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Saturday, August 31, 2019

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
 
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.
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

Friday, August 30, 2019

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

Thursday, August 29, 2019

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


Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Hub of Hope

So much trouble, pain and sorrow
Far more Mercy we can borrow
In spite of stumbles and mistakes
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