Torn Between Loving and Leaving...

God fills meadows with daisies and homes with Duty...

Torn between loving and leaving, my love

Torn by the tug of a breeze

Luring me from dirty dishes and rugs

To pink-petaled wild apple-trees

Torn between loving where nature is kind

And leaving this four-cornered room

But I am a mother and my love is not blind

This house needs a cloth and a broom

Torn between loving in colors of spring

And leaving what cannot be left

Is there a compromise? Tell me, darling

For time’s touch is subtle, yet deft

Soon the pink tree will be laden with fruit

Soon the soft breeze will turn cold

Soon earth’s new garment of green will be mute

Tempered by russet and gold

Torn between loving where wanderlust calls

And leaving meeker pleasures of home

Torn between loving and leaving, my love

Torn between Prudence and Poem

© Janet Martin

I glimpsed it through the pine-hedge while running an errand...wild apple-orchards in full bloom and I must go there, yet I must stay here...

May Morning...(an oldie re-vamped)

Golden fronds fall from the robe of an angel

 Gilding earth's valleys, blue-brimming with mist

  Into the meadow a King spills his riches 

Diamonds of daylight in every dew-kiss

Brook binds its sash across spring's emerald garments

Through wood-land temples and out to the sea

Forgotten ponds burst with born-again nuance

Turquoise-jade patches on earth’s rugged knee

Gentle breeze rouses the bird from its slumber

Nature’s choristers fill silence with praise

'Sing to the Lord a new song, for His goodness

Draws from the darkness life's measure of days

Yester's red sun, as it slipped from our visage

Tugged from time's fingers our idol of clay 

Now, as a symbol of Heaven-kind mercy

Light fills the hollow of night with new day

  Merciful Master-piece dazzles earth's acre

Where grace allows us a dot on time’s sands

Thankfulness throbs in meek prayer to our Maker

  We feel His Presence soft-touching our hands

© Janet Martin

It is not difficult to see His beauty on a morning like this…

Hoping to be more present eventually...the nice weather compels us to be outdoors tackling long overdue to-do lists!

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps. 118:24

Forgive our Forgetfulness

 

The land is a-shimmer with dandelion-beams and summer-dreams...

Lord, help us not to lose in living’s repetitious way

The joy of loving you through all we think and do and say

How easily the tendency of discontentment tugs

Where Ordinary is the cloak of heaven’s mercy-hugs

Lord, help us not to disregard for Self, another’s need

Foregoing Your Greatest Command, for envy’s troubling greed

The clock of Life is winding down with every breath we take

Oh, may it be we do not walk in vain Time’s vapor wake

Lord, You desire to give us much more than thought can prove

And yet, how quickly we trust sight instead of Your kind love

Mortality forgets too soon what only Your love brings

Yet patiently You still prevail while we clamor for things

Lord, help us not to overlook the happiness of flowers

Or be far too consumed with this wee wanton life of ours

And should the grief of Consequence be more than we can bear

Remind us Lord, that You forgive and never cease to care

Lord, by Your grace we humbly go and only by Your grace

Each day a sacred stepping-stone to that Grand Meeting Place

So help us not to lose in living’s repetitious way

The joy of loving You through all we do and think and say

© Janet Martin

This morning as we prayed before Matt and Victoria headed off to school I was convicted by my own words…’Help us to remember to serve You with purpose today, wherever we are and to never forget why we are here’. ..and I was reminded of God’s mercy in life’s Ordinary repetition.

Word-touch

I do not know you by the color of your eyes or skin

Or by their crinkle when you laugh or by the dimple on your chin

And we have never shaken hands or shared a cup of tea

Yet still, I feel like I know you like somehow you know me

We’ve never strolled the courtyard or paused arm in arm to stare

As morning folds away night’s sky in whispers unaware

And you and I have never wept together, though apart

I know we bear in unison the sorrows of the heart

How is it though we’ve never spoken face to face I hear

The wanting in a word’s embrace, the color of your tear?

And how, though we have never met, does love’s desire bind

In filament stronger than touch, this meeting of the mind?

I know you, simply by your sweep of pen across a sheet

Through expression of type-print thought, love’s fellowship is sweet

And though I do not know you by your crinkles, dimples, such

I know we know each other through the wonder of word-touch

© Janet Martin

It occurs to me as I read the words of other writers on other blogs and websites I feel like I know you, not with the familiarity of face to face fellowship, but that of pen on page... 

Into Night's Silence

 It was such a gorgeous introduction...night meeting dawn! (oops, now my camera is a day behind)

Into night's silence, morning reaches

As a breath of breeze is stirred

Then the singing of a bird

Trills as coral skims yon breaches

A new day is gently waking

Chasing sable from night’s sea

Spilling opportunity

Like a gift free for the taking

Darling, so much is uncertain

None can tell what will befall

Or what ink of Time will scrawl

Ere dusk draws its violet curtain

But this one thing we know surely

Every hour passes through

God’s most kind and tender view

He holds His children securely

Into night's silence Mercy reaches

Barring not one gasp of grace

As dawn slips from Love’s embrace

And Time on our behalf beseeches

© Janet Martin

The Free-fall of an Hour

  

Chiseled upon the free-fall of an hour

Are all those things we did

…and never do

Like love-letters scrawled in mute moment-power

On parchment only God

Can fully view

…and while I blush to read what thought can see

And memory, in remorse

Oft regrets

How ever-sad love’s sentiments would be

Without a God who forgives

…and forgets

With startling ease the clock consumes a year

The free-fall of an hour

Slips through Hope’s glove

While root furnishes its blooms the atmosphere

Is charged with keen relinquishment

Of love

And soon the petal-tears of Wanting weep

Where faith and dreams

Caressed Time’s greedy dirt

And though we clench our fists we cannot keep

An hour of its laughter

Or its hurt

…save for the harbor of the heart where we

Gather a little while

Collectables

Of Beautiful or anger’s Misery

Tried by our faith and fear fraught

Rise and falls

…and even now Time’s elements bequeath

From naught but air

Our hunger’s greatest power

How silently an ocean fills beneath

The touch wrought by the free-fall

Of an hour

© Janet Martin

Here today, gone tomorrow. 

None can one spent hour borrow

Stop, enjoy love's blooms today

Before Time steals them all away