Would I?

Would I?

If Christ turned and looked at me

From cries of hatred’s violent clan

Would I stand beside Him or cry fearfully

‘I never knew this man’?

Could I?

If they all stood with arms up-raised

And rocks within their grasp

To stone me; would I declare God’s praise

And to His love hold fast?

Will I?

Will I, in spite of enemies

My Savior’s love defend

And live life’s moments faithfully

For Him until its end?

© Janet Martin

The Fellowship of Silences

The Music in It Prompt: Silence

To commune with silence

is blissful fellowship

in proper balance

But oh, the oceans

that surge and slip

as we dance

Silence teams

with wanton whispers

The sky is full

Memories and dreams

of which I am not master

Push and pull

Silences cannot be stilled

by stopping of ears

or closing of door

Who knew that silence could be filled

with the sound of tears

pelting a phantom shore?

Silence is a painter

A Maestro of thought

composing master-piece art

on canvases broader

than heavens above

but sealed in the heart

J~

In Spite of Rough Drafts

When dreams and intent scrawl a rough draft

Upon the tablet of our thought

As we ponder the impending day

We know nothing but this…

The unknown and unexpected are a testing craft

Instructed in moments tenderly wrought

Be He Whom we would be wise to trust in and pray

© Janet Martin

 “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” Corrie Ten Boom

The Heart's Expression

The heart’s expression

Is most often uttered

Not by fluently ordered script

But by the shimmer

Of love and sorrow

In a tear that tenderly slipped

© J~

Of Things Phantom...

Tomorrow, tomorrow

Oh, tomorrow

You say

But darling, all I ever get

Is today

I’ve reached into midnight

But it is no use

Tomorrow is merely

A phantom excuse

For as surely as I lunge

At the hem of its frock

It is mist on my tongue

At twelve o’clock

And all that is left

Of its vapor hooray

Is the brand new repeat

Of another today

J~

Inspired by the title Tomorrow the Green Grass

On the prompt at IGWRT

Blue...

To write away sorrow

And missing you

Are more than a pen

Is able to do

To smooth from my mind

Your eyes and your lips

Are tasks far too heavy

For mere fingertips

What, oh what is a girl to do

When all she is can think about

Is blue?

To drain from my longing

The sound of your laugh

Is like pouring the ocean

Into a glass

The spirit is willing

The flesh is weak

I cradle your memory

Against my cheek

What, oh what is a girl to do

When all she is able to be

Is blue?

Moments compile

Like they don’t even care

That history expands

Twixt my ‘here’ and your ‘there’

To dance with a memory

Is bittersweet bliss

But it isn't the same

Without your kiss

Blue, blue, blue,

What, oh what is a girl to do

When all she is able to touch

Is blue?

© Janet Martin

Heart-thief

It is not a swift wrenching from my grasp

Or my chest

As you steal my heart

No.

It is a patient sort of tender anguish

Probing,

Pondering

Sweet and slow,

It is rendered in sudden

Intake of breath

A smile

A tear

A sigh

It trembles beneath me

Deep in the earth

As I look into your eyes

For I know full well

That parting lurks

Somewhere, in quiet wait

I hear it in the creaking

Of the rusty garden gate

And how your step

Falls heavier

Than when you were a lad

It makes me fully happy

And oh,

So fully sad

To know that you are stealing

With my blessing

Part by part

The deep

Innermost lining

Of your

Mother’s

Heart

© Janet Martin 

We attended our son's grade Eight graduation ceremony today.

What a great bunch of kids. 

What a beautiful age...

What Could it Be?

It spills across the darkness from restored horizon lines

It fills the morning and the noon and night

It teases from the humble bud the bloom, the autumn wine

It weaves its apprehension and delight

Across its span of gathered hours, it wanders; leaps and flies

It strips the garden path of flowers and taunts our hungry eyes

It tugs a breath, an hour, a day into its firm embrace

It tugs the precious baby from our arms

It ravishes with smiles and tears love’s ever-changing face

And stuns us with its sweet and simple charms

And for a while it may deceive us into thinking it will last

Before we turn to see the long blue shadow it has cast

What is this wrenching overture that pleads and bleeds and weeps?

What tunes our passions like the days of grass?

Where are its hidden pulses throbbing from galactic deeps?

To wink at seasons in its hour-glass

What is this tender melody of bitter-sweetest rhyme?

Why it is simply this; the subtle brevity of time

© Janet Martin

Redeeming Moments

We hold within each moment

A brief and twinkling span

Yet, we ought to redeem it

As wisely as we can

For moments linked together

Form more than ethereal ties

But prove, as we redeem them

Where our true love lies

© Janet Martin

Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephes. 5:15-20

Beneath it All...

  

Poetic Blooms posted this picture prompt

When I complain

Then in a way

It is the same

As if I’d say

That I should be

The one to hold

The ball of green

And blue and gold

God, forgive me

When I pine

To know Your hand

Is over mine

Bestows a peace

Word cannot tell

Your Hand beneath

God, all is well

When I complain

Tis but to say

That God should plan

His way my way

God, I’m so glad

You know it all

And it’s Your Hand

Beneath the ball

© Janet Martin

It is Ours to Dance...

Poetic Bloomings challenges us to write a villanelle

The villanelle is 19-line poem consisting of 5 tercets and a final quatrain. It requires no set meter, nor number of syllables per line. It carries a pattern of only two rhyme sounds (ABA in 5 tercets, and then ABAA in final quatrain). The first and third lines of the first tercet repeat alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas, and rejoin as the final couplet of the quatrain.

A Villanelle

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

Its fusion orchestrated by love’s most perfect Hand

It is ours to dance; lest heaven plays its melody in vain

To crave a minuet of past refrain

Is but to miss the chorus He has planned

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

He tunes Time’s dulcimer; its temporal strain

Touched by One whose thought we cannot understand

It is ours to dance; lest heaven’s plays its melody in vain

Now high, now low, the harmony of pleasure and of pain

Sweeps soulfully across the sea and land

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

It is not ours to object His choice refrain

The Maestro of life’s orchestra directs His precious band

It is ours to dance lest heaven plays its melody in vain

Too soon the music fades from earthbound plain

It is not ours to know the why or understand

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

It is ours to dance; lest heaven plays its melody in vain

© Janet Martin

A Door Wide Open...

The day recedes into the past

As night inhales its waning gleam

And into Time’s depleting stream

Our little deeds of day are cast

The miles and smiles of centuries

Stretch silently within the wake

Of moments; for we cannot take

From it but this; its memories

How still the rush of bleeding hours

How kind and cruel its ruthless flow

For none can see where moments go

So I must pause and smell the flowers

And I must pause to see the corn

A silver sea in noon-day heat

The laughter of a child is sweet

As on the breeze its lilt is borne

And as the dark curls o’er the day

And as the twilight curtain drops

Time does not slow and only stops

When it is far too late to say…

I wish that I had paused far more

To hold a child upon my knee

And listen long and willingly

Before the closing of its door

© Janet Martin

Perfectly Placed

Placed softly

beneath our stumbling feet

not because we

deserve it

but because He

loves us…

A brand new day of grace

Placed kindly

before our pleading gaze

not because we earned it

but because He

forgives…

A brand new day of grace

Placed tenderly

over our trampled past

not because we

want it

but because we need it…

A brand new day of grace

© Janet Martin

Bottomless Chalice

Image Source:  cartwheelit.wordpress.com

It does not slip softly from our shoulders

Falling like a robe to the floor

It is not like the rushing and rolling breaker

Dissolving as it touches the shore

It runs through our senses, not like wild fingers

Of wind as it ruffles the corn

Yet, disregards fences and wantonly lingers

Where thought tumbles, both keen and forlorn

Deep in the hollow of hidden eclipses

Where hope and fear coalesce

Where love holds closely and yet releases

In simultaneous caress

Here in a twisting and turbulent tide

Or still as a frozen sea

Inexplicable oceans of longing abide

Its source an abstract  mystery

We carry a chalice somewhere deep within

That nothing in this world can fill

A hunger sprouting from the seed of sin

As we bear our share of ill

As we love and laugh and trust and pray

The ache will remain until

Heaven descends to take it away

This void that earth cannot fill

© Janet Martin

He is I AM

He is the All-awesome

All-benevolent

All-compassionate

All-delivering

All-eternal

All-faithful

All-gracious

All-holy

All- incarnate

All-justifying

All-knowing

All-loving

All-mighty

All-noteworthy

All-omnipotent

All-powerful

All-quintessential

All-redeeming

All-saving

All-truthful

All-unfathomable

All- victorious

All-worthy

All-xcellent

All-Yahweh

All-zenith

God

He IS ALL in all
He IS I AM

© Janet Martin

Never Like This Again

It will never be this way again

With sentimental thought

I touch the moment I am in

I cannot curse this vapor thief

That steals while it is giving

And heals while inflicting grief

The timbre of pleasure and pain

Is love’s essence, bittersweet

As I realize it will never be like this again

Perpetual trickle of laughter and tears

Time comforts and torments

As moments become years

It will never be like this again

So I caress it tenderly

This moment I am in

© Janet Martin

I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the last morning forever, of three scholars leaving together.

With Veiled Eyes...

God’s thoughts are a mystery

We cannot explain

The reasoning of His perfect say

But someday in Heaven

All will be plain

When this world has vanished away

Life’s tribulation

Its pain and its grief

Are not absences of His grace

But, by these we long

For Heaven’s relief

And eternity’s resting place

The curse of sin

Covers the earth

With many a tortured woe

Redemption offers

Hope’s re-birth

In Calvary’s ceaseless flow

Man’s faith is tested

To be proven; refined

God’s love is oft misunderstood

In spite of our folly

He is faithful and kind

And above all; God is good

Our earth-dimmed vision

Cannot see the whole

We see; but only in part

Through a glass darkly

God sees man’s soul

And the deepest intent of the heart

God’s thoughts are a mystery

We cannot explain

His sacred and holy tears

But someday in Heaven

All will be plain

As the veil in our eyes disappears

© Janet Martin

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.Isa. 55:8-9 NIV

God is Still Good

In spite of life’s trials

Oft misunderstood

One truth is rock-solid

God is still good

In spite of His chastening

Oft misunderstood

One truth remains

God is still good

In spite of our thanklessness

Our greed and our lust

God’s goodness abides

In Him we trust

In spite of His love

Oft misunderstood

One truth never wavers

God is still good

© Janet Martin

The Sunset Cradle...

Jasmine, demons, window, scrap, ample, montage,
Flawed, granite, trapped, whistle, domain, sunset

This old table in the west window

cradled her sunsets for nigh fifty years

A montage of memories tuned by the whistle

of a January gale trapped on the outside

suddenly arouses pictures of a surface

cluttered with quilt scraps

or potted red geraniums

or perhaps in October 

a granite bowl of gleaming apples

much to eager, rosy cheeked children's delight

Flawed realities have been perfected by the forgiveness of time

No one ever questioned its domain

there, in the west window the old table and an old chair reigned

as from its visage-point jasmine rivers crawled white in June

and demons wandered black on a night with no moon

But history’s ample lap cannot preserve it

as the auctioneer shouts…what am I bid?

Who’ll give me ten? Let me throw in a chair

Ah, yes…. That chair where…
 The bitter sweetness of sunset years washes her face

© Janet Martin

The Sunday Whirl

With Heart wide Open

Too often I do not even notice

This gift you give to me

But trample coldly on it

And I don’t thank you properly

For this miracle of beauty

I ought always to embrace

As your mercy lays before me

Another day of grace

© Janet Martin

Prayer: God, help us to see the beauty of this gift,

Not only now in the calm stillness,

but as the wrapping falls away

as glorious sunrises turn gray

Revealing deeper shades

Of what is as yet, unknown,

When we struggle and stumble
Or feel misunderstood; alone

When we are weary and worn

Let us not abuse or hold this gift

With impatience or scorn

For this gift you lay before us

Is no free-fall from above

It is a miracle, born of compassion

And bestowed in perfect love

Thank-you God

Of Things Cursed

Temptation dangles like a serpent

In an idle, slothful mind

The fruit gleams, sweet upon the tree

As to its vice we're blind

We long to reach and pluck it

Taste its sugar-coated dread

But its afterglow would haunt us

Like vile ghosts inside our head

While the thing that seemed so lovely

Is a curs-ed, empty shell

And the fruit that promised heaven

But a tragic glimpse of hell

For the well of carnal thirsting

Is a void nothing can quench

As the harvest of our tasting

Bears the fruit of consequence

© Janet Martin

Today's Friday Thoughts

Things are merely things

They have no good or evil spirit

It’s what mankind does with them

That defines their worth and merit.

I remember asking my dad when I was a child if such-and-such a thing is bad and I never forgot his answer...He said, ‘things are not bad. Nothing in and of itself is bad or good; it’s what we do with them that makes ‘things’ what they are. ‘Things’ have the potential for both…it’s up to us to choose how to use them!’

We cannot blame ‘things’ for our weaknesses

Things obey the command of the hands they are in

Hands obey thought
and thought, oh thought…

How prone you are

To sin

What a mighty sword we wield

Held in our thought

Prayer is its protective shield

If used a lot

It seems I hear a constant voice

And I believe its name is Choice

God, I prayed for patience…I’m still waiting for your answer…

Jesus loves me this I know

I looked into a flower

And it told me so…

© Janet Martin

Of Summer

Our first day of summer was a moody one! It began, hot, heavy and sunny before thunderstorms moved through bringing a slight cool-down and a sunset master-piece. 

Soon the gold that warms the sod

Withdraws its sultry sheen

And world’s transformed by thoughts of God

Will lose their verdant green

Too soon the lark of summer-song

Will fly off to the south

And all these hours for which we long

Devoured in Time’s mouth

Of summer

Too soon the room of July mirth

And flowers fair and sweet

Will shed their bloom back to earth

A dead rose at our feet

The shifting wave that lilts and moans

And beckons from the shore

Will heave with moody undertones

Closing the wanton door

Of summer

Ah, life will always have its share

Of care and tares and trouble

So dance upon hope's buoyant air

Before dreams turn to stubble

And you should turn with sudden grief

To see upon the hill

A silhouette of crimson leaf

And echoing quadrille

Of summer

© Janet Martin

Make this summer’s first week-end memorable!

Get out there and drink it in

Time is a tumbling water-wheel

And too soon it is over again!

I kid the kids sometimes and tell them we have two seasons at our house…Winter and potlucks!

Does anyone have any fresh pot-luck ideas? I’m stumped and it’s just June! I need food for tomorrow and a ladies’ tea-party dessert for Sunday.

The Shape of a Memory

Don’t forget me, he said,

And he slipped away

As God laid a satin spread

Across the sky to close the day

Coral-pink and amber-gold,

The ocean in her eye

Is more than firm resolve can hold

While he whispers good-by

A thousand moments blend and blur

Then slip beyond life’s reach

She wonders, does he think of her

On thought’s elusive beach

Don’t forget me, his farewell plea

Whispers in her ear

She holds the shape of memory

Within her smile; her tear

© Janet Martin

This poem's inspiration is due in part to an awesome sunset tonight and watching Ann of Green Gables in the continuing story.

Thursday Thoughts on Grudges

Holding on to grudges

Elongates grief and bitterness

Letting them go shrinks old wounds

And heals, by time’s caress

Holding on to grudges

Hurts our children

As we deny them the example

Of forgiveness

Holding on to grudges

Is like clinging to a briar-tree

There is no relief from the pain

Holding on to grudges

Robs you of the freedom

To reach out to others

Holding on to grudges

Is energy and opportunity wasted

Holding on to grudges is like drinking poison.

You kill joy

Holding on to grudges

Never works to our good

For we cannot hold a grudge

And still love as we should

If you insist on holding a grudge

Be sure you know the deal

As bitterness can bleed the life from you

And only forgiveness can heal

Grudges are often amplified misunderstandings

Grudges are the fruit of miscommunication

Grudges grow if clung to and die if released

Life is short. Don’t waste it nurturing weeds

A grudge protected and preserved drops dark and evil seeds

Holding on to grudges
depletes us of strength to let go

Holding on to grudges strengthens
our weaknesses

Holding on to grudges
Drains us of
love
thanksgiving
hope
joy
patience
peace

Holding on to grudges
fills us
with everything
contrary to
Love

© Janet Martin

Immaculate Intercession

Sometimes it seems that I do not know how I ought to pray

The words are sealed within my thought; I don’t know what to say

But there is nothing hid from God; He knows our creature needs

He hears our deep unspoken thought and gently intercedes

My praise, my pleas, my tears, my fears, in deep emotions swell

Disappointment and dismay in desperate oceans well

Tonight there are no words to give this world of thought release

But suddenly I know He heard; I feel Him whisper ‘Peace’

© Janet Martin

Are We Ready?

Mary, your poem inspired these thoughts immediately as I pondered your words. There is no escaping physical death!

If God should knock upon the door of planet earth tonight

And hand each one of us a robe of lucent, deathly white

And if, before we had a moment to accept it or decline

Our feet were lifted from this sod to elements divine

Would we be ready?

If He should require from our breath but this; our living soul

As dust-wrought limbs succumb to death; and timeless Fathoms roll

If He should reach to take our hands within His nail-scarred own

And draw us from our trembling stance to meet Him at His throne

Would we be ready?

If we looked up to see upon the clouds, the Son of Man

If we lay down to wake in portals far beyond earth’s span

If tonight we heard a knock and opened our cottage door

To see Him standing there to lift us from this stricken shore

Would we be ready?

Time and life; two awesome gifts but each with numbered day

Grace and love; two awesome truths that never fade away

Jesus Christ: one awesome God forever with no end

You and I, one life, one death; will we be ready, friend?

Are we ready?

© Janet Martin

Time's Swift Ride...a Sonnet

 Image Source: http://www.friesianheritage.com/

The window to the night is open wide

The earth; a silver chariot bathed in mist

I cannot sleep; thought beckons me to ride

An invitation I cannot resist

The moonlight bleeds a mellow, yellow glow

Before it slips into the onyx deep

A mystic vault where time and eons flow

In rivers formed by moments as they weep

And from its shores the stirring of a breeze

Ruffles June’s verdant maple canopies

Time, like an eager, dancing, prancing stead

Urges us on against our meager will

And though we beckon, barter, beg and plead

It rushes, even while the night is still

And every azure gasp of summer’s noon

Each pulse as pain and pleasure interlace

And every bursting bud of mortal June

Will flow into this vault of ethereal space

And all that was today will be no more

History seals the gates to its vast shore

Once, on a younger day its rush was sweet

We leapt upon this phantom stallion’s back

But now the bounding, pounding of his feet

Have trampled far too soon life’s beaten track

The window to the night is open wide

I catch the tempo of a languid tone

Akin to echoes on a mountain-side

Of mother calling all her children home

And to this plaintive call I must reply

For life is small beneath Time’s little sky

© Janet Martin

 

I Wanna Live- Glen Campbell

Oh, What Then?

We observe in astonishment

Man’s newest accomplishment

And wonder what will follow

Scientists place

Their cameras in space

As we glimpse infinity’s hollow

Medicine keeps the dying alive

But no matter how we study and strive

We cannot touch the order

Of God-ordained things

Or alter the courses

His authority brings

Mornings will ever succeed the night

Two wrongs will never make a right

We all get older with each passing hour

And none are exempt from His grace or His power

No one can order the rain from the sky

There is no invention so we will not die

We cannot shuffle seasons in nature or man

Or rearrange one molecule of His plan

For He IS God, we are merely men

We are born, we die; and oh, what then?

Perhaps we ought to take a closer look

At His Word and teaching of His Book

For nothing will happen that He has not told

His truths are unfolding since centuries of old

Knowledge is admiral; His gift to men

But if we ignore the Giver; oh, what then?

  

© Janet Martin

Outer space images fill me with utter wonderment and awe!

How GREAT is our God.

He has given men the knowledge to glimpse infinity, but we CANNOT add one jot to TIME!

Time is a wee capsule...what then?

Oh, that's right! Eternity.

But His Book shows us the way to Him eternally. He did not leave us as sheep without a Shepherd for He IS love.

Just as I Am- B.J. Thomas

How in this World are Yours?

We cannot add moments to moments

No matter how wildly we rush

Life is a tick by tock delving

Before vast eternity’s hush

If we could unclench today’s portion

What would we find in its grip?

Would it be a hallowed awareness

Of transient moments that slip?

God, teach me how to live fully

Not burdened by moments unmet

Lest I miss the present unfolding

And thus fill its hold with regret

...and stir in me flames of passion

Not roused  by the gathering of things

But the gathering of beautiful moments

That pure, purposed living brings

Granules of sand form the desert

Drops form the depths of the sea

And moments form hours then lifetimes

Dissolved in eternity

Life is a grace-lent experience

A moment by moment lease

Do we choose a frenzied endurance

Or moment by moment peace?

© Janet Martin

The Hand of Experience

Experience wields a painful rod

It frustrates foolish notion

Training its students tirelessly

In spite of frayed emotion

Experience wields a patient scepter

No student is too old

To learn the lessons in this classroom

Where unbidden, we’re enrolled

Experience wields a wise baton

For in each vexing stumble

It snuffs our aptness for conceit

And helps to keep us humble

© Janet Martin