Dearest August...a farewell letter

 MAN! You write a lot of August poetry! commented hubby one day.

Something about August builds up in me and I can only release it in a poem, I laughed.

It's true! There is no other month that affects me like August!

So, while  it goes without saying I will say it anyway. "I'll miss you, August!"

a few farewell frames...

We were destined to part, tis true

From the first day we met

Dear, you fulfilled your gold and blue

That we’ve come to expect

You wowed us with sights, scents and sounds

Always your days amazed

Where summer-hunger without bounds

Tuned hearts with  'God, be praised '

You made us feel completely glad

To be right here, right now

Yet, even with the dance we had

It feels too short somehow

Your cricket-chant and flower-font

Keened keepsake-poetry

I never tired of the want

To pen you perfectly

Allowing me permission thus

To zoom the lens of thought

To capture frames of you and us

Giving you all we’ve got

Because we sensed the Hand of change

Soft-strumming tasseled stem

Wakening cool winds that estrange

You from us once again

…and so we sip your sweet sunshine

With slow intimacy

As we revel in ev’ry line

Of August poetry

 © Janet Martin

Some Serious Not-Just-For Sunday Thoughts

From reading the story of the Good Samaritan,

From the reading of this passage Matthew 15

and most recently, from a request for permission to use a poem about Hypocrisy

 in her song;  Black by Beza Cabeza (click link to hear the song)

 

my thoughts have turned to the topic of Hypocrisy and modern-day Pharisees.

...and this passage from first Cor. 11: 27-29

 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner 

will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

 Each one must examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  

For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

I Sam.16:7 NIV

 The LORD does not look at the things people look at. 

People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

There is only one language for the follower of Christ; Love!

Lest we offer vain oblation

For the benefit of eyes

Lest we sacrifice salvation

On an altar of disguise

Lest we break the heart of Jesus

By our stone-cold apathy

Pray the Lord, as He so pleases

To teach us humility

Lest we decorate deception

With the noise of piety

While the poor suffer rejection

From modern-day Pharisee

Lest our stubborn heart refuses

To acknowledge our sin

Pray the Lord as He so chooses

Our deathless soul to win

Lest Perception is a demon

Soothing guilt with silk-smooth lies

Licking wounds of pride with poison

Till the Taker of it dies

Lest we always look around us

Pointing out failure and flaw

Pray the Lord, He would remind us

Man is saved by grace, not law

Lest we never bow in sorrow

while repentance rends the veil

As we witness Calv’ry’s  horror

Where love did and does not fail

Lest we never come to Jesus

But break holy bread in vain

Pray the Lord, as He so loves us

That we will be born again

© Janet Martin

Like Sparkles on a Surging Swell

I wrote this while trying to mediate the tug twixt what Is and Was 

of a busy-beautiful-blur-of-a-summer...

I raid the reaches of my mind to try to find among its mess

A glint of sea-song left behind to bind my wounds of happiness

Where like a whirling carousel, faces and places beam and blur

Like sparkles on a surging swell that washes away sweet summer

Time makes me feel a bit forlorn while torn between what Is and Was

This marathon of morn to morn can spark a soulful storm because

Its days are never long enough when spread beneath an august sky

While time’s ways, ever on the move always weds hello with goodbye

…and echoes strewn beneath high noon like petals from a peony

Or notes that float like red balloons; or medals for love’s bravery

Where wonder crowns the ups and downs of heirloom-hours such as these

And hunger drowns in cups of joy for laughter-flowered memories…

…of garden strolls and bowls filled with the fruit where labour and God meet

Of simple things that makes us feel like kings and queens with muddy feet

Of green-leaf-shimmer, what’s-for-dinner, pat-a-cake and stir the stew

Of making room for one more plate, of home-sweet-home’s more-like-a-zoo

I raid the reaches of my mind to find the font for poetry

Lord, help me never to be blind to what is right in front of me

Where like a whirling carousel, days beam and blur through smiles and tears

Like sparkles on a surging swell that makes landfall and disappears

© Janet Martin

Would We Could...

It's  been a week of kiddos, corn, peaches and flowers...So fun!

(and sinus infection.😏) No fun!

Would, we could relive your hours

Linger longer in your flow’rs

Pause your page of cricket-hymns

Stay the stage where summer dims

Would we could retrace your days

Lusty, musky, dusty haze

Heaven-shimmers from a flask

Pouring more than we could ask

Would we could, but none can stall

Rush or save time’s free-for-all

No one can return a bit

To redo one flit of it

Would we could turn summer’s chime

Back to one ‘o clock in time

But time tarries for no one

It is always here and gone

Would we then, with thankful heart

Seize the mist of moment-art

Give the best that we can give

To that which none can relive

© Janet Martin

Hub of Hope

So much trouble, pain and sorrow

Far more Mercy we can borrow

In spite of stumbles and mistakes

God never leaves us, or forsakes...

Thus no matter come what may

Hope will never lose its way

...and whithersoever He entered into villages, or cities or country,

 they laid the sick in the streets

and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: 

and as many as touched Him were made whole

Mark 6: 56  

The pain and plight of human fight can rouse a soulful yen

To touch the Healer’s hemline and to be made whole again

The hearty ache of give and take in all its high and low

Can make us long for Something that this world cannot bestow

Life’s fragile cup o’ cheer we raise in praise to happiness

Can spill and fill with storms that test the best of humanness

But we are not alone; the stepping stones of day-to-day

Are each by grace allotted by the One who is our Stay

Uncertainty could drive us wild with fear of the Unknown

But Certainty of God-with-us grants courage to go on

Where what we hold is bound to change but Who holds us does not

He never fails; through pain and plight of Numbered Day's brief lot

How precious then the happiness that spills from Mercy's trays
In dear, breath-stealing ballads of life's ordinary days
Where swift, the gift of moments in a very subtle spree
Touches the tender ties that bind them into memory

© Janet Martin

 How humbly precious then, are our happiness-es

Like this one:

 "I peekin-'boos" Said little Girl when I showed her this photo