These Stairs We Climb (that look like Time)

This blur we call summer trembles with cricket-song

reminding us of words like 'was' and 'so-long'...

Now that's a 'hill of beans'  said Victoria

when she saw today's task on the table this morning😊

We are abundantly blessed with garden-treasure once again!

Thank-you, Lord

Life is offering almost more task than time these days!

By the grace of God and for His glory, 

off we go on another work-a-day adventure!

This thoroughfare of morrows where time’s seasons strew behind

Like harvest dust, rouses in us loss and gain intertwined

The give and take of dusk and daybreak’s easy ebb and flow

Falls through a fleet of hands and feet like little stars of snow

…where we are always learning, yearning, turning older, oh

Where wonder thunders in our veins as nature steals the show

Where we begin to feel the closing in of shadow-sighs

Yet feel like kings where simple things are life’s most treasured prize

The quiet grace of garden spaces soothes the wounds within

The rush of leaves before the sheaves are gleaned and gathered in

The cooing of the mourning dove, the cricket’s cheep-cheep-cheep

Like minstrels in a symphony that lulls the land to sleep

The tender tug as kiss and hug wears holes right through our hearts

Where planting and the granting of its fruit fills more than carts

Where holy is the toll that rolls from east to west until

The hours cease that lend the lease that numbered days fulfill

This more-than-meets-the-eye, hello, good-bye, this touch and taste

Runs through our forms in sparkle-storms of subtle season-haste

Where we will find sweet peace of mind through thick and thin of days

As we commit the whole of it to God in hymns of praise

As we delight in what is right and leave the rest to He

Who sees beyond the flower-frond of our mortality

Where hope and trust are more than dust that settles in the grave

Where stairs we climb that look like Time lead back to He who gave

© Janet Martin

  “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, 

or whatsoever ye do, 

do all to the glory of God.” 

1 Corinthians 10:31.

Remember when time seemed to crawl?

Little Girl is eagerly counting the days till she can be a school-girl!

Me? I want to cry 'slow down'

Let me linger over dinners and dreams!

Like a Well Watered Garden

Isaiah 55:1
"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; 

and you without money, come, buy, and eat! 

Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost!

Isaiah 58:11

The LORD will always guide you; He will satisfy you

in a sun-scorched land and strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

John 4:14

But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. 

Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water 

springing up to eternal life."

John 7:39

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, 

out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Isaiah 12:3
With joy you will draw water from the springs of salvation,

The gardens this year are flourishing

for they have been well-watered!

Hopefully, the garden of our life flourishes also,

well-watered with Living Water 

Come, drink the sinner’s pardon; let faith God’s grace unveil

Like a well-watered garden, like springs that never fail

He pours with kind compassion, redemption to the cursed

Come, partake without ration and quench thy raging thirst

Come, drink and do not tarry where vice and virtue war

Lest the Groom comes to marry and He has barred the door

Come, drink from Living Waters; draw from salvation’s springs

To become sons and daughters of the King of kings

Come now and do not harden your heart with doubt’s dark ploy

Like a well-watered garden, let life flourish with joy

Come without cost or money; drink and be satisfied

For lo, the Groom is coming to gather up His Bride

© Janet Martin

Eden's Shadow or Enchanted By Glimpses...

I finally have a garden bench!

(After 'rescuing' a dilapidated wicker bench

on a Sunday afternoon drive

from a backroad ditch.)

Nothing that a quilt and cushion

 and a few strings to bind sags

couldn't fix!

A person can get downright comfy in a garden corner

at the end of a busy day!😊

The place where Eden’s shadow falls 

is framed in friendly hollyhocks

Sunflowers deck its bower-walls; 

breeze-batons tease bean-vines, corn stalks

Love’s toil is sweet where spoil of seeds 

enchants us with glimpses of He

Who smiles, while stunning us indeed

with isles of creativity

The place where Eden’s shadow lies 

is crowned with skies, cerulean

Its glints and hints of paradise

unbound in nature's diadem

Where garden dirt is mined for treasure 

carrot-orange and beet-red

A gratifying kind of pleasure; 

hand of God and mortal wed 

The place where Eden’s shadow spans 

is cursed with pestilence and pain

Unlike the first garden where man, 

because of sin could not remain

But still, the beauty of the Lord 

is poured through gourd-pod-plumed goodness

Where duty reaps a rich reward 

of culinary happiness

The place where Eden’s shadow waits 

to fling ajar gates that God sealed

Grants glimpses on heaped dinner plates 

as we give thanks for harvest-yield

For mercy’s lavish 'let there be' 

As you and I with hope and hurt

Touch the hemline of Majesty 

through windows set in garden dirt

© Janet Martin

 

  

Manifest Evidence

 

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; 

as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 

 By this all will know that you are My disciples, 

if you have love for one another.” 

John 13:34-35

With the abundant rain we've been blessed with

in southern Ontario, Canada,

fields and gardens beam 

with Nature's/Mercy's opulent pleasure!

The most beautiful bloom 

in the garden of life

is love

Love is patient and kind...

1 Cor.13:4

Not by grand pomp and show

Or flourish of fine word

But by our love, others will know

That we follow the Lord

…not by the high or low

Of status, color, creed

But by our love, others will know

That we are Christ’s, in deed

Not for glory or praise

Or Duty’s rigid bent

But by compassion’s gentle ways

Love’s grace is evident

Not to create a throne

For self-indulgent pride

But by our love, God’s love is shown

His glory magnified

© Janet Martin

Season-sparks

this poem was sparked by the soundless spiral of a petal...

We've gone from This...

...to This

...to This! in a matter of weeks! (4, I think)

How swift a season sets a match to moments tinder dry

No one can find a net to catch the sparks that upward fly

How soon the garden-patch showcases a seed’s wondrous ways

While barefoot laughter races through life’s care-unhindered days

Oblivious and chivalrous to time’s unbridled flight

While morning sheds its blush cocoon, and noon morphs into night

The flower flares ere petal ash settles its beaming score

Come, let’s not wait until too late to take the time to pore

Over a gate or arbor laden with bud’s maiden boon

Over the pretty pages of a summer afternoon

Over the landscape changing right before our very eyes

Where none can find a way to bind the seams through which time flies

The way to where we were is always barred by where we are

Then let’s not linger, looking back or wishing on a star

But rather, run our fingers through the fabric of today

Before its gold turns misty blue then fades into the fray

Of yesterdays, gossamer-gray and always out of reach

For none can stay the waves of dusk that wash across yon breach

We’re all in this together, getting older by the hour

All learning how to weather where we’ve never been before

Coming to terms with what time gives and takes, momentous must

As lessons of relinquishment compel us to adjust

Our points of view where vantage points are altered or estranged

Where no one can persuade time’s hand to leave the sheave unchanged

Let’s never take for granted, morning’s easy come and go

For soon the seeds we’ve planted turn to reaping what we sow

While Now-to-Then beneath a swaying sickle soon is felled

Where none can stem the trickle filling seasons, briefly held

Like brushstrokes on a canvas that keeps changing its façade

Each season softly dances to the music played by God

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3:1

To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven:

Psalm 103:15-18

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
16For the wind passes over it, and it is [b]gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
17But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
18To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

Garden Stroll

PAD Challenge day 18:

For today's prompt, write an ekphrastic poem.

An ekphrastic poem is one in which the poet writes a poem based on another work of art, 

whether that's a painting, photograph, sculpture, mixed media, or other piece of art.

This painting, almost 30 years old was at the time, a splurge!

I purchased it Brand New! (likely from Zellers) 

In 'young mom/homeowner' days that was quite an

extravagance, but I'm so glad I did. I still love it.

 (it was not expensive, by any means but still, an extra)

I feel so much more than meets the eye when I look at it!

(I took the liberties of adding a few extras to the poem,

perhaps the pond and arbor are just beyond the scope of the lens??)😉

It is so much more than flowers

More than birdsong that beguiles

She and Child to garden-bowers

It is Time and Touch and Smiles

She looks down at her sweet daughter

Who does not yet see beyond,

Picket fence, wisteria arbour

Ducklings paddling in the pond

She is not attuned to hours

Or the mementos they spill

Happiness is picking flowers

In a place where time stands still

The world fits inside her pocket

She fits into mother’s smile

They fit into a heart-locket

Forever Mother and Child

© Janet Martin

Under The Umbrella of God's Care

Today's poem was partly inspired by my morning prayer as I asked God to please spread

His care like an umbrella over me and the kiddos that others entrust to my care...

The verge of what will be soon merges with all that has been

Whether valleys shadowed with death or pleasant pastures green...

While the kiddos play or 'help'...

... I sometimes find things to putter about with...

Pinch me! I feel like I just bedded down the gardens,

and though this may be a bit premature, (because yes,

 I do see the snowflakes in next week's forecast)

I just can't resist the urge to merge with garden-dirt a bit

(because the neighbors got a dog, we sorta did too😀)

(Yesterday morning while I was working in the kitchen I heard a clatter in the laundry room.

apparently the back door did not latch properly

after I hung out the laundry and this dog made himself at home without knocking😂

Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, 

and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. 

This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

Eccles.2:24

Ah, here we are, not very far from learning’s next affair

But always underneath the kind umbrella of God’s care

Because showers of blessing come in every shape and size

Some welcomed with wide open arms, some hard to recognize

We never know what waits to show its face with smile or tear

But oh, the more we trust, the less each of us has to fear

God, we are prone to groan beneath the weight of ‘what might be’

Help us to learn to lean on you with faith’s humility

The gold of beaming rampart unfolds like a work of art

From the grail of God’s mercy to the cup of human heart

Where, here we are, not very far from Love's unfailing Hand

All that we need to do is reach and He will help us stand

The verge of what will be soon merges with all that has been

Whether valleys shadowed with death or pleasant pastures green

We kick the dust of want and must; it rises but to fall

God's grace spreads like an umbrella over one and all

© Janet Martin

The gold of gleaming rampart 

unfolds like a work of art...

February's Gardens

 

We are continuously wowed with wonderful sunrises this winter!

as God 'breaks the bud of night with heaven’s hardy, hearty Majesty'

See! February’s gardens beam from dirt where dream-seeds start to stir 

To fill the scope of hope renewed with visions of spring and summer 

To touch the page of pictures pressed to winter’s laughing aftermath 

Where sunbeams dance and bare feet prance upon earth’s posy-pulsing path 

Look! February’s gardens bloom as spent plumes bedeck pristine halls 

To steal the eye a second time with tinsel soft as cotton balls 

To burst the hub of happiness into smile-storms from heart to ears 

Where nature spreads Her empty arms and gathers Old Man Winter’s tears 

Ah! February’s gardens brim from sunny south-faced window-sills 

To fill sweet home with friendly hints of field and fallow-harboured thrills 

To wake in weary winter-worlds a sudden, sacred sense of He 

Who breaks the bud of night with heaven’s hardy, hearty Majesty 

Come! February’s gardens brood and throb beneath heath, snow-veneered 

Where frigid noon will soon drip like ice-cream from Old Man Winter’s beard 

And hands a little softer now, not pushing plows of plant and reap 

Will be filled with forget-me-nots and other 'tots' roused from their sleep 

© Janet Martin 

ah! February's gardens brim from sunny, south-faced windowsills...

(my NOT very green thumb embarrasses houseplants...poor things!)

but they bring me sweet pleasure, all the same😊

 Jeri Landers from Hop-along Hollow got my garden-fingers itching with yesterday's video, 

but alas, in Ontario we are still bundled in blankets/banquets/bank-ets of white

Jeri Lander's Winter-sowing/Gardener's Hot Lunch/name the new duck

Garden Siesta Song

 

After the garden is plowed...

...it always seems to beg a farewell-ballad

Like a pungent, umber blanket tucked in all along each edge

Autumn’s garden, slumber-readied tugs at Twilight’s loose heart-threads 

Sky-high noon of laughing summer has its sun-spun luster lost 

Now October yields to kisses brusque with dusk and leaf embossed 

Soon a crop of stars will sparkle on the midnight of the sod 

And the plot that popped with colour will be covered up by God 

Granting to the soil sweet respite while fruit-flower founts are sealed 

Interceding for the good of both the grower and the field 

Longing and relief entangle in the furrows, doffed and brown 

Where the silk of echo-spangles wafts aloft like thistledown 

As the murmur of spent summer like a brook, not frozen yet 

With a tempo of mementos plays a tender minuet 

Sleep, dear garden do not worry what the morrow holds for thee 

God has said as long as earth is, seed and harvest-time will be 

Snuggle up and take thy rest now, beneath downy sheets of snow 

While you earned winter’s siesta, I was learning to let go 

© Janet Martin 

Minuet in G

Skimming the surface of Echo-spangles...

The bright side of a poor potato patch...lots of play-space!