Praise-worthy Promise-keeper

The weightless gates of morning fling night’s crepuscule afar

Mankind is caught between ‘has been’ and doors that stand ajar

Holy, the berm that lends the terms of time and grace to us

Where hope and faith are more than riders of fate’s Pegasus

The pasturelands and grandstands of our less-than-docile flight

Emerge from splurge of dewy dusk to fill our Musts with light

Where Beckoning and Reckoning go hand in hand, for we

Cannot escape the aftermath of deed’s proclivity

Wise counsel, stellar, though it stings when chiding childish lust

Is like a canon where change cannot touch its timeless trust

And though fools disregard it for the school of lower wont

The few who study its decree find treasure in its font

This day-to-day of gentle grace that grants our morn-to-morn

Is a rubric for human race to grant grace in return

For we are all in need of love’s kindness to urge and cheer

Like kindred journeymen sharing the common bond of Here

The penmanship of mercy melts darkness beneath its quill

Above mankind’s atrocities our God is faithful still

The scepter of His promises out-stretched across time’s bar

Where weightless gates of morning fling what waits to be ajar

© Janet Martin

Song-prayer for the day...

Ah, Brooding Thought; Intimate One

Ah, brooding Thought; Intimate one

Thou makest willing hands a pawn

Where thou commandest they obey

Without a sound thou hast thy say

For thou, though veiled cannot conceal

The words that touch and taste reveal

And no white-washed hypocrisy

Can fool the rules that order thee

And though no one can see thy form

Thou takest the whole world by storm

Because each sleight of hand is taught

By thee;  intimate, brooding Thought

…and shouldst I think to usurp thee

Thou makest a servant of me

For thou art lord of every move

Then pray thee, Thought, that thou art Love

© Janet Martin

...now I think I better do some dishes and decide what's for supper! 

I hope Thought allows some lovely-yummy inspiration;-))

Thursday Thoughts on Choice and Circumstance...

We cannot always choose the hues

Of living’s tapestry

But it is up to us to use

Each color carefully

The high and low of joy and woe

We often must admit

Is not so much the status quo

As what we make of it

Each gifted day soon fades away

The gold and gray thereof

When woven through our do and say

Proves who and what we love

***

We ought not to fret when what we get

Is not what choice decreed

God will provide, not for our pride

But for our humble need

***

The more we get of what we want

The more we soon forget

The One we ought to depend on

No matter what life’s Let

***

Most oft the thing we would not choose

Becomes the medium that proves

In our response to circumstance

If we believe in God or chance

***

Our choice to circumstance will shape

The scenes in memory’s landscape

Then help us Lord, in every quest

To remember where choice will rest

***

Time is of the essence

An essence none can see

Save in the constant presence

Where choice shapes history

 ***

When temptation would turn our eyes

From wisdom and discretion’s prize

Lord, as we contemplate its choice

Help us to heed Your still, small Voice

Lest, alas, we look back too late

As consequence swings wide its gate

***

Be careful what you do

Be careful what you say

To see this conquest through

Be prayerful every day

***

Joy, a kin to sorrow

Sorrow, kin to joy

One without the other cannot be, 

Dear girl and boy 

***

We can choose to love

But to be loved

We cannot force

Love unreturned

Is possible

Only through love’s Source

 ***

Not matter what this day may bring

Or where upon its way we trod

Our choices are the offering

That at day’s end, we bring to God

© Janet Martin

On Doing Our Part...

He does his part

He frills the trees with leaves

Earth’s eaves with blue

He stirs the hold

That bursts in gold

And emerald avenue

He spills to rills

And wind-swept hills

A merry melody

The very air we breathe

Is charged with

 Art and poetry

The girth of earth

Is like a canvas

Every crest and crease

A high and low

Of dark and light

In mercy’s masterpiece

The bird, the bloom’s

Prolific boon

And tune is like a prayer

To He who does His part

To startle

The onlooker's stare

…Then do your part

And let the love of looking

Steal your heart

As you inhale

The miracle

In nature’s perfect art

© Janet Martin

 Proverbs 3:19
The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, By understanding He established the heavens.

Heralding May

There's an air of festivity in these parts today; the first truly warm day of the season!

Gold laughter spills across yon hills and down each lusty lane

The whisper of earth's newborn loveliness sighs beneath blue

In maple-trees green melodies of summer surge again

As memories-in-waiting wait to become dreams come true

Morn-silence like a megaphone rings with spring's promised prize

The poetry of pink and purple petals awes the bard

Where, with pen poised to snare the voice of Poem in disguise

She cannot, with mere jot capture wonder, once winter-scarred

The broken bowl of Bygone brims with blossom-hymns and such

And everyone is welcome to blue-welkin balladry

To sup on new day's grand buffet and revel 'neath the touch

Of jonquil-tinted Brigadoon and jasmine-minted tea

Grace grins, a breath-soft butterfly-like flutter of first leaf

Where Mother Nature's sheaf is refurbished with girls and boys

Bedecked in flowered dresses and tresses of feathered wreath

And numberless nuances heralding creation's joys

Janet Martin

 

Finding True Beauty

 Rain rules and cuts short outdoor chores well-planned.

(Praying and planting seem to go hand in Hand)

We entrust seed's bounty to the Giver and

ask strength and wisdom for toil's 'meanwhile-demand'

No matter what we hold,

Every good and perfect gift is from above, 

coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, 

who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:17

Hold lightly what God grants thee

Like trees and birds and flow’rs

Everything is His bounty

And never really ours

Each life, a gift from heaven

Its strife, the price of sin

Its hope, Lord of creation

Its light, the love of Him

Hold lightly what God grants thee

And trust His full control

Then peace will be the beauty

That satisfies thy soul

© Janet Martin