The Way of Mothers...

 Maybe it's the way of mothers...

…to leave them over-hugged and kissed

To over-give while they insist

They really, really do not need

All this; but still we cannot heed

Their words untrained

By years and tears

Of the unexplained

As faith fights fears

…for once upon a time now far

We too dashed off with words and jars

While mother stood and watched us go

To learn the things we didn’t know

Existed yet; how swift we meet

The wherefore of love’s bittersweet

...where empty jars and echoes strew

The path as years and tears accrue

And what we thought we knew…aha

Has morphed to what our mothers saw

As they stood in the doorway where

We waved, and didn’t see the air

Bedazzled with a million parts

…the way of mothers and their hearts

© Janet Martin

She insisted that 'she’s sure she really doesn’t need ‘all this’ as I tucked extra groceries and jars of jam, salsa, fruit etc. into her bags…

Time's Strange and Changeless Weaver...

Time’s strange and changeless weaver weaves

With ever-changing buds and leaves

A picture-scape of moments told

As we embrace but cannot hold

its thread that falls through fingertips

And hearts, as we with trembling lips

Subject to its supreme command

Cannot restrain or force his hand

How can we love and love full-well?

Those fading footfalls of farewell

Which rend the air in middle night

And fill our prayers with meek insight

Turn into morning; gone the glance

Of childhood’s free, unbothered dance

While we, with hearts twisted and wrung

Must learn new songs upon the tongue

The day does not delay its care

Though heart-pieces drift on the air

We cannot stand and stare with thought

Too long; the strings we clasp swift caught

Within time’s loom, the bud, the bloom

Surrenders soon as clocks consume

Their daily bread, we lift our heads

To taste full-well love’s transient threads

© Janet Martin

Of Courage, College and Carrying On...

We speak to them of courage and we hope within its speech

We find the very thing that we are striving thus to teach

Life’s laughter and lament, love’s learning-curves amalgamate

Within the eye; hello-good-bye; time never bars its gate

As daughters become us and we stare long at our skin

And wonder who we are; the image not the girl within

Where dying ways that life inflicts upon our gaze reflects

The nature of all nature and the climax of all flesh

Our lips, once filled with answers suddenly are dumb and numb

While merry moment-dancers seem to disregard the sum

Of all that they become as we peruse their aftermath

Where tragedy and triumph meld in glimmers on dusk’s path

Still, onward, ever onward, we commence again, again

The learning is not over until God declares, Amen

And so we speak of courage and we hope within its speech

To find the very thing that we are striving thus to teach

© Janet Martin

Our pastor, Dale Ward, encouraged students to take this verse with them as they return to school...

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

From Tennyson's Tears, Idle Tears...

 Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather in the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more...

Of Rivers that Rush Through the Trees

 I don't think my kids heard 'the river rushing through the trees' but I did...still it was a good, corny 'last day' before we help Melissa move tomorrow.

On some days we sip slow and deep

From rivers that run through the air

Sensing this thing we cannot keep

Rushes too fast from here to there

And on those days a reverent awe

Battles with greed of holding on

Because not long ago we saw

How swift a year is here and gone

But even in the clinging fast

We know tis foolish to resist

This filament that weaves the past

In tear and laughter mingled-mist

And so we sip with senses keened

To rivers rushing through the trees

Of moments where we live, love, learn

Before they turn to memories

© Janet Martin

Of We Who Yet Remain...

 

Approx. 15 min. after I took these photos it was pouring rain! now the sun has returned...

He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the LORD God Almighty is his name. Amos 4:13

From heaven’s atrium of bluest blues

Kindly the touch of God from darkness woos

Daylight, the dew-fed night dies on the air

And we who yet remain are caught up where

The orbit of time’s trek from east to west

Returns us to its century-steeped test

And who of us can prophecy or tell

What waits to spill from gates celestial?

Or who can boast to see beyond the veil

Of a mere moment what Time will exhale?

But this we know, while gasps to eons move

These three abide of faith and hope and love

What good is gained to let our thought-feet stray

Where fear and guilt steal faith and hope away?

Ah love, before death’s white dust stills our cry

And fills this cup where now we strain and sigh

Help us to know you better, how your thirst

Is quenched in cups of water given first

To others thirstier; how faith, hope, love

Fitted together are not often proved

Upon a pedestal where men applaud

But on our faces before Holy God

And on our knees where faith and hope are hard

And  love is not a word but hands help-scarred

The morning blushes with hope’s hallowed wraith

The traffic rushes on highways of faith

Toward Unknowns; for what but faith can lend

To us the courage to do more than just pretend

As we encounter from Love’s nail-scarred hands

New tests to prove where our allegiance stands

Lest our volley of verbal acclaim

When tried would put our pious prose to shame

…from Heaven’s atrium of bluest blues

Kindly the touch of God from darkness woos

Daylight; its appetite ignites the air

And we who yet remain go forth with prayer

© Janet Martin  

  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor. 13:13