Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Soft, Like Summer Snow





Hour falls asunder
Flower follows suit
New bud wakens wonder
Bearing fleeting fruit

Laughter filters sorrow
Present spills to past
Drawing from the morrow
Refills to its cast

Girl becomes a woman
Boy becomes a man
Mother hears an echo
Catch me if you can’

Sing a song of seasons
Round and round they go
Flowers, hours falling
Soft, like summer snow


© Janet Martin


Troubadour






From the fount of summer morning
From the inkwell of a flow’r
From the mountain and the meadow
And the sun and shadow bow’r
From the woodland and the moorland
And the never-land of dreams
From the lofty heights of triumph
And the lowly sorrow streams
From the hurt and dirt of living
From song and dance of youth
From the freedom of forgiving
And the changeless ways of truth
from the true-blueness of heavens
From the wellspring of a thought
From the laughter of a loved one
And the chatter of a tot
From the wander-ways of travel
And the fonder stays of home
Splays the Will that holds time’s gavel
And the quill that holds its poem

© Janet Martin

Of Each Newborn Day





Hail, hail the toll of morning’s bell
Our God did not forget
*The innocent brightness
Of a newborn day
Is lovely yet

From century to century
The dark dawn’s spark begets
And *the innocent brightness
Of a newborn day
Is lovely yet

Holy, holy, arise, my love
See what God’s grace hath let
Where *the innocent brightness
Of a newborn day
Is lovely yet

Time cannot dim the love of Him
Whereby its gauge is set
And *the innocent brightness
Of a newborn day
Is lovely yet

Arise, arise, for who can say
How many morns are left
Where *the innocent brightness
Of a newborn day
Is lovely yet

© Janet Martin

Inspired by *this line from a poem by William Wordsworth entitled Intimations of Immortality

Where? Here To There.







Where morning rings with newborn hope
And twilight tolls the death of days
Where seasons clothe then strip the slope
Where nature’s common rites amaze
Where rich and poor together bide
Time’s subtle tide; sun up, sundown
Where innocence is young, wide-eyed
And wisdom wears a hoary crown

Where pride spars with humility
Where greed and need war and pervade
Where bewildered humanity
Is too oft by exterior swayed
Where still the bud is filled with bloom
And strings its beauty over dust
And sings to He who grants its plume
And brings to gnostic seekers, trust

This constant round of day to day
Is like a holy ground unfurled
Where what may seem habitual sway
Blows like a shofar to the world
Sun up, sundown, and in between
The noise of buy and sell and trade
Where marketplaces gold-gray-green
Fold to the hold where death is laid

…where death is all life’s certainty
Each breath the medium whereby
We approach vast eternity
Its gateway swallows up the sky
Where even now each day of grace
Becomes a steppingstone toward
This body’s final resting place
As Soul goes on to meet the Lord

© Janet Martin

 Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment, so also Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await Him. 



Monday, June 27, 2016

Walking Well, Discerning Delight

 Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
 Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

Ps. 37:4-5




We get it all mixed up
The law of love’s delight
How often we forget to walk
By faith and not by sight

How futile is the fight
Of self-sought happiness
Choice speaks a language, loud and bright
The love that we confess

For as we think we are
Oh, pray then that the mind
Seeks first the kingdom of God then
He who so seeks will find

Today is a new day
Hope fills communal skies
Lord, teach us to trust and obey
And walk thus, well and wise


© Janet Martin



 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Ephesians 5:15