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Friday, May 30, 2014

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

Thursday, May 29, 2014

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.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

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