Monday, October 3, 2011

Making Something...


We’re not just making supper or sweeping floors

Though it may seem like we’re just doing life’s chores

We read the newspaper, the Bible, a book

It appears like reading but take one more look

‘cause we’re making something…


We take out the garbage, and in endless miles

We hang out more laundry beneath autumn smiles

There’s scolding and holding, hello and good-by

We’re not really thinking as the swift minutes fly

That we’re making something


The van’s out of gas, fuel prices sky-rocket

The pantry needs filling, re-vamp the budget

For supper’s dessert there is apple strudel

Who left smelly socks on the coffee table?

Yes, we’re making something


Now finish your homework please, don’t look so sad

Kids, stop your arguing, listen to your dad

Tidy your bedrooms; that means make your beds too

If you help me I have a surprise for you

Oh, we’re making something


A house is a shell with a roof and a floor

Curtains at the window, a pretty front door

Through which messes and music and memories unfurl

‘cause we’re making the most beautiful thing in the world

We’re making a home


Janet Martin


I cleaned out the pantry and the little guys I baby-sit had fun building a Folger's Coffee Tin tower. (note: kids love playing with non-toys. Their imagination flies...) It turned out a little slanted and Michael said, 'Yeah' it's the Eiffel tower!' ( I think he was thinking of the leaning tower of Pisa, but it was so cute:)

Undeserving...


You held it to me in the gentlest of ways

I blushed in embarrassment beneath your kind gaze

As You pulled back the wraps of pink and pale blue

And whispered, ‘My dear, I have something for you’

It was so beautiful, perfect, unmarred

I looked at my old one, so battered and scarred

But You did not remind me of my tangled mess

As you gazed at me in profound tenderness

‘Don’t look at the old one’, I felt His embrace

As He brushed the tears of regret from my face

‘I love You, I am with you, I’ll show you the way’

And He placed into my arms a brand new day

Janet~

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Midnight's Maestro


Silently, the dew descends

From ethereal fingertip

Starlight frosts infinite strands

Round one lone opal ship

Within the blue-still emptiness

A surging hymn is stirred

It moves the soul to solemn bliss

Without one uttered word


The fetter of despondent toil

Dissolves into the mist

The urgency of futile spoil

Now ceases to exist

Beneath the tempo of the moon

And midnight’s silhouette

Like honey trickling from a spoon

Falls heaven’s minuet


Seraphic intonations wrought

By night’s celestial hand

No maestro on earth's stage has taught

An orchestra so grand

Of willow wisp and star-brushed sigh

Or murmur of the deep

A somnolent soliloquy

To lull the world to sleep


Janet Martin

Last night was such a night...

Another Wordle


Morning intrudes on the darkness, and scrawls

A rose tinted circle onto night’s concrete walls

Its paint washes over the dull cobbled stone

Fearful hope and deep longing rival for the heart’s throne

Some view the dawning as an adventure ahead

Others feel the weight of its noose ‘round their neck

Earth’s temple is silent; the air is as still

As the church with no parishioners against the blue hill

A myriad of wishes rides on the sharp breeze

A sigh with no face stirs lost memories

…and suddenly I remember I am not alone

The signs of God’s mercies awake with the dawn.

Janet Martin

Lamentations 3:22-23


After witnessing Light break through a seemingly dense wall

I was inspired to pen one more wordle.


Looking for Love (Sunday Wordle Challenge)


http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

She hides in a closet and covers her ears
The darkness a circle to hide all her tears,
While Mommy and Daddy are fighting and yelling
When can she be happy? There’s really no telling
as she whispers to a myriad of ghosts on the wall
“I just need someone to love me, that’s all”
In that dank, fearful corner, the darkness her cover
She can’t help but wonder; will anyone love her?
And she cries…..looking for love

With sad eyes she searches through the smoke and the gloom
A drunken hero lurches across the bar-room
Is he coming to see her, touch her face, say she’s sweet?
Or promise an adventure in a room down the street
In the arms of a stranger, cobbled concrete above her
She risks all the danger; she needs someone to love her
She moans as she’s thinking and remembers her deed
She weeps as she’s drinking and drowning her need
And she cries…..looking for love

She panics in fear for the signs soon will show
And people will sneer for her deed they will know
She weeps for the sorrow that grows in her womb
No hope for tomorrow, how loveless her doom
Lost, alone, with no answer she heeds cold advice
That snuffs out the heart-beat with fingers of ice
She lies in a puddle of hatred and grief
Recalls how she’d huddle in the dark for relief
And she cries…..looking for love

Someone is standing in the door of a chapel
She sees they are handing out shiny red apples
Her deep inner hunger is a cold raging fire
She can wait no longer for her life-time desire
She’s drawn to the church by a kind-hearted smile
But she’s reaching for more than the fruit on a pile
As she gazes in longing at the warm, tender face
Her search for belonging accepts love’s embrace
And she cries….looking for love


And now there is peace, there’s a light in her gloom
A sweet, sweet release from her valley of doom
Some one has told her of a great God above
How He longs to hold her in His arms of love
Now she has a Father, a Savior and friend
Her searching is over as joyful tears blend
With tears of great sorrow for days of deep loss
But there’s hope for tomorrow at Calvary’s cross
And she smiles……for she has found love

Janet Martin

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Thoughts of a Dying Soldier


The sky is such a lovely shade of blue in early May
The clouds look soft and fluffy; I’ll be touching them today
I'm glad the grass I’m lying on is soft and emerald green
The color of the lawn in spring back home in Aberdeen

God, there was so much that I had hoped that I could do
But it looks as if today I will be meeting you
And all the things I’ve thought worth-while seem suddenly so small
I can’t help but smile to think we fuss ‘bout life at all

The only thing that matters is this moment now impending
The seeds that I have scattered will grow though life is ending
God, it is so little that man-kind will ever know
I'm glad that I am not afraid because You love me so

There’s a letter in my pocket, I suppose someone will find
And give to my beloved, ‘something that he left behind’
Sure would have loved to see her, touch her soft cheek just once more
God, what a useless, bloody hell on earth, this war

Above me now an eagle flies on her majestic flight
I will pass her in the skies as I fly Home tonight
She will fly to some tall tree and to her faithful nest
I’ll fly to eternity and my eternal rest

The sky is such a lovely shade of blue in early May
I wonder what they’re doing in my home-town today
I wish that I could see them all and hold their hands again
Oh God, in death there’s no enemy, we are all just men

Janet Martin

Inspired by the book: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

A Season of Entitlement?


What spurs the seasons of this life

Which bleed upon the sod?

We squander love and hate alike

To serve lust’s lesser god


Freedom is not entitlement

To please our pompous pride

Seasons splayed their glory when

Brave men of honor died


Beneath the red October sky

Beneath the warm spring sun

Beneath the passions of July

Our freedom has begun


Dare we to spill one hallowed breath

In thoughtless chivalry,

Or live as though we own the earth

Bought once through history?


Seasons and mankind mark the soil

Where soldier’s blood-drops fell

If freedom’s cost evades our toil

Then we are bound for hell


What spurs the seasons treading time?

Tis not entitlement

That brings the rain or sun to shine

On meadows that we plant


We gather harvest of the field

Yet, who evokes the sod?

Can we preserve our freedom’s shield

Yet spurn the hand of God?


Winter, spring, summer and fall

Will we be diligent?

Or blindly stumble through them all

Pleading entitlement?


Janet Martin

In Lieu of Flattery



Eventually your intentions
Will become clear
Then I shall know
If your words are sincere

Clarity is certain
There is no flawless mask
Your eyes answers questions
That I dare not ask

The wine of flattery
Is mellow and warm
But dissipates quickly
Like hollow charm

I withhold a portion
Of whom I am
Until I am certain
Your love is no sham

Words without honor
Are a loathsome tool
First jilt, a scholar
Second jilt, a fool

J~