Thank-you Card

Light cleaves to air where just a while ago

Midnight clung to each ridge in boundless black

Dawn breathes its glory o’er time’s testing track

Grace scrawls deliverance in burnished gold

Creature complaint though common unto man

Falls mute beneath this ether evidence

Of God extending patient providence

Above this marred and sullied sorrow-span

…for morning is each longest night’s reward

Mercy does not withhold the hope of dawn

God holds love’s beacon as we journey on

And all that we can say is thank-you, Lord

© Janet Martin

 Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth. Ps.96:9

Glad Song...an Opposite Poem

A smooth calm sweeps

The warm-waking world

Come hither, glad day

With new joys unfurled

For lo; soon twilight creeps

Over the western steeps

And blue shadows of dusk

The heavens salute

Lo! From the depths

Of woven dirt

With joyful thought

Its lays assert

To softly tease the Day;

And smooth the night awry

They make glad the slumb’ring breeze

And with its mirth ally

Comrade from the deep

Laughing in bliss-pink

Before dawn we tiptoe

Toward earth’s brink

Embracing the mystic east

We drink its celestial feast

Brimming with dark heart-sorrow

And yesterday's tomorrow

Janet~

An opposite poem to

Mad Song by William Blake

THE wild winds weep,

And the night is a-cold;

Come hither, Sleep,

And my griefs enfold! . . .

But lo! the morning peeps

Over the eastern steeps,

And the rustling beds of dawn

The earth do scorn.

 

Lo! to the vault

Of pavèd heaven,

With sorrow fraught,

My notes are driven:

They strike the ear of Night,

Make weak the eyes of Day;

They make mad the roaring winds,

And with the tempests play,

 

Like a fiend in a cloud,

With howling woe

After night I do crowd

And with night will go;

I turn my back to the east

From whence comforts have increased;

For light doth seize my brain

With frantic pain.

Life's Vapor-gem

The chimes of time are pealing

Across the morning-tide

Dawn’s garnet blush is spilling

Its river to the sky

The little toil and trouble

That we must bear today

Is but a whisper-bubble

In Time’s incessant sway

A melody of moments

Is unleashed to the air

God’s testament of mercy

And love’s long-suffering care

We cannot gather hours

Or moments to our keep

This vapor-gem is ours

To fill before we sleep

And all that we can pray for

As we embrace its flow

Is that God’s love will guide us

As by His grace we go

© Janet Martin

Sweet, Sweet New Day...

 Today she is modestly clad in frigid gray...

Sweet, sweet new day, what have we done

That you should thus return

With offerings of patient love

Which far too oft we spurn?

Sweet, sweet new day, what do you hold

Within your mystery?

What waits concealed within the folds

Soon shaping history?

Sweet, sweet new day, pure, pristine path

Soon your robe will be rent

Its hem stained with the aftermath

Of pride and passion spent

Sweet, sweet new day, we don’t deserve

Your kind, gracious embrace

Your predecessors bear witness

Of our sad disgrace

…yet with compassion you entrust

Your moments to our care

While we, pilgrim’s of humble dust

Your joy and sorrow bear

Sweet, sweet new day, humbly I pray

You do not come in vain

Sweet, sweet new day, for you will never

Pass this way again

© Janet Martin

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps.118:24

Refurbished Hope

 (some photos of 'her face' in the past week)

I never tire of your face

From dark folds you emerge

A newborn gathering of grace

Pure, virgin moment-surge

Somehow twixt farewell and hello

You shed your haggard stance

Where steps disheartened, weary, slow

Yearn now to leap and dance

Your form, refreshed and darkness-bathed

Exhales replenished mirth

Your labyrinth of yesterdays

Cannot return to earth

From charcoal cocoon your emerge

Draping the sunless slope

With tender mercy’s rampant splurge

And dawn’s refurbished hope

© Janet Martin

So often it amazes me, how the old becomes new in the morning.

What our mothers said is true, 'it always looks better in the morning'.

Of Shorelines, Seas and Sailors...some Sonnets

You lean against the silence; deep inside

Your plaintive sigh aches in dawn’s pristine hush

Where colors of a rising, falling tide

Fills winter’s stricken stance with summer’s rush

Tracing the outline of thought’s shadow-land

The bloom and bracken sway in buxom breeze

Along a bank where footprints in its sand

Have washed upon a shore of memories

There is no proof of moments I may seek

But for its whisper gleaming on my cheek

***

I am not discontent; Time has no rules

But one; it takes and gives in the same breath

While hope unravels from its lofty spools

And dodd’ring dream succumbs to its last death

The crimson morning rends the slumb’ring deep

Where faith and fantasy, their duels wage

And we beneath their vigil laugh and weep

Across the twinkle of Time’s vapor stage

Replenishing with virgin hope the stream

Reaching to seize the dreamer from her dream

***

Moment by moment, like a pink platoon

Dawn’s squadron marches to its ordained height

Where gold and azure vertex of high-noon

Drops from its pinnacle into the night

And we, caught twixt its future and the past

Where silences are filled with memory’s sigh

Ponder leviathan moments mercy-cast

Dripping from heaven to the by-and-by

While we glean from its effervescent tide

The drops that form an ocean deep inside

***

The aftermath of moments sweeps a shore

That we are each the lone spectator of

Gazing at life’s bygone forevermore

Fraught with framed fragments of longing and love

Borne in the limbo of mortality

This surge of moments cannot pause or cease

As we, the sailors on its silver sea

Point our prows toward heaven’s release

Recognizing He who holds the cup

Whereon we sail and moment’s tears fill up

© Janet Martin  

 The Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness. 1 Samuel 26;23

This day is climbing with quiet haste
Filled with moments too precious to waste

Birth of a Day

From vaults of virgin hope You take

Its fair and finest fray

Weaving beneath far-fancied east

A new and glorious day

In gossamer embellishments

Of coral, gold and pink

Mercy imbues with transient hues

Earth’s mute and mystic brink

Without a sound darkness recedes

And from Compassion’s lips

Extended grace brushes the face

Of  life’s stumbles and slips

A miracle of wonderment

Exhales from heaven’s girth

As we of meek astonishment

Witness a new day’s birth

© Janet Martin

Ball-room

This morning the Artist

Has taken His brush

And dappled earth’s canvas

In frosted hush

I awoke early

To a white-washed hall

Where each tree is a princess

Dressed for the ball

And I might be

A princess too

But somewhere I lost

My glass dancing shoes

© Janet Martin

Another Day is Born

Even now it starts to steal

Up from the abstract brink

Where Time upon its obscure reel

Issues another wink

The frozen tree etched flawlessly

On back-drops of Unknown

Stands small in nature’s deity

Stripped of its gracious crown

The hush of deep-night slumbering

Fades now as duty’s feet

In rush of moment-numbering

Hastens into the street

The moon recedes into the west

As from the softened east

Flows mercy’s faithful promises

Compassion’s moment-feast

And where by night our song had died

It rekindles the morn

As out across the country-side

Another day is born

© Janet Martin

Poetics Aside Prompt: Birth Poem.
(I had a little chuckle because I wrote this poem and the one above it before I checked out the prompt. 'That was easy,' I laughed as I saw the topic:)

Of Heaven's Patient Love

Grace spills its hues across the land

Dawn scales earth’s phantom brink

Above the sky the artist’s Hand

Airbrushes hope in pink

The dusk-postlude of yesterday

Has sealed its history

We fix our gaze on this new day

And what is yet to be

Dawn freely spills her virgin grace

From portals up above

As we are drawn to the embrace

Of heaven’s patient Love

© Janet Martin   

Time's Ever-hastening Season

With hope’s fresh hint in coral tint

Night’s deep begins to soften

On earth’s dark palm where all is calm

We sense the urge of morning

The raven tree etched flawlessly

On canvasses of heaven

Has laid its crown of glory on

Time’s ever-hastening season

Into the clutch of mortal touch

Unsullied moments murmur

From God to man, from heart to hand

Fall, winter, spring and summer

Then, as they slip from fingertip

To scripts of unknown reason

We recognize ‘neath life’s disguise

Time’s ever-hastening season

Upon the slope of virgin hope

A new day stirs our slumber

From heaven’s keep the moments weep

Like fall leaves without number

As we embrace the Hand of Grace

Imbued with Divine Reason

His love imparts from heav’n-ramparts

Time’s ever-hastening season

This tent of woe; it must forego

The mansions up in glory

From birth to death, each gifted breath

Is writing our life-story

As through our grasp brief moments pass

Beyond our feeble reason

From dawn to Dawn we journey on

Time’s ever-hastening season

 Janet Martin

Imagery

When morning spills a startling chill

From scarlet-satin skies

And we observe a keener verve

Within her restless eyes

When tree-tops blush beneath her brush

Teasing the verdant limb

We recognize the sure demise

Of summer growing dim

But we cannot dissuade or stop

An hour’s velocity

The hand that tugs the bashful bud

Will strip the leafy tree

And those who once dashed unabashed

By life’s rollicking rhyme

Begin to see Mortality

Within each tick of Time

As morning spills a startling chill

On summer’s memory

We recognize within her eyes

More than we plainly see

© Janet Martin

It is downright COLD these past few mornings!

Immaculate Embellishments

 When my son heard me hit the snooze button this morning he came into my room and said, 'Mom, you might not want to do that or you'll miss an amazing sun-rise'. I was in the yard  in 30 seconds flat!...this is a pale reprint of the 'real deal'. My cheapy-camera cannot pick up the deep reds of sunrises or sunsets. Yes, the sun-rise was AWESOME!...thank-you, Matthew:)

The colors of His brush

Ten-thousand shades imbue

As waking pastures blush

With heaven-tinted dew

The mien of earthly boast

Falls dumbly on the hour

As whispers of His uttermost

Rends midnight’s muted bower

‘Neath mercy’s vaulted flame

Another day of grace

Forgives our sordid shame

And spills from His embrace

He stirs within our hearts

The zeal to carry on

As His consummate art

Embellishes the dawn

We lift our calloused gaze

Soundless, His paintbrush moves

As His immaculate blaze

Our vain ineptness proves

The rush of heaven-seas

Astounds earth's hill and rill

The grace of centuries

Compels us to be still

© Janet Martin

He could simply probe the day into being without wondrous measure

but He spills His glory for mankind's humble pleasure...
and as reminders that this is not an isolated globe
We reach with thankfulness to touch His robe.

A Daybreak Hymn of Hope...Sonnet of Fair Morning

Oh, praise the sacred Hand that rends the veil

And does not leave us pining in the dark

But pours His lavish grace from mercy’s Grail

To pierce the night with Hope’s expanding spark

Lift up with gladness your worship to Him

Lest stones cry out to sing His ardent praise

Oh feel the pulse of midnight growing dim

The thickened gloom dissolves beneath His gaze

The Oracle of Deity imparts

His wonderment of Light to fainting hearts

Lift up the feeble measure of your faith

He imbues doleful shadows with His pow’r

As yesterday, a whilom, lifeless wraith

Can never force its fear upon the hour

But virgin Hope expels the dismal deep

In canvases of morning, pure, unmarred

Oh, hear the tender Shepherd call His sheep

The Door into His fold is never barred

And if we listen we can hear His voice

Above the ceaseless clamoring of choice  

This thorn and thistle, toil and trial span

Is but a zephyr-gasp upon earth’s plain

No test is borne uncommon unto man

Yet Hope prevails in spite of grief and pain

A new Dawn waits; its glory is the Son

Earth’s daybreak but a whisper of His might

Soon our little sojourn here is done

And death is but the gateway to His Light

We point our faces to a better home

As Heaven breathes to earth ‘Shalom, Shalom’

© Janet Martin

Perfect Peace

The loss and lament of yesterday

Has come and gone

The coral gleam of hope imbues

The trembling dawn

We lift our eyes unto the hills

Where none have trod

As the Unknown softly spills

From hands of God

His grace; sufficient for today

It wavers not

There is no Unknown in I AM

No hidden thought

And yet His love exceeds our need

And come what may

We trust the One who paints the dawn

On shades of gray

© Janet Martin

The Birth of a New Day

Morning melts its silver river

Over the cobblestone

Holy hush preceding the rush

Of life’s unknown

Daybreak spills its molten grail

To shaded bow’r

Grace flings her golden veil

Across the hour

Dawn tiptoes above the horizon

In yellow-gray

But as she reaches for the heavens

She fades away

© Janet Martin

Dawn-song

Hail the glad dawn and adore its Creator

Light of the morning caresses the sod

Over a planet of August-gold tempest

Glimmers the gossamer scepter of God

From the bronze fret-work of corn-field and stubble

From earth’s wee porch to vast windows of hope

We lift our gaze above life’s toil and trouble

As we list to the wakening of breeze-calliope

Over the earth in a molten-fire river

Flows the glad morning rekindling the day

From the kind, out-stretched Hand of Life’s Giver

Night’s purple slumber is slipping away

Oh hail the glad dawn, for its awesome Creator

Does not leave us helpless in our greatest need

Surely His goodness and mercy will succor

He does not give to sustain our greed

See how the darkness has waned from night’s portal

See how the Light over-powers its girth

His grace sufficient for every mortal

Pouring in radiance over the earth

God, on this day let us never disdain You

By fretting or pining over what is not

Nor let us bear our moments without You

But give You the glory for all You allot

© Janet Martin

Through Night's Charcoal Awning

It seeps through the night's charcoal awning 

From heaven’s tender-hearted embrace

Unwrapped in a merciful dawning

Another day of grace

He does not withhold His compassion

But unfurls His love from the deeps

In His infinite grace without ration

As through night’s charcoal awning it seeps

And though mortal heartache and sorrow

May yet trouble this sin-cursed sod

We lift our hearts and we borrow

New strength from a most gracious God

…for through midnight’s charcoal awning

His wonder and glory seep

Fading the dark from day’s dawning

And spilling His grace from the deep

© Janet Martin

I was heading to the garden to pick our corn…the sunrise breathed a new day of grace and hope into my soul as my heart leaped with praise for His loving kindness.

Yesterday's cares, failures, triumphs are there...in yesterday! this is a brand new day waiting to be experienced for Him!

Beholding Anew...

It rises and descends alike, in coral symmetry

Across the tasseled landscape rolls the morning’s misty sea

Up from the muted skyline; from the vaulted astral slope

The deeper hour dissipates in mercy-tinted hope

Shoulders that bore the somber mantle of a midnight shroud

Respond to whispers soft and gentle of the softened cloud

As Fingers gently smooth away nocturnal overtones

And darkest night is turned to day; pink river on the stones

It rises and descends alike; the overtures of prayer

From lips of men to heart of God; our triumph and despair

From dawn to dusk, from dusk to dawn His power cannot fail

And soon our earth-dimmed eyes behold the rending of night’s veil

A multitude of miracles unfold each mortal hour

Pouring from Mystery’s bosom to earth’s sun and shadow bow’r

Up from the muted skyline; from the astral vaulted slope

We lift our eyes; behold anew the nail-scarred Hands of hope

© Janet Martin

That’s the way it was this morning; an ocean of pink-misted mercy

flooding the land as it fell from the sky…


 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
    so great is his unfailing love.  
 For he does not willingly bring affliction
    or grief to anyone.
Lam. 3:32-33

Beautiful Bittersweet

Life leaps and seeps in synchronized pulses

Graciously giving as it tenderly wanes

Someone’s first sunrise is another’s last sunset

Summer is winter on far yonder plains

Live fully each moment, but keep your clasp light

Farewell is torment if we hold too tight

See how the dawning in blue-gold atonement

Banishes yester’s dismay from our brow

Great is His faithfulness, new every morning

Hope and forgiveness in even tides flow

As forward we tumble and backward we slip

And onward we stumble in His tender grip

Life breaks and takes in its living and giving

Patiently enduring our sorrows and schemes

Youth cannot claim its white crown of wisdom

Wisdom does not return fair, youthful dreams

One portion expands as another depletes

Life, oh thou beautiful bitterest-sweet

© Janet Martin

Dawn rends the scrim

of another day

What will it give

or take away?

Before dusk settles

on borders far west

Will we have given

this day our best?

Have a wonderful day! Go with God.