Gladder Than we Were...

 Today marks a year for a family near here 

who is gathering together to remember a son and brother,

Gone suddenly, so soon.

Thoughts and prayers continue to be with them, their lives forever altered!

Let's live as if this might be the last day we have to love/have each other!

Lord, make us glad for what we have

Each other; kindly blessed

Before the journey from a grave

Where dust and ashes rest

Before the head bows, sorrow-bent

The heart broken and sad

Before we wish that we had spent

More time just being glad

Before the door twixt here and There

Seals someone from our touch

Lord, make us gladder than we were

For those still here with us

And let our gladness prove its part

By what we do and say

Before we wish with all our heart

For simply ‘one more day’

© Janet Martin

Without Argument or Complaint

 Last night I started to pray this prayer but simply could not remember all the lines 

so I decided it's time to give this, one of my Charlie Pride favs, a listen or three!

It rises ere dark fades away

Yet often labours late

It never takes a holiday

Or bars its front yard gate

It does not seek out praise or fame

But shoulders common care

Without argument or complaint

Or claiming its ‘fair share’

Its cloth of meek and modest mien

It turns the other cheek

And often thinks, then thinks again

When it has words to speak

Its charge leaves little room to pout

About its grant of grace

That none of us can live without

And nothing takes its place

Patient and kind, worth more than gold

It never seeks its own

And rich or poor or young or old

It cannot thrive alone

It doesn’t look like much sometimes

A soiled and tattered glove

Its road, detours and steep inclines

But still we call it love

© Janet Martin

Midnight Rain...

The staccato of rain tip-taps the raven window-pane

The lane is lost in lacquer-glossed expanse of ebony

And earth is like a bit of bling hung on a silver chain

Its girth a big black hole as far as anyone can see

Where what we know exists by day has disappeared, it seems

So close your eyes, the paradise of sweet dreams gently waits

The outside world swish-washed away in midnight’s rushing streams

Until the morning flings ajar its yet far-off flood-gates

© Janet Martin

Universal Arousal...

Creation throbs with songs and sobs

It flails earth's floor with hail and sleet

Then when the storm is spent it lobs

The flowered heath beneath our feet

Creation surges with a splurge

Of wonderment so great and small

Where birth and death emerge and merge

Into winter, spring, summer, fall

Creation stirs the heart of hearts

Desire at a loss for words

As manifold nature imparts

God’s art in hills, rills, trees and birds

Creation draws us to our knees

It awes us like nothing else can

And wakes us to the Mysteries

Of God within the clod of man

© Janet Martin

 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:3

This afternoon we were entertained by this woodpecker clinging to a leaf, by all appearances!

One Poet Is Two...

One poet when cut down to size

Reveals that they are two

The day poet is plain and wise

The night poet, wild blue

The day poet heeds prudent creeds

Mindful of recompense

The night poet scales and exceeds

The walls of common sense

And travels where day's poet gapes

Industriously aghast

As night-poets board paper shapes

To sail into the past

They shake the shackles from their wrists

And kick off shoes to dance

Leaving day-poets almost kissed

With glimpses of romance

© Janet Martin