Live Well...or, Of Moment-deft Unbuttoning...

Live well and do not rush too fast past miracles of life

The handiwork of Deity unfolds and earth is rife

With sundry season splendor and with sundry season need

Live well; for who of us can tell how far time’s path will lead?

This gold and gray of come-what-may is but a gilded thread

While we of Adam’s seed labor and plead for bites of bread

We plant a little garden and we pray a little prayer

God grants to us His mercy where His footfalls fill the air

Live well and do not waste with haste, the taste of moment-gifts

For soon the tune of afternoon is like the leaf that drifts

Beneath the limbs that rang with hymns of summer’s sanguine hour

Before the winnowing of whispers softly stole its flow’r

This draught that swells from wells of grace is not an endless quaff

Its gossamer effusion bathes the fingertips that doff

With moment-deft unbuttoning the garb that clothes the shell

Of this one life we have, my love; we ought to live it well

© Janet Martin

A Common Bond

We share a common dividend

On this sojourn of sod

For every path of living ends

Before the throne of God

This yawning rue of gold and blue

Of rich or poor the same

Will leave us penniless at death

As whence from birth we came

…and no one can this passage flee

Nor flippancy afford

For this appointed day when we

Will stand before the Lord

Then we ought all the more to live

As though today we die

For every one of us must give

A full report on high

The God who sent His Son to save

Us from the curse of sin

Will never disregard the faith

Of all who call on Him

This flesh and blood mortality

Sustains a common bond

For every path of living leads

Into The Great Beyond

© Janet Martin

It is written: "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.'" Romans 14:11

Yesterday my hubby attended the wake of a departed truck-driver friend who passed away suddenly at age 52. As he and other friends reminisced about this man's love of life,  trucks etc. the Great Unspoken hovered; someday each one of them would take their turn not beside the coffin, but in it.

Universal Peace and Joy

Faithful Father, the world over

Hearts of worship unify

Pausing weight of want and labor

To adore thee, God most high

Love, oh tie that binds with gladness

Hearts of strangers through Thy Word

Where life’s sin and sorrow sadness

Draws us to Thy feet, oh Lord

Faithful as the sun that rises

Is Thy mercy and Thy care

With Thee there are no surprises

God, for Thou art everywhere

Faithful Father, the world over

Believers gather to praise

He who saved us, hallelujah

Universal joy and peace

© Janet Martin

In This Matter of Air...

The sky wept all night and scattered its tears

Over a landscape of spent summer-years

Bronze overtures sweep green gardens from trees

Faltering tempo of leaf-studded breeze

Time adapts easily; nothing seems strange

Would that I too could be eager to change

Thought stretches over what eye cannot see

For each tomorrow is a mystery

Wish wanders backwards; but past has no door

All it can muster is echoes of yore

Moments bleed forward and we are held twixt

Juxtaposed oceans of future-past ticks

Merry, the merchant at time’s spinning wheel

Weaving an ilk none can borrow nor steal

All we can do in this matter of air

Is touch, taste and treasure breath-measured fare

For surely the One who measures moment-mien

Does not unravel without hope, time’s skein

The sky wept all night, merged laughter and grief

Scattered its tears in the shape of a leaf

© Janet Martin

Rain paused, then returned full-fury. 

October,
Temperamental fellow

laughs and weeps 

in blue-gray and yellow

We watch him struggle

and sympathize

There's something in his mettle

we recognize...

I Wonder, Would God Starve or Live?

If my love for God is mirrored in

The way I treat my fellow-kin

I wonder, would He want to stay

If He stopped by my house one day

And if the only proof I bear

Of love is in the things I share

I wonder, would God starve or live

If all He has is what I give

© Janet Martin