Dare To Dream But Bear In Mind...

I sat in the garden for a little while this afternoon soaking in the

sights, sounds and smells of fading August...

No longer restless with a dream, but reveling in the bloom!

Dare to dream but bear in mind Dream’s vulnerability

For, it seems life is inclined to vex blind fantasy

Where what we composed in forums with youth still intact

Soon begins to weather foibles and fumbles of fact

Dare to take a leap of faith but be aware of this

Sometimes you will hit the mark! Sometimes you will miss

Sometimes the sweet landing you envision when you jump

Will take you by rude surprise with an uncourtly bump

Dare to hold, hug and embrace but always with this thought

Letting go is juxtaposed with everything we’ve got

Taste today’s sweet laughter; rejoice and be glad because

Everything that is, soon after, becomes what once was

Then the dreamer starts to see what starry eyes once missed

Fantasy will step aside for moments slowly kissed

Where what want composes as youth dons a weathered brow

Becomes about smelling roses blooming here and now

© Janet Martin

 

 

 

Signs of the Times (or signs of September)

Turning a blind eye to signs does not alter the truth!

Gen.9:13-17

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me 

and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  

I have set my rainbow in the clouds, 

and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  

Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 

I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. 

Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.  

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it 

and remember the everlasting covenant between God 

and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established 

between me and all life on the earth.”

2 Tim.3:1-5

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  

People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, 

disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  without love, 

unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,

  treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 

 having a form of godliness but denying its power. 

Have nothing to do with such people.

When we see signs it alerts us to whatever the sign is drawing our attention to!

From streets to businesses to for sale signs to events etc.

From flashy billboards to modest handmade creations!

But one thing is imperative for a 'successful' sign. 

It must be easy to read!

Daybreak's sign is always easy to see...the fading dark!

...and for better or worse signs of summer fading are becoming more evident

Signs of September start to unsettle August’s veneer

An air of fond farewell drapes summer’s beaming belvedere

In hues of misty mint and blues begins the tug of war

That draws us to conclusions we can no longer ignore

Signs of August’s slipping foothold bids us to slow our feet

And linger in the plum and gold aura of Bittersweet

Awareness of what all too swift and surely will become

An echo-dazzled wonderland of summer’s soldered sum

While gardens groan with goodness, while man and earth sheds fair youth

Where ignorance and purposed blindness cannot alter truth

Where all around us signs of seasons spin and sweep and surge

A vexing kind of vortex as the past and future merge

Signs of September sparkle in the eye of Father Time

It kindles as it swindles, a nostalgic pantomime

Of June, July and August’s darling days that soon depart

Like a harvest of diamonds tucked somewhere deep in the heart

© Janet Martin

The signs of the times are blaring!

Are we paying attention?

Matthew 24 teaches us the signs to watch for as the day of

the return of Christ draws near

Matthew 24:9-13

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, 

and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 

 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,

 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 

 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 

 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 

 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world

 as a testimony to all nations, 

and then the end will come.

Matthew Twenty-four (is knocking at the door)

Johnny Cash

 

Matthew 24 Kitty Wells

 

Matt.24:42-44

Watch therefore, for you do not know what [g]hour your Lord is coming. 

 But know this, that if the master of the house had known what [h]hour the thief would come,

 he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 

 Therefore you also be ready, 

for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

So Rather Than Lament...

Happy 58th Birthday, Jim!

(I asked him what it looks like where he is celebrating his birthday

so he sent me these sweet shots of upstate New York!)

(for non-regular visitors, he is a truck-driver)

...and since my birthday always follows a week later 

this wry look at getting older is for both of us😅💕😘

Like miles beneath your eighteen wheels the years just peel away

Sometimes it feels as if time steals a month, a week, a day

But it is futile to object or try to rearrange

This thing that nobody as yet has found a way to change

So rather than lament the swift, deft exodus of years

Let’s make the most of what is left before it disappears

…like laughing at ourselves when what once functioned starts to slip

Like dancing like we still have swagger in our one good hip

Like learning how to shuffle when our ‘gid-up’ starts to stall

While wishing for a port-a-potty halfway down the hall

And when one younger wonders at the blunders we engage

We now can laugh and blame our gaffes on good old, good old age

When the forgetter performs better than Remember does

When we become the crowd that prefers Life The Way It Was

When favor and frustration wage a telling tug of war

Futile to try to act like we are only twenty-four

So rather than lament the weathered cover of our youth

Let’s make the most of huff and puff and just admit the truth

Yes, sometimes getting up requires extra grunts and groans

The marathons we run are fetes of grand, mental milestones 

And the face in the mirror, we don’t recognize as ‘me’

Must be a rascal playing tricks on fine-tuned faculty😂

My goodness! Time’s surprises sometimes make me shake my head

The highlight of the day is when its time to go to bed

© Janet Martin

Here's to many more 'surprises' by the grace of God!

Of Glint and Fray

It is impossible 

to return

to undo 

or redo

what we would do

differently 

if given the chance

All we can do

is the best 

we can do

with what we hold

today...

This💖💖💖 (do you remember those dream-sweet play-days?)💘

Lots of little flash-back moments as the tots of today

dust off the toys of yesterday

and fill them with starry-eyed pleasures once again,

as the little hands that used to play with them are now 

juggling the demands and responsibilities

of growing up

Timeless thrills...

The beginning...

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; 

and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Eccles.1:14

The conclusion...

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:

 Fear God and keep his commandments, 

for this is the duty of all mankind.

Eccles.12:13

Ah, life the way it used to be

Gleams like a summer, sun-kissed sea

Cupped in a sigh, a memory

A vault of yesterdays

Whilst look, the dark above us dims

Like brook-song, morning’s skyline brims

A canticle of hopes-whims-hymns

Shimmers on untouched trays

…with friendship waiting to be made

With Duty’s common promenade

With Poetry’s awed escapade

With high five and low blow

With mercy and sufficient grace

With smile upon a loved one’s face

With hand to hold and dream to chase

With wonderment and woe

…with turning older, tick by tock

Yet, learning not to watch the clock

But rather where and how we walk

While Time is on our side

To try to taste full flavors of

The subtle nuances of love

And to never get quite enough

Of moments not yet tried

While dust to dust and ash to ash

Waits to reduce its starry splash

And slow the feet that dance and dash

Through childhood’s greenest green

Until they too gaze at a sea

Cupped in a sigh, a memory

Of life the way it used to be

Before the years between

Ah, life the way it used to be

Is juxtaposed with you and me

And present opportunity

To tint the glint and fray

That tunes the tide that ebbs and flows

With echo-molded mementos

That wash in pictures we compose

With what we hold today 

© Janet Martin

I Do Not Want To Grow Too Old...

blink-blink and another day is in the books!

My youngest sister hosted our annual Mom's Birthday Tea this morning!

(Photo used with her permission😀)

So, from this...

 to this one below

in a matter of a couple hours

Caramel Apple Dessert Pizza

The highlight; tasting everyone's contribution!

Every day we all have one thing in common; getting older!

I pray I may never get too old to lose the wonder of it all!

I do not want to grow too old to thrill when morning’s rose unfolds...

(or dusk's purple and gold)

I do not want to grow too old to thrill when morning’s rose unfolds

To miss the grace-kissed joy unfurled in a four-season wonder-world

And find no kind delight that sings from life’s most sweet and simple things

Or lose the spark that lights the fire that keens the flame of love’s desire

Or in seasoned consistencies walk blind to fresh discoveries

Where life’s Orchestrator instills and fills each day with miracles

I do not want to grow too old to cherish what no one can hold

But learn to love as if today was the last mile on life’s highway

And treat time’s tip-o’-hat and nod for what it is; a gift from God

That grants no guarantee but one; eternity when life is done

Thus, in this very sacred flit I want to make the most of it

To stand beneath the poetry of God and glimpse His majesty 

I do not want to grow too old to lose the sense of moment-gold

I do not want the circumstance to drown the music in the dance

But, pray each day life’s happiness begins and ends with thankfulness

Where fellowmen are fellow friends weathering whatever life sends

For we are altogether bound for that immortal common ground

And no one knows how near or far to that last steppingstone we are

I do not want to grow too old to marvel at Mercy's 'behold'

Behold the day the Lord has made, behold the debt that he has paid

Behold His everlasting love, His Word's abundant treasure trove

Behold the promises we claim if we have trusted in His name

Behold the beauty He bestows to crown life's thorns with hope's red rose

I do not want to grow too old to grow wonder one-hundred-fold

© Janet Martin

A copy of this Psalm was in one of mom's birthday cards...

I do not want the circumstance to drown the music in the dance...💖

More Than An Outer-body Workout...

It's not the color of the page we are handed

but the colors we put on the page that matters most!

Yesterday morning captivating heavens enraptured our gaze...

This morning snow-kissed furrows startle us beneath bleak grays

Beneath the loads we shoulder we grow older tick by tock

Where stepping stones and stumbling blocks mete choice and consequence

Where quest of best intention is but jest in idle talk

Like leaves strewn on the sidewalk without much significance

Beneath daybreak’s deployment spills time’s elemental fleet

A most momentous matter of moment-matter's Grand Prize

Clock-jewels fuel duels between triumph and defeat

The heavy heel of hunger warring with want’s starry eyes

The merchant and the miser, the businessman and the bard

Will never quite see eye to eye while vying nose to nose

 For one weighs wealth with dollars, the other marvels where yard

And skies run wild with wonder. Well, we need both, I suppose

What cruelty we author when spite does not miss its mark

What masters of disaster we oft are in love’s fine art

But ah, student and Teacher meet where morning melts the dark

Creator and the creature never very far apart

Beneath the loads we shoulder we grow stronger as we age

Though first glance might presume the weathered plume is turning weak

Where limbs show wear and tear and youth’s green turns to silvered sage

The strength of gentled spirits far outshines the sleek physique

Beneath the loads we shoulder we grow older, yes we do

But pray, that in the course of steppingstones and stumbling blocks

Beneath the loads we shoulder we grow wise and kinder too

And pause to note the loveliness of leaves strewn on sidewalks

© Janet Martin

Psalm 104:24
O LORD, how manifold are thy works! 

in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

By the time this post was complete the sun transformed the view...😊

Kind of like a parable because

The Son transforms bleak lives too!!

A Breath-By-Breath Ballad

Do you ever feel it:

The sweeping surge of season-song?!

The merging of moments like music-notes,

composing a breath-stealing ballad?!

The wind has been a rowdy minstrel this week,

raking a reckless, cold, wet bow across barely-Autumn strings.

Last night a hummingbird straggler took advantage of the

break in the 'music' to drink and drink to its bitty-heart's content!!

I could barely keep up with its hither-thither darting...

...a bit like hummingbird hide and seek😅

...and a main reason for planting these Cana lilies

was because they make perfect hummingbird drinking fountains!

Darkness dissolves like a sun-kissed snowflake

Beneath a beacon no bond can restrain

Seasons revolve as night falls and day breaks

Silence births leaf-song then silence again

Grinning and grieving, doubting, believing

Failing, achieving, earning battle-scars

Learning and teaching, yearning and reaching

Orbit of dreams stirs and settles the stars

Then we grow older and lend our shoulders

Like rungs on ladders for youngsters to climb

Heady with hunger and blind to the boulders

Ready to test what no one defeats; Time

Flying and falling, crying and calling

Finally crawling while learning to walk

Knees bruised and bleeding, brashness conceding

No one can hold back the hands of the clock

Autumn is always around summer’s corner

Tugging at strings tied in forget-me-nots

Heart is part dancer and partly mourner

Torn between wanting and what life allots

Laughing and weeping, waking and sleeping

Planting and reaping; some things never change

Giving and taking where living is making

Moment-mementos that moments estrange

Sometimes the soul feels like a glass-splinter

Snags in the skin of that which has no skin

Or is it a sun-sparkle where winter

Is always on the verge of closing in

Ebbing and surging, melting and merging

Dawn’s birthplace burgeoning with dusk and death

Where Time is dwindling, consuming the kindling

Seasons soft-swindling the hearth, breath by breath

Ah, can't you feel it like river-song rushing

Breath-by-breath ballad while we play our part

 In Life's Orchestra, bashful and blushing

Until the melody captures the heart

Reeling and rolling, pealing and tolling

Stealing the feeling of something amiss 

Clashing and blending, splashing and wending

Bending the minstrel of dust with God's kiss 

 

© Janet Martin

Dear Almost-Autumn...The Way I Fall In Love

The way a red and orange leaf caught our attention last night

as my friend and I strolled through her yard

The way each butterfly in flight is a sun-catcher

The way fading flowers begin to number summer days

The way sedums begin to blush...

The way September steals in then sweeps us off our feet

Is all part of the way we begin to condition our heart to embrace the art of autumn...

The way that sunshine turns translucent, wings of butterflies

The way one’s breath is stolen by September’s sanguine skies...

The way that jars snare summer after its Season is through...

Is the way, Almost-Autumn, that we fall in love with you...

The way that sunshine turns translucent, wings of butterflies

The way one’s breath is stolen by September’s sanguine skies

The way that jars snare summer after its Season is through

Is the way, Almost-Autumn, that I fall in love with you

The way farewell’s suggestions start to seep through woodland tress

The way it tweaks soul-strings still thrilled with petal-happiness

The way The Inevitable presents its points of view

Is how I start to tell my heart to fall in love with you

The way bloom’s fringe turns brittle but Beauty remains intact

The way earth’s tinge showcases established matters of fact

The way no coaxing can revoke what is constant and true

Is the way, almost-Autumn, I yield to the touch of you

The way we cannot stay the heavy hand of come and go

The way wild asters spill to hill and field like purple snow

The way time’s give and take can make a heart ache with desire

The way late day starts earlier to stoke dusk’s shadow-spire/fire

The way goldenrod lamps gleam from creekbank, fencerow and woods  

The way each milkweed plume is primed with silver parachutes

The way the air begins to wear a chill we nigh forgot 

Is the way, Almost Autumn that I can forget-you-not   

The way the world is twirled on a four-season carousel

The way we straddle tides saddled to hello and farewell

The way we start to cherish clock-shaped treasure, moment-spun

Is the way that I always fall in love with You, Autumn

Dear almost-autumn, bear with me while I learn to begin

To undo summer’s tendrils tangled somewhere ‘neath my skin

Somehow, the way you wait while I grapple with gold and blue

Becomes the way, almost-Autumn, I fall in love with you

© Janet Martin

September Skin...

Happy September Saturday!

SO much is happening to remind us

of the preciousness of Time...

Let's cherish moments with our loved ones because

we never know what a day holds!

Each morning is set free from a fresh flask of moment-dust

Then seize its opportunity and raise thy glass to Trust

The colours of the countryside have lost their lustrous sheen

The timbre of time’s telling tide shucks cornfields of lush green

Deception’s furtive favours, for a small while may appease

The heart with summer-flavours steeped in ling’ring fantasies

But cannot keep at bay for long the truth that will be told

Where September tolls welkin gong and turns the pear tree gold

…and tips yon cruet, spilling bluest awning overhead

Where sweet time as we knew it runs a sentimental thread

Through you and I as we grapple with subtle season-shifts

While comforted by apple-orchard orb’s enticing gifts

As we count down last days of summer with awed gratitude

For who can tally the vast ways of God’s goodness renewed 

Each morning is set free from a fresh flask of moment-dust

Then seize its opportunity and raise thy glass to Trust

For everyone can ill afford to pine for yester-years

But taste time’s vintage being poured, before it disappears

We have an obligation, nay, a privilege to give

To God pure adoration for each single day we live

September stokes in us an ache for Season almost spent

Where we are beholden to make the most of Mercy’s ‘lent’

And learn to love the colours that are slowly seeping in

For glove of youth and valour will soon don September skin

Where the fool mourns what once was, but the wise remain content

Time is too precious to fritter in bittersweet lament

© Janet Martin

Eccles.3:1

To everything there is a season, 

A time for every purpose under heaven:

It is also still very much canning season;

Off to make some salsa!

(I got up at 6:00 to start the canning 

but then the sun was rising 

and then a poem begged!)

And such is always the poet's quandary/dilemma

...to heed domestic duties or to poem-a 😏😊