...







We never know how near or far we are to Farewell’s severed ties
Or what waits to unfold where gold and blush begins to melt night’s skies
Or who will be the next to leave behind loved ones to grieve death’s wage
Or when the pen that writes life’s book runs out of moment-ink and page
So, wherever we are and with whatever today grants
Here’s hoping we cherish its lease while we still have the chance
And live as if today could be the last lap of life’s race
Remembering that everything is cradled in God’s grace
Remembering to trust and thank Him with hearts meek and true
And make the most of what soon hosts Past's panoramic view 

© Janet Martin

On this note...this is my annual Summer Break week!
See you soon, if the Lord wills💖

James 4:13-15
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, 
spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” 
14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! 
What is your life? 
You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

Below, one of my lifelong favorite hymns...




Friday, January 14, 2022

Of Glint and Fray


It is impossible 
to return
to undo 
or redo
what we would do
differently 
if given the chance

All we can do
is the best 
we can do
with what we hold
today...


This💖💖💖 (do you remember those dream-sweet play-days?)💘




Lots of little flash-back moments as the tots of today
dust off the toys of yesterday
and fill them with starry-eyed pleasures once again,
as the little hands that used to play with them are now 
juggling the demands and responsibilities
of growing up

Timeless thrills...


The beginning...
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; 
and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Eccles.1:14

The conclusion...
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:
 Fear God and keep his commandments, 
for this is the duty of all mankind.
Eccles.12:13


Ah, life the way it used to be
Gleams like a summer, sun-kissed sea
Cupped in a sigh, a memory
A vault of yesterdays
Whilst look, the dark above us dims
Like brook-song, morning’s skyline brims
A canticle of hopes-whims-hymns
Shimmers on untouched trays

…with friendship waiting to be made
With Duty’s common promenade
With Poetry’s awed escapade
With high five and low blow
With mercy and sufficient grace
With smile upon a loved one’s face
With hand to hold and dream to chase
With wonderment and woe

…with turning older, tick by tock
Yet, learning not to watch the clock
But rather where and how we walk
While Time is on our side
To try to taste full flavors of
The subtle nuances of love
And to never get quite enough
Of moments not yet tried

While dust to dust and ash to ash
Waits to reduce its starry splash
And slow the feet that dance and dash
Through childhood’s greenest green
Until they too gaze at a sea
Cupped in a sigh, a memory
Of life the way it used to be
Before the years between

Ah, life the way it used to be
Is juxtaposed with you and me
And present opportunity
To tint the glint and fray
That tunes the tide that ebbs and flows
With echo-molded mementos
That wash in pictures we compose
With what we hold today 

© Janet Martin


Monday, November 25, 2019

Crucial In-betweens


The above bedroom, painted purple years ago during a school March-break
and sitting empty for the better part of the past five years (save clutter and cribs)
it is about to get a face-lift after we decide on a colour (or non-colour?)!


 Days that seemed so lasting then are nothing now, 
but echo-sparkles...

Days glint, their sparkles felled
Like ripples rushed to sea
Where whelming wonders once we held
Meld into memory

What seems so commonplace
In work-week’s tug and kiss
Forges from ordinary days
The very best there is

Where the wee while we have
To ride out highs and lows
Cannot stave off wave over wave
Of love’s high fives and blows

The brunt of here and now
By brute force of tick-tock
With the disguise of where-when-how
Bestows its aftershock

…of echo-addled scenes
That thought alone can see
Captured in crucial in-betweens
Of what was and will be

© Janet Martin

Saturday, November 3, 2018

Of Melded Miles...


This morning's moments held much to smile about...
(the best part? He patted the floor and wanted Grandma right there beside him
to share in the delight of anything with wheels😊)

Then morning melded to noon,
and noon to night


Night’s raven wing has gathered
Earth’s brood beneath its bars
The ash of tears and laughter
Strewed to a roof of stars

Ebony whispers suture
Its miles where moments meld
To Past’s vast cast of pictures  
In Thought alone beheld  

© Janet Martin

Monday, August 6, 2018

Of Intangible Imprints


It's peach and blueberry season. yay(two of my all-time food favs!)
 But even with peaches and blueberries we need to practice moderation 
(unless we enjoy an old-fashioned stomach-ache...believe me. I know this to be true!😏)


Since My Scare a few weeks ago I have not touched cold cereal but returned to
the safety of oatmeal 'mush' with fresh fruit, ground flax seed and a drizzle of maple-syrup!
YUM!!!

Press well your barefoot paperweight
On pages printed with soon-past
Where morning flings ajar its gate
And ushers in the ‘break of fast’
Where peaches drip and blossoms slip
From buds that cannot clench the wreath
Hoisted to bloom a little bit
Before it strews the dust beneath
Where what we hold is like a flow’r
Soon kissing pages dripped with peach
As the impressions of an hour
Scatter imprints beyond our reach

© Janet Martin