May Melody

June happened before I had a chance to complete this May Melody 

started on Saturday...

May never turns its moments back; each hour once and done

In blush of blossom bric-a-brac

... and lilacs kissed by sun

In verdant vistas, velvet green ‘neath vivid, welkin eaves...

In granting planting season, as earth bursts with birth of leaves

And dandelion-dazzle, luring eyes and feet to pause...

Where soon each mane is frazzled into orbs of silver gauze...

May plays its precious pleasures once; of brief, half-leaf festoons...

Of gardens, where glad children bounce like colourful balloons...

Thrilling to feel spring’s awe-filled, fresh-tilled soil...

...between their toes

May grants a dance of joy to joy, tulips and daffodils...

Like regal harbingers deploying fleets of petal-frills

A virtual kaleidoscope of ever-shifting hues...

May never turns its moments back; each hour once and done

In blush of blossom bric-a-brac and lilacs kissed by sun

In verdant vistas, velvet green ‘neath vivid, welkin eaves

In granting planting season, as earth bursts with birth of leaves

And dandelion-dazzle, luring eyes and feet to pause

Where soon each mane is frazzled into orbs of silver gauze

May plays its precious pleasures once; of brief, half-leaf festoons

Of gardens, where glad children bounce like colourful balloons

Thrilling to feel spring’s awe-filled, fresh-tilled soil between their toes

Eager to learn the law of seeds; how ‘one reaps what one sows’

How harvest’s sacred imminence bids us to plant with zeal

Where soon the thief of innocence will bite the carefree heel

May grants a dance of joy to joy, tulips and daffodils

Like regal harbingers deploying fleets of petal-frills

A virtual kaleidoscope of ever-shifting hues

Nature rallies with hymns of hope no skeptic can confuse

Or boast or claim credit or laud for glories on display

Where only a fool denies God, especially in May

May makes us glad to be alive in spite of sorrow's knife

That somehow keens an urgent drive to grow a lovely life 

Because each moment is a gift we hold but cannot keep

And life is too transient to drift through flowers, half-asleep 

Where opportunity abounds in plots we ought not shirk

To plant a seed that soon confounds us with God's handiwork 

© Janet Martin

and last but not least, 

celebrating June with the first fresh from the garden 

simple supper salad of the season! 

Ephemeral and Eternal or The Briefness Of It All

May is flying by in a flurry of hellos and farewells

and smiles and tears...

and much to do!! 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence ...

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; 

How gray-gold-greenly moments spill and meld to Nevermore

Today's gush of gossamer twill so briefly held before 

Ephemeral and eternal, are deftly intertwined

Tangible to intangible as echoes strew behind 

Life's dues of give and take weave so much more than meets the eye

Love's hues sparkle and ache and grin and groan with my-oh-my 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence 

How surely choices lilt and swirl, unfurling Consequence 

Ephemeral and eternal, Time's subtle shuttle hums

As both brutal and beautiful to Bygone's cast succumbs

As morn, moment by moment weds with yester-scapes of death 

As God's unfailing purpose threads through every gifted breath

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; while moments spill and meld

Weaving with wisps that flare and dim, a lifetime briefly held 

Ephemeral and eternal, where no two days the same

Tune flurries of hello-farewell no one can curb or tame

Leaving so much to ponder with each season rise and fall 

As smiles and tears grow fonder with the Briefness of it all

Janet Martin

Farewell's Shadowlands

Oh, the undeterred momentum of moments no one can faze

It sparkles through our bearing to a world of yesterdays

It vexes rhyme-dazed poets and Duty's proprietors

As it hastens new morning through noon and dusk's gaping doors

Where, in the wake of choices that we make in its brief chase/grace

Remains the part that never stays yet no one can erase...

The above ditty was suddenly inspired from part of a 

conversation with Hubby this morning, who called

in the beginning/middle of the poem below,

begun after starting the fire, morning devotions

between putting supper in the crockpot,

filling empty bird feeders,

answering messages, texts and emails,

and other sundry domestic dues,

 while trying not to panic as

 I gaped at the clock that boldly declared

that the topic I began writing about

(daybreak's hello) in the waking hues of today

has long since ceased to be...

already part of farewell's shadowland!

but, in the afore mentioned conversation 

Hubby asked me if I ever think of everything

I could accomplish if I didn't write.

I guess none of us can see the hidden 'scale' within,

 where we weigh (hopefully) the eternal value of how we fill

fleeting moments!

Oh, how often I am torn between lyrical cadence

and domestic prudence 😔😅

...because what we do is so brief

yet so eternal!

Dawn, like an unplumbed well of ink

Unstoppers gold-gray, blue and pink

The tranquil tides of night soft-wane

Unveiling berths of mirth and pain

Beneath the tolling of a bell

Unfurling shadows of farewell

The halo of hello is brief

Harbinger of pleasure and grief

Like ripples of a pebble tossed

Dawn disappears; its advent lost

In hues and dues that rose then fell

To fuel shadows of farewell

How subtle spills life’s epitaph

A world where echoes weep and laugh

Composed from the momentous surge

Where daybreak and hello soon merge

Like melted mist, intangible

With long, deep shadows of farewell

Present, where past and future meet

Beckons reckonings, bittersweet

How careful-prayerful we should weigh

Think-ink, that fuels do-and-say

Soft spilling from our lips and hands

To dwell in farewell's shadowlands  

© Janet Martin

Ps. 121

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

2 My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not allow your foot to [a]be moved;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

4 Behold, He who keeps Israel

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your [b]keeper;

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall [c]preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve[d] your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even forevermore.

A Beautiful Life-Jim Reeves

Take a (Humbler) Moment...

Yesterday we celebrated our sweet Victoria's 24th Birthday

Every celebration (esp. since Sept. 17) is raw with humbler awareness 

of life's uncertainty/vulnerability...

My sister Lucy's husband and daughter were a special part

of the celebration; unspoken sorrow tuning our laughter

with kinder joy...

It is with unspeakable tenderness that we treasure the halo of faces

around a dinner table! 

 

(I'm not sure why the beginning and end of 

the song is cut off) oh, well...

***

Ah, take a moment, drink it in; the clime of Time is hasting

Its dawn-to-dusk designed to win the present we are tasting

Where nothing stays the same for long; each season, farewell-smitten

While deathless lyrics to Our Song of Life are being written

Sometimes, while in the bloom of love eyes close, never to waken

The loom that weaves The Mortal Glove, by God given and taken

Then, take a moment more to treasure the halo of faces

Around the table; prize love’s pleasure nothing else replaces

Behold the bud of virgin morn, like a flower unfolding

Where soon the bloom of it is borne to Bygone’s holy holding

Each bud a little like a door that God opens and closes

So, take a humbler moment more to thank Him for life’s roses

For no one knows the day nor hour He will bend without pardon

To pluck another precious flow’r from this world’s wanting garden

Then, drink with mindful regard from a fount filled by life’s Giver

With Ink of Moments that become Our Song of Life forever

Janet Martin

Acts 1:7

Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know times or seasons

that the Father has fixed by His own authority

( our community is in deep mourning once again;

last week a young husband and father of five,

lost his life in a tragic accident).

Behold the bud of virgin morn, like a flower unfolding

Where soon the bloom of it is borne to Bygone’s holy holding

Each bud a little like a door that God opens and closes

So, take a humbler moment more to thank Him for life’s roses...

Paramount Appraisal...

Phil.2:3-4

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride,

 but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. 

4Each of you should look not only to your own interests,

 but also to the interests of others...

'Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, 

do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.' 

Matt.7:12

Galatians 6:2
Carry one another’s burdens, 

and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. 

Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

A new day scales earth's eastward edge 

Worlds reappear to sight

As God maintains His ancient pledge 

Of seasons, day and night...

***

What are you up to today?

I am only doing childcare one day a week right now

and that day is Wednesdays

so I am enjoying the company of two

eager, affectionate and energetic little boys...

Ah, what we do with where we are and what we have, my dear

Is of far more Importance than at brief glance, may appear

Where train of thought (and sometimes not) turns into words and deeds

And what we say and do turns into potent, scattered seeds

Then, when the sum of it takes root and the shoot is full grown

We bear witness to steadfast truth, 'by fruit the tree is known’

Ah, what we do with here and now is how lifetimes accrue

No turning back, no leaping over present moment’s due

Where no one is forgotten, or of insignificance

No matter who or where we are, action bears consequence

So then, what matters most (because we all will give account)

Is what we do with what brims from time’s invisible fount

Ah, what we do with what may seem to deftly disappear

Is worth a second look because of what remains, my dear

From God’s goodness and mercy, morn’s fresh opportunity

And if we ask, He helps us who-wherever we may be

To do our best with what we have, not what we wish we had

This is the day the Lord has made to rejoice and be glad

…and recognize the value of a Prize we press toward

Where the fruit of the tree effects recompense of reward

For, what we do with what we have will verily become

Something we ought not to ignore; a lifetime’s sacred sum

Does this not stir humbler regard for what we have, before

Life's fruit is gathered into baskets of Forevermore….

© Janet Martin

Every Moment Holy...

This poem was inspired by the title of the book below,

given to me by some dear friends following the loss of my beloved sister Lucy.

It is filled with profound and comforting liturgies of

faith and encouragement 

This is not some hum-drum duty drawn to vex man’s days with strife

Nor simply four-season-beauty doomed to earth’s titanic urn...

This is more than days tugged slowly from the wounds of love and life

This is every moment holy laden with so much to learn...

This is not some hum-drum duty drawn to vex man’s days with strife

Nor simply four-season-beauty doomed to earth’s titanic urn

This is more than days tugged slowly from the wounds of love and life

This is every moment holy laden with so much to learn

This is more than lilt of hours, bent with what no one can snare

Or a door to Bygone’s bowers that no squire can bolt or bar

More than both lofty and lowly, climbing Time’s ethereal stair

This is every moment holy, no matter who-where we are

This is more than Yore’s momentum tripping through rooms of the heart

More than dust-to-dust’s decorum or satire’s mean comedy

More than skin-graft sagging slowly on frames fated from the start

This is every moment holy like notes in life’s symphony

Every moment mercy-measured, sparkling from a fount of grace

Every-moment to be treasured like a jewel of great worth

Every moment like a flicker on a wick we cannot trace

Or like tincture in a picture, we cannot behold on earth

This is more than hope grope-groping at straws of positive thought

Or Destiny’s downward sloping to be swallowed up by sod

This is more than laughter, lament, more than favors trouble-fraught

Holy, holy, every moment drawing mortal back to God

© Janet Martin

Psalm 144:4
Man is like a breath; 

his days are like a passing shadow.

Psalm 39:5
You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, 

and my lifetime as nothing before You. 

Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath.

 Selah

1 Peter 1:24
For, “All flesh is like grass, 

and all its glory like the flowers of the field;

 the grass withers and the flowers fall,

Moments Are Such Momentous Spheres...

It seems like a flicker; of moments that composed three decades 💖

We celebrated our second daughter's 30th birthday yesterday.

A little late, like most of our birthday celebrations this year!

Happy 30th Birthday, Melissa

Moments spill-sparkle from a fount

We cannot visualize

Like stars too copious to count

They glint in loved one’s eyes...

there's someone 'hidden' in the above photo...guess who??

clue in the photo below 😂😂

We missed Victoria who was enjoying a camping weekend with friends💛 

Moments are such momentous spheres

Erecting in their wake

An ever/echo-world of smiles and tears

From loving’s give and take

And, looking back from where we stand

They steal our breath a bit

For, one moment may not seem grand

But together they fit

To fill a frame shaped like a heart

Into a stunning work of art

Moments make people grin and groan

While winnowing life’s flow’r

Soul’s promenade of skin and bone

Time’s sweep of sun and show’r

Melding the pigment of today

With pictures of the past

Ah, soon the place where children play

Seems like a shadow, cast

Across a sense of rooms bereft

Of laughter after guests have left

Moments spill-sparkle from a fount

We cannot visualize

Like stars too copious to count

They glint in loved one’s eyes

They melt, like snowflakes on our tongue

They drive the dreams of youth

Then startle us, so briefly young

With time’s incumbent truth

And as we gaze at their return

They blaze trails of still much-to-learn

…like never passing up the chance

To live love’s masterpiece

Like cherishing the charge God grants

In each momentous lease

Aware of the fleet nature of

Gain and loss synchronized

As moments fill a phantom trove

With treasure barely prized

Before it bore bittersweet awe

For love and life’s momentous law

My dear, before Time disappears

Let’s make the most of love

Moments are such momentous spheres

Quite large and small enough

To unfold opportunity

And mold and hold reply

No matter what the case may be

Moments slip subtly by

Erecting an eternal wake

Of love’s momentous give and take

Futile to entertain regret

My dear, new day is born

A maelstrom of momentous ‘yet’

Dazzles the dewy morn

Crowning the mist of moments spent

With dawn’s redeeming spree

And fresh meter of moments lent

To compose history

Let’s strive to honor He who grants

Today’s moment-ous song and dance

© Janet Martin

Futile to entertain regret

My dear, new day is born

A maelstrom of momentous ‘yet’

Dazzles the dewy morn...

Lam.3:22-33

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,

to the one who seeks him;

26 it is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the Lord.

27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke

while he is young.

28 Let him sit alone in silence,

for the Lord has laid it on him.

29 Let him bury his face in the dust—

there may yet be hope.

30 Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him,

and let him be filled with disgrace.

31 For no one is cast off

by the Lord forever.

32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,

so great is his unfailing love.

33 For he does not willingly bring affliction

or grief to anyone...