Daylight Slips Where Air Eclipses Time's Ellipses...

Daylight slips where air eclipses Time’s ellipses ethereal

Sky-lines etched like charcoal sketches stretch blue shadows long until

Darkness covers loners, lovers; morrow hovers soft, aloft

Where the charter of an hour never barters with the clock

Midnight’s morrow with its sorrow none can borrow of its ilk

Dew and dust anoints the Must that God appoints to us; Time’s silk

Like an ocean in slow-motion washes over twilight’s world

Daylight slips, darkness eclipses the ellipses dawn unfurled

Morning offers merchants, scoffers, beggars, coffers fresh, unfilled

In the quiet echoes riot where the dark of night has stilled

Tussles with the hustle-bustle rubric of Time’s gossamer

Daylight slips where the eclipse of past, present and future blur

© Janet Martin

On Time's Wee Bit 'o Green... Happy St. Patrick's Day

 Celebrating some of my favorite 'Irish' today;-)

On time’s wee bit’ o green

We always ‘leave behind’

Thus in our coming-going spree

We should bear this in mind

…that no one is entitled

We, kin-folk, one and all

On time’s wee bit ‘o green will pass

Into that last night-fall

*We weather the same weather

*We toast a common mien

*We’re all in this together, love

On time’s wee bit ‘o green

© Janet Martin

 * 'For we also are His (God's) children.' Acts 17:28

...our favorite St. Patrick Story

Indescribable Gift

On Sunday our pastor challenged us to ponder how the impact of Saving Grace affects our worldview, or does it? So I have been pondering grace, challenged then, by the way I respond to life...oh, oh, how I need grace! but because of grace I am not a lost cause. Hallelujah!

Patience is the off-spring of grace applied.

Forgiveness is grace-in-motion.

God's grace disciplines to refine, not reject!

Until we begin to glimpse the gift of grace we have received, it is hard to be truly gracious to others.

Grace is the gift that grants eternal Pardon removing the right to hold a grudge or judge.
Grace is a Potter reshaping life and death.

As we begin to grasp the fullness

Of what 'Saved by Grace' entails

Life becomes a walk of worship

To the One who never fails

As we begin to glimpse the greatness

Of a gift we cannot earn

Life becomes a precious offering

Merited by Grace alone

As we begin to grip the garment

Once red-scarlet, white as snow

Life becomes a humble wearing

of the Grace whereby we go

Janet~

God's endless grace ought to compel in us an endless expression of endless awe!

 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Cor.9:15

No 'Free' in Freedom (a re-tweaked re-post)

Somber and steady up a tree-lined street

A stream of solemn soldier-ranks are led,

As sun-beams dance to the drummer’s beat

Filtering through the branches overhead

Beyond the tears and past the arc of trees

The music of a small child’s laughter swells

Stark contrast to the mourning infantry

Bowing beneath the tolling of the bells

Then, as the weeping bag-pipe song exalts

The melody of sweet Amazing Grace

Then, as the banner-covered coffin halts

For it has reached its final resting place

Then, as the last note fades the cannon flies

Its echo fills the air from shore to shore

Yet pales in the wake of a mother’s cries

“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Put down your banners, lay down your guns

My sweet baby boy has died

Tributes, salutes, many battles won

Won’t bring him back” she cried

“Take away all the roses for nothing will be

Like it ever was before

The price of freedom is too hard for me

There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

Freedom (part two)

Upon Golgotha’s rocky skull-strewn trail

A teaming, screaming throng of hatred surged

Swarming around a form blood-bathed and pale

Upon a place called Calvary they converged

Wild, wild with rage wages hate’s vicious roar

No one remains to defend Love unbound

Stark contrast to the cheers and praise before

Where palm-tree branches waved and decked the ground

Then as the violent blows of steel on steel

Accentuates the horror on the hill

Then, as they drive in hatred nail by nail

Against Love’s cries of ‘Father, not My will’

Then, as they praised and raised Life’s blood-stained cross

In victory, death’s maddened thousands roar

As Mary, his mother weeps for her loss

“There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore

Take away your hammers, lay down your swords

My dear precious son has died”

As the lightning flashed and the thunder roared

There at His feet she cried

“Take away all your hatred, your jeers and chanting

For you have slain my Lord

Take away all your weapons and cease your ranting

There is no ‘free’ in freedom anymore”

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, Love pays a price

Where hellish horrors run

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, its sacrifice

Save in Christ, is never done

There is no ‘free’ in freedom, red the river

That flows on its behalf

There is no 'free' in freedom; its signature

A blood-stained autograph

Janet Martin

Something 'bout November Gray

There’s something ‘bout November gray

Weeping where we laughed yesterday

That calls to mind the rush of Time

And aches to be preserved in rhyme

And something ‘bout November gray

Brings thoughts of loved ones far away

Then, in its cold rain reverie

We pour a second cup of tea

There’s something ‘bout November gray

Where in contrast, vast woodlands splay

Their tiralee beneath our feet

In gold and russet bittersweet

There’s something ‘bout November gray

That steals my very breath away

It spins a soulful poetry

That middle-May could never be

Yes, something ‘bout November gray

Is lovely in a lonesome way

It runs in rivers to our door

And makes us need each other more

© Janet Martin

I had Celtic Thunder cranked up when Victoria came home from school. In response to her quizzical raise of the eye-brow I told her its Celtic Thunder weather;-)

After the Darling Day...

After the darling day has borne its due

To add another patch to Time’s worn coat

Its gossamer embossed against a hue

Of sentimental blue where echoes gloat

We gaze across a haze of yesterdays

Exhuming graves beneath a brush of thought

Time softens imperfections with love’s glaze

As we forgive distresses best forgot

Then how beloved that landscape reappears

In sudden images of yesteryears

The innocence of childhood, swift and sweet

Spawns lithesome laughter to delight our day

Too soon the deeper shades of life compete

To steal the carefree lad or lass away

Yet, we would not rob them of living’s joy

To dream and reach, to reach and dream want-wild

For oh, there’s nothing like a girl or boy

To draw our thought to when we were a child

It stirs within the soul soft, sudden tears

With panoramic scenes of yesteryears

Shoulder to shoulder ever older we

Begin to empathize with patriarchs

Exclaiming at a season’s subtlety

Tasting the essence of age-old remarks

While deep cornflower blue closes the sky

And starlight way up high tugs at our throat

For we know it is foolhardy to try

To unravel time’s tried and tattered coat

…the last tree on the skyline disappears

Stitching another patch to yesteryears

© Janet Martin

Babysitting three busy boys this summer keeps me on the run and laughing...

Boy: Janet, why is a tractor magic?

Janet, after thinking a few moments; Why?

Boy; Because it can drive down a road and turn into a field!

My mother entertained her granddaughters today. When I went to pick up Victoria it reminded me of my 'Grandma-visits'! Esp. when Mom/Grandma passed out jellybeans;) 

My Grandmother Martin kept a covered candy-bowl on her buffet. I loved to peek into it when she wasn't watching, knowing that somewhere along the day we would be invited to sample its goodies!

Oh, sweet yesteryears...