Wednesday, February 5, 2014

It Never Grows Old






I was staring through the window, saying to myself as I watch another storm vent itself, ‘This picture is growing old!’ And in the same breath I am spell-bound as a junco battles the gale to land on the snow-drift beneath the feeder…
 No, His wonders never grow old.



It never grows old; His blue-golden-gray
Falling in pictures along living’s way
Author of everything; see how His Hand
Moves through the ages in changeless command
Stunning man’s gaze with the power of His might
Filling our hearts with love-songs of delight

It never grows old; white, scarlet, bronze, slate
Awing spectators of lowly estate
Always spring-green overwhelms white-capped limb
Pictures of wonder and worship in Him
Over and over this canvas of sod
Tugs from its depths darling portraits of God

It never grows old; briefly we embrace
Each vapor vertex of season-spun grace
Ere it slips softly into history’s hold
While a new painting has replaced the old
Drawing our eyes from the crypt of the heart
To nature’s gallery of heaven-art

© Janet Martin

 Look around and praise Him if you are well and fed and clothed enough to enjoy it! What a gift indeed to be ticket-holders to the greatest gallery of all; God’s creation.The past two days were filled with sun-snow SPECTACULARS!





(these are a couple of the 100 or so shots that I've taken in the past few days:)

About Work





 Do you have work? Don't forget to thank God for it every day!

The merchant’s salvation
The sluggard’s dread
But ever the ration
That butters our bread

The wise man's blessing
The dreamer's curse
But ever the jingle
To pleasure the purse

Our waking purpose
Our well-earned rest
Of all that life offers
I say work is the best

Janet:)



Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Blue and Brusque



 I'm cooking supper and watching dusk steal ever bluer across the day...gone the glistening sweep of dawn


Brusque breeze intensifies the blue
Begging to brush this day from view
I watch, reluctant to release
This ‘little bit ‘o heaven’ piece
But Time has no regard for hearts
And treats as equal all her parts

She tugs the child from daddy’s knee
And tosses wild and merrily
A mother’s love; hold and let go
Like evening steals across the snow
She reaches with subtle blue kiss
Tucking to naught, this thing that is

A pessimist dies every day
I could not bear to live that way
So I will suffer her romance
Reach for her arms each dawn and dance
Before she winks, coaxing the dusk
To stir its breezes, blue and brusque

© Janet Martin

God's Autograph



I popped through a little hedge and thought I fell into heaven!...
...until I came to this;( There won't be No trespassing' signs in Heaven;)



This little lens cannot fully descry
The awesome surfeit of God’s ‘let there be’
His masterpieces filling sod and sky
Amazes our gaze with majesty
We crawl and reach and lean, lie down and laugh
Trying to capture heaven’s autograph

Ah, what is man that God should awe him thus
Again, again He stuns our meager glance
Four seasons worth of wonder drench His brush
No, this is not serendipitous chance
God lets us glimpse the glory of a place
Waiting for all who are saved by His grace

This circle-scope of hello and good-bye
Makes bearable the suffering of sod
As elements of nature testify
In boldest declaration; this is God
We crawl and reach and lean, lie down and laugh
A lens cannot contain God’s autograph

© Janet Martin

…but oh, the bliss of trying to capture fringes of His signature! Is there anything better?! No.

The way these shadows fell across the gully seemed like they wrote, Yours truly, God.

Thus Far




Thus far as moments roll, cajole the sod in season-strain
We sow and tend and reap and rest then do it all again
The pantomime of summertime and autumn-winter-spring
Amalgamates; we contemplate this inhale-exhale Thing
How swift an hour becomes a day; days shape a month, a year
And somewhere not too far away death wields its solemn spear
So we, as moments roll, cajoling sands where seasons spar
Ought to consider now and then, what we have done thus far

From yonder brink, pink turns to gold, then gold to blue or gray
God places in our fumbling hold His gift; another day
But soon it too will don the hue of vapor serenade
A breath-by-breath framed legacy of choices we have made
Ah, we cannot afford to tilt Time’s cup and never taste
This ether draught, so drink it up; one drop we dare not waste
Then stand and stare dispassionate, to midnight’s whimp’ring star
Now is the time to contemplate what we have done thus far

God does not weigh our offerings by what the eye can see
He searches every spirit for love’s best; humility
And rich or poor alike He gives time’s moments to employ
Silver and gold can never buy His hope that brings us joy
Nor can the cash of miser’s stash claim what cannot be bought
We touch a tide we cannot see as action proves our thought
And somewhere One beholds our give and take; Time’s door ajar
Offering grace to human race for what we’ve done thus far

© Janet Martin


I read the words 'thus far' in an article this morning and it jolted a train of thought... 


Monday, February 3, 2014

When We Have Closed Our Eyes...





When we have closed our eyes
To open them no more
When we have crossed from here to there
Like many gone before
When the Giver reclaims
The gifted breath he gave
Then, only then will we behold
What lies beyond the grave

When we have closed our eyes
To never-more-will-be
When we have written the last page
Of our life-legacy
It will be too late then
To change those things we chose
As we traverse that final realm
In death’s common repose

When we have closed our eyes
From sin and suff’ring free
When our testament is sealed
In thought and memory
When Jesus takes our hand
As that last bank we climb
The only footprints we will leave
Is what we did with Time

© Janet Martin

 Funerals have a way of stirring tender truths within us...(we spent the day with family after a relative's funeral...a time to fellowship and remember) and we return to our homes to keep on keeping the faith.

It is customary in the culture I grew up in to sing this song at the graveside...and so we gathered where the sun gleamed on a heaven-gilded earth as we sang...(I like the 4th stanza)

Asleep in Jesus
Margaret Mackay, pub.1832
Copyright: Public Domain
  1. Asleep in Jesus! Blessed sleep,
    From which none ever wakes to weep;
    A calm and undisturbed repose,
    Unbroken by the last of foes.
  2. Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweet,
    To be for such a slumber meet,
    With holy confidence to sing
    That death has lost his venomed sting!
  3. Asleep in Jesus! Peaceful rest,
    Whose waking is supremely blest;
    No fear, no woe, shall dim that hour
    That manifests the Savior’s pow’r.
  4.  Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for me
    May such a blessed refuge be!
    Securely shall my ashes lie,
    And wait the summons from on high.
  5. Asleep in Jesus! Far from thee
    Thy kindred and their graves may be;
    But there is still a blessed sleep,
    From which none ever wakes to weep.
***
First, as I was out with my camera this morning I thought it was far too lovely a day for a funeral; as we stood out at the grave I changed my mind. It was gift from God, this beautiful day!





Of a Door Half-ajar...





Kiss of a new day rests soft on the brow
Mist of its morning wafts on waking dell
Heart-hope of heaven, whisper to us now
As we embark to what? No one can tell

Test of time’s tick-tock commandeers our touch
Love extends grace; we, creatures of dust
Suffer its seasons of sorrow and such
Hilltop and valley to Him we entrust

Merciful Master of moment-embrace
Humbly we step to time’s threshold once more
May it be more than the wind that we chase
As we slip through morning’s half-ajar door

© Janet Martin

 The LORD'S loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."…Lam.3:22-24

Saturday, February 1, 2014

What We Have...





What we have is all we have
What was and what will be
Are merely hopes, before what is
Becomes a memory

What we have, my love, is more
Than we can fully taste
For moments offer no encore
As through our grasp they haste

Both good and ill pass through our clutch
How quietly Time slips
To grace a shore beyond our touch
Save for thought’s finger-tips

…and what we have is all we have
Pray that we do not miss
Its fullness rushing to a grave
Of what no longer is

© Janet Martin

I love to look back to photos (and memories) of what once was...
but not too long, lest I miss what now is!

Happy February, all!
(ps-s-s-t! this is the month before the month that leads to this...!