Prayer For The Morning, Noon or Night

Lord, guard my heart from apathy

Lest heedlessly I dare

To scorn Thy sacred sympathy

That gilds night’s thinning air

Lord, tune the Want that fain doth sprout

To harbored plots within

Where tares of arrogance and doubt

Set snares beneath my skin

Lord, keep me from the cunning path

That seems to fit my plan

And yet the end thereof is death

Veiled in the ways of man

Lord, teach this shell of dust to trust

And let its lone worth be

The love that first You gave to us

Then we return to Thee

© Janet Martin

Of This Romance

Anne Shirley: Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?
Marilla Cuthbert: No I cannot. To despair is to turn your back on God. 

From Anne of Green Gables 1985 

 

If I allowed my heart to lead 

then I would wallow in the blue

of letting go; Summer's end weds

With the intent of 'missing you'

and so instead I'll tell my head

to tell my heart to dream and dance

lest in the blue of 'missing you'

I miss the bliss of This Romance

It's become tradition for us to watch/listen to Anne of Green Gables while we preserve peaches. This year a few great lines struck me with fresh appreciation.

 Anne Shirley: Don't you ever imagine things differently from what they are?
Marilla Cuthbert: No.
Anne Shirley: Oh Marilla, how much you miss. 

 (I hope you've had the delight to meet Anne with an 'e' even if you are not a kindred spirit it is worth the read!)

Through the Eyes of the Mind

 

This time of year it is not hard to find beauty for the eyes but, the mind must see it first!

I could be over come with the color of blue as summer soft-slips from Time's avenue...so,

May we find, as much with our minds as our eyes

The beauty of life’s lovely ‘thank-you surprise’

Lest in the hard fought delights of the day

Time is a teller for trouble’s dismay

But oh, if we look then thought soft-realizes

That life is a vendor of lovely surprises

And we are the spenders of it; may we find

Its lovely surprise with the eyes of the mind

© Janet Martin

We see through the eyes of our minds…

in love everything is, if not always beautiful, still at the least, bearable.

Happy Monday!

Of One-time You and Me

Yesterday's suggested stroll through zinnia's and marigolds had to be put on hold so as not to interrupt the bees;-)...today the only visitor I met was a grasshopper.

Zinnia's are sort of like snowflakes, Victoria remarked, so many somewhat the same yet so different!

Sort of like people too, huh? We may seem quite different in appearance yet we are also quite alike;

...we need to be needed and love to be loved!

Hair,

Eyes,

Nose,

Mouth

And a pair of ears

We are all somewhat alike

At first        glance,       it appears

But if         we look more       closely

Then ah,         we will         surely see

That there        is only       one of you

And only one of me

So, since 

we are a            one-time Us

Oh, wouldn't             you agree

That we         should 

 not bicker            and fuss

But ever          strive to be

The best  version,           by God's kind grace

 Of one time            You and Me

Janet;-)

            

We Are...in After's Before

 

 Last year's threshold of this day was far more colorful than this year...the reason I remember? I sent the above picture on a birthday card I made for my dad last year:)

Over the threshold of the east like waves that wash the shore

A new portion of moments sweeps into After’s Before

Where cupped between Time’s firmament of Future filling Past

We are. Upon the breadth of Now each little life is cast

The poetry of it can steal our hearts and soothe our fears

The agony of it can feel like wounds tattooed in tears

But then over the threshold where the Now of yester fell

A new Now spills its everlasting charge of ‘Do it well’

Holy, holy, the free-fall of an hour soon is swept

Into Past’s captive endlessness; our Want of it inept

Yet we are often wanderers of it; not with our feet

But with reaches of thought; its jaded journey bittersweet

Now blooms then breaks in petals. We are reapers of its moil

The plot of it may cause our heart of hearts to ache with spoil

The toil of it may spit at us; still in form of Today

Over the threshold of God’s grace a New Now carves its way

© Janet Martin

Futile Unforgetfulness...

Sometimes I wish

I was woman enough

To tell you I miss

What we will never have

Sometimes I wish

The greatest love

I never knew

Wouldn’t be you

Sometimes I wish

We could turn back the clock

But if we did I know

I still wouldn’t know

What to say…

© Janet Martin

Why? because Tor and I just watched the movie Casablanca;-)

Soft, a Summer of Moments Slips...

Soft, a summer of moments slips to the Empire of Past

No flower has the power to grip petals ever fast

Or usurp the authority that aggravates a fool

…all must succumb to the hierarchy of a higher rule

Impassioned views of Youth meets Truth; a brick upon the air

Then we grow old, no longer bold enough to double-dare

Or wrench fare from the gentle Hand from whence all blessing flows

For we have come to recognize the disguise of the rose

All that we ask is for a task that is noble and pure

All that we need is less of greed and more of what endures

The gravity of Brevity teaches us to revere

The bloom we hold before it folds its gold in russet tear

Soft, a summer of moments flows toward the close of day

Soft, like the climax of a rose it gently fades away

No flower finds the power to preserve its verve of prime

No hour finds a bower to escape the Hand of Time

Then God, I pray that we may not wrestle with The Ordained

Yet wring from it the full of it in fervor unrestrained

And take what is and cherish it with thankful zeal because

Soft, a summer of moments becomes everything that was

© Janet Martin

Reveling in the Bloom Of It these days...

 

Later we'll stroll through the Zinnias and marigolds, shall we?:)
Happy God-granted Friday!