Showing posts with label May. Show all posts
Showing posts with label May. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Dear May, a Farewell Love-letter

 Happy last Day of May!








Dear May, somehow you always exceed eager expectation
As you begin to nurture nature’s treed rejuvenation
As gardens start to thrill our gaze with petal-punctuation
And overhead a minstrel plays leaf-lays in celebration

Dear May, you always rouse anew, rekindled planting pleasure
As you run wooing whispers through buds bursting with bloom treasure
As you, beneath young and old feet, unfurl your finest measure
Where beauty and duty compete with lures of toil and leisure

Dear May, the way you always spill with April’s remnant showers
Makes worth the while it takes until you reward faith with flowers
Tulip chalices, bleeding hearts, allium, lilac-bowers
Always, your floral drumroll kickstarts summer’s fleeting hours

Dear May, your dust is sacred, stirred by farmer’s urgent labor
Your prudent lease sublimely blurred by your lime-coloured saber
Waving a welkin wand that welcomes home the long-lost neighbor
As nests are built and filled with featherdown and fledgling caper

Dear May, it always feels as if you leave us way too soon-oh
Medley of march-and-meander through days, dandeli’n-strewn-oh
We could not bear the fare-thee-well of your sweet afternoon-oh
But for the tolling of a bell that always brings us June-oh

© Janet Martin









Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Perfect Fit...


When the backdrop of day is green
Because the bud has borne its sheen...



And when the crown of it is blue...


And when the dawn of it is new
And when its gown is lilac-starred
And its breeze like soft seas unbarred...


And when its flowers smile and nod
And when its Gardener is God...



Is it not enough just to fit
Into a teeny bit of it...



When the backdrop of day is green
Because the bud has borne its sheen
And when the crown of it is blue
And when the dawn of it is new
And when its gown is lilac-starred
And its breeze like soft seas unbarred
And when its flowers smile and nod
And when its Gardener is God
Is it not enough just to fit
Into a teeny bit of it...

And make the most of it because
Soon it will be the Day That Was

© Janet Martin

1 Chron. 29:11
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness, 
The power and the glory, 
The victory and the majesty; 
For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; 
Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, 
And You are exalted as head over all.

Friday, May 19, 2023

I Love The Lovely Month of May



This poem niggled just as I was ready to leave 
yesterday afternoon to help my parents with some gardening
 so I quickly scribbled the gist of it in my 'draft-book' 
and didn't get a chance to return to it until this morning 
but Beauty Duty called before I could finish it, 
so it kept evolving and expanding throughout the day...
My apologies for the length but there's SO much in May to love!!!

I love the mist of orchards kissed and crowned with blossom-vim...


Or wading knee deep through a sweep of dandelion-gold...


Or reveling in the unraveling of budded limb
Like pausing to watch gauzy green-leaf parasols unfold...


I love the mist of orchards kissed and crowned with blossom-vim
Or wading knee deep through a sweep of dandelion-gold
Or reveling in the unraveling of budded limb
Like pausing to watch gauzy green-leaf parasols unfold

I love how expectation for transformation is met
How nature is a pianist no pessimist subdues
The merry breeze plays melodies like a May minuet
I love the lark, and how dawn’s dark the warbler’s lay renews

I love the verve, the crook and curve of brook-song through the dell
The verdant surge as summer’s verge unfurls a grassy sea
The wholesome, holy happiness found in a flower bell
The cooing of the mourning dove, the fuzzy/buzzy bumble bee

The dusty haze as farmers blaze fresh trails of hope and trust
The garden where we breathe a prayer with every seed we sow
The pleasure of a treasure trove buried beneath tilled dust
The earthy joy as we employ the tools of spade and hoe

The sense of youth in spite of truth that uncouth mirrors mime
So much to do rather than rue faced facts; so much to like
The outdoor bench whereon to quench the raging thirst for Time
The waddling duck, the toddler stuck on bigger brother’s bike

I love the awesome promises that replenish the rose
Where despite thoughtless thanklessness God’s kindness intercedes
I love how He pens poetry no mortal can compose
Providence grants Extravagance no ignorance impedes

I love how Now is full of Wow, how sweetly May’s sun shines
How chubby raindrops plop and leave behind a crop of pearls
I love the waltz, foxtrot, and somersaults on laundry-lines
While frisky zephyrs tug brisk Housewife’s skirt with flirty twirls

I love the way dusk lingers on the fringes of so long
Running reluctant fingers over one more May day through
Beckoning us to sit a bit beneath the lowered gong
That tolls away the workaday with bronze, mauve, blush and blue   

I love how earth gives age-old birth to wonder’s infant cries
How May morn brims with worship hymns that last the livelong day
How perfumed plume of lilac bloom scorns atheistic lies
I love the green-gilt lilt that frills the lovely month of May

© Janet Martin

The garden where we breathe a prayer with every seed we sow
The pleasure of a treasure trove buried beneath tilled dust
The earthy joy as we employ the tools of spade and hoe...

(Thanks to the generous farmer next door my garden is planted in
a fresh plot while we give the old plot some refreshment and rest!)

I love the way dusk lingers on the fringes of so long
Running reluctant fingers over one more May day through
Beckoning us to sit a bit beneath the lowered gong
That tolls away the workaday with bronze, mauve, blush and blue...




   

Monday, May 15, 2023

Songs of May and Morn


It was a weekend of celebrating...
 Grandson's 1st birthday,
 


mothers/motherhood,


and May/gardening...
(helping grandpa plant potatoes)


Grand-sonny preferred planting potatoes to the tedium of planting peas...
When I handed him a little pail of pea seeds he proceeded to pour them into the
furrow rather than place them one by one,
 until gramma showed them how to space the seeds😅


I can't wait for them to begin witnessing the miracle from seed to fruit!

On this note, off we go on a new week rife with life's wonders and woes!


An orchestra of colour plays a melody reborn
To set both earth and heart ablaze with songs of May and morn
The author of all things ignites from minstrels great and small
A hymn of gladness, and invites us to join, one and all
To praise He who is faithful, absolute and wonderful
And eternally able to do the impossible

A symphony of splendor spills from He who does no wrong
It rolls across valleys and hills like a redemption song
To clothe the field with flowers and the tree with leafy sheen
To transform barren bowers with a thousand shades of green
And to remind the creature, awed at what God's love restores
To trust creation’s Teacher who sustains hope’s reservoirs

An invitation steals the show with holy thundering
A celebration peals ‘hello’ and beckons us to sing
In spite of cares we shoulder and the sorrows of this world
God cheers the awed beholder with His handiwork unfurled
And wakes a purer, meeker praise as melodies reborn
Once more set earth and hearts ablaze with songs of May and morn

© Janet Martin

Sometimes my morning worship/prayer/quiet time 
seems like a bittersweet duel between
groaning grief for what feels like 'impossible' prayers
and dumbfounded joy for His awesome Word and handiwork.
...a duel between sorrowful recognition/reconciliation 
of suffering the consequence of a sinful action
and awe for God's abiding faithfulness, kindness, forgiveness, love and grace

***

Isa.26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.

A few recent devotions from My Utmost for His Highest





Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Darling May, Farewell

In Ontario, May goes from bare...

...to burgeoning with bloom



from warm hats and coats ...


...to sundresses and splash-pads
(May 31)


...and last but not least
from no baby to
sweet, sweet baby boy
( 14 hours old)

(never mind the baby! 'what's that, mommy?!'
Concerned Big Brother wants to know😊💖)

Almost 3 weeks old


Farewell, (almost) most beloved month of all!!

To release you is akin to farewell’s final embrace
A sense of fallen blossom-stars wafting in outer space
This reluctant relinquishment of what no one can keep
Always makes me regret the fact that sometimes we must sleep

…while buds begin to bulge then burst because they cannot stay
The Miracle waiting to steal our baited breath away
While isle upon isle undergoes, with sunny zephyr-kiss
A steady and unprejudicial metamorphosis

To let you go is always bittersweet, my love, because
You never leave the world as stark and sullen as it was
Beneath your touch creation thrives, sparse shadow-filigree
Grows deep and dark…a picnic blanket tossed beneath each tree

Expectancy and wonder, like silence and thunder meld
The earth is like a canvas with no verdant hue withheld
Where we all become dancers in spirit if not footloose
In a ballroom refurbished with a fresh coat of chartreuse

Each furrow is replenished with seed-sized symbols of trust
While we are wildly torn between duty and wanderlust
Because something about the way you arrange green and blue
Makes us want to experience every angle of you

Forgive me if I linger with my arms around your scent
For my thought aches with echoes; mementos of love well-spent
And I could not bear to let go, darling May afternoon
But for the impending hello of darling, darling June

© Janet Martin




Tuesday, May 24, 2022

A Rich Canvas (of God's Flawless Poetry)





Where Mercy's faithful essence renews more than barren limb
He cheers us with His presence as we place our trust in Him...


Green deepens, a rich canvas for nature’s calligraphy
The land is young; it dances with God’s flawless poetry
Where wonder, like an elixir reminds the careworn heart
To trust in the Creator of earth’s unparalleled art

This life, so full of care would be too hard to bear, but for
The Lord’s unrivaled majesty only proud fools ignore
Where Mercy's faithful essence renews more than barren limb
He cheers us with His presence as we place our trust in Him

Hunger and heartache’s Texas vexes worlds beneath our skin
The belly of the whale perplexes well-laid schemes of sin
Where all we have is lent; God gives and takes, for He is Lord
Where spring is like a bower bent with hope and grace restored

Vales deepen; a rich canvas for faith's meek and fervent plea
Though spirits groan, hope dances as God spills pure poetry
Where a whole world of wonder waits to tune faith's ears and eyes
To trust in He who tends the gates/straits that lead to paradise

© Janet Martin

Psalm 138
I will praise You with my whole heart;
Before the gods I will sing praises to You.
2 I will worship toward Your holy temple,
And praise Your name
For Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.
3 In the day when I cried out, You answered me,
And made me bold with strength in my soul.

4 All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O Lord,
When they hear the words of Your mouth.
5 Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
For great is the glory of the Lord.
6 Though the Lord is on high,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the proud He knows from afar.

7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me;
You will stretch out Your hand
Against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.
8 The Lord will [a]perfect that which concerns me;
Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.


 The Old Cross Road (click link to listen) 
James Rowe 1920

  1. There are many paths through this world of sin,
    But there’s only one I shall travel in;
    ’Tis the old Cross Road, or the way called “Straight”—
    There is just one way to the pearly gate.
    • Refrain:
      There is just one way to the pearly gate,
      To the crown of life and the friends who wait;
      ’Tis the old Cross Road, or the way called “Straight”—
      There is just one way to the pearly gate.
  2. There are some who sneer at the old Cross Road,
    At the pearly gate and the soul’s abode;
    Yet I mind them not, but, with happy song
    And assurance sweet, still I press along.
  3. Others risk their souls on some new-made way,
    Thinking they will come to the gate someday;
    Oh, may they find out, ere their lives are done,
    That the old Cross Road is the only one.