Holy, Holy, The Wake at Stake

 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, 

and Hell followed with him.

Rev.6:8

 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

John 3:18

Holy, holy earth’s cape of graves

Vulnerable, the foot that braves

Faith and fear’s yawning, conning waves

Help us, oh, help us, Lord

For we are prone to quench thirst’s yen

With lowly rise and fall of men

Where bluffing, boasting brogue of pen

Is mightier than sword

Pity, pity pride’s witty want

Enticing us to trust its taunt

Where enmity to honor flaunts

Its masterpiece of lies

And undiscerning eyes believe

What ignorance does not perceive

The awful end sin will receive

With devils in disguise

Laden with grace, soul’s maiden trek

Where life on earth is but a speck

Before the More that waits on deck

After The Choice we make

Tender, tender God’s mercy pours

Where splendor groans on hidden shores

While compassion and justice wars

Heaven or hell at stake

© Janet Martin

Time is Like A Lullaby

Time tunes its tireless lullabies

Where notes, like  petal-boats capsize

To spill dulcet hellos-goodbyes

Through faces, places, piers

They glint upon green-tinted tress

And spill in hymns of happiness

To dim couloirs and recesses

With spent laughter and tears

Ephemeral, time’s transient tryst

It sparkles, pink-gold-amethyst

Then fades into a phantom mist

On echo-laden breeze

Where what we have and hold becomes

An epitaph of moment-crumbs

A distant Neverland that thrums

With life-sums; memories

Triumph is more than contests won

Or prize-trophies for races run

It tunes the touch of said and done

With gentle gratitude

Where Time is like a lullaby

Of who-what-when-wherefore and why

It heaps the heart with sleepy sigh

Of seasons soon subdued

© Janet Martin

Whoever-wherever you are today

Cherish its gift of gold or gray

For with eventide it becomes

A memento of moment-sums

Happy Victoria Day, fellow-Canadians!

Love's Vows (a Wedding Poem)

We attended our nephew's wedding on Saturday. 

A wedding is always a good time to be reminded and reflect on vows we made on our own wedding day,
however recently or not we vowed them...

God bless, guard and keep the sacredness of marriage true and strong!

Once you were strangers and far, far apart

Now and forever love binds heart to heart

Shoulder to shoulder, through life’s worst or best

Love’s vows unbroken will triumph each test

Nothing on earth can undo what is done

Solemn the vows that meld two into one

Tethered forever to weather what waits

Love’s vows unite two hearts into soulmates

Cherish with honor these words that you say

Defend the promises you make today

Always remember in life’s push and pull

Love’s vows once spoken, nothing can annul

God bless with happiness, these ties that bind

Keeping, through His love, this love true and kind

For, from this day forward, while God grants your life

Love’s vows have sealed you as husband and wife

© Janet Martin

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;-))