Heaven's Hallelujah Hymn

‘Neath the baton of His Lordship

Chords of coral glory flare

Drawing weariness to worship

He whose wonder wows our stare

Hark, what striking composition

Spills to hills and rills of sod

Time, caught in sacred transition

Hails the majesty of God

Violet and copper vibrato

Melts from violins rose-gold

Sight is bright when glimpsing God, oh

We bow, awed on hope’s threshold

Flawless harmonies; dusk’s chorus

Builds in body ethereal

Soulful symphony immerses

Heaven and earth in its swell

Hearts and heights are set a-fire

Twilight’s Hallelujah Hymn

Transfixes eyes to God’s choir

Until the last note grows dim

© Janet Martin

The above photos were westward...

Below is Northward, Eastward, South-eastward and Southward!

Beyond Progress...

 Last week I didn't get a chance to write a 'progress' wikem. 

Did you know that progress has not progressed to the point that it can explain itself to wikipedia?:-)

it suggests that it may refer to ' the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc  .wikipedia

Progress threatens to mess with the things that matter

But it cannot

Touch the sun on its way to high-noon as shutters

Of day unlock

Progress torments nature but cannot quell

Burgeoning bud

Where Spring will fill bared bowers with flower-shower-
Praises to God

Progress plans, but is powerless to improve

Foundations laid

All it accomplishes cannot be done without

What God first made

...and progress with earthy exclamation cries,

'look what we did!'

While the sun rises and sets, replenishing skies

Above its grid

What God first made, progress cannot better

Or usurp, no

In spite of countless conveniences, it can never

Steal heaven's show

© Janet Martin

I don't know how often I've said, 'I'm glad we cannot mess with the sky'!

Sunrise or Sunset?

We are studying transition words in our writer’s group. Our assignment is to write a short opinion essay (no more than 400 words) on a topic from a list of suggestions or from a question we choose. I selected from the list this question; which is more beautiful, sunrise or sunset?

 Sunrise?

or, sunset?

 

 

Sunsets have drawn me to my knees

then silenced inept, stuttering syllables,

attempting to spill salutation in praise.

Also, sunsets have stolen my breath;

splendor-cuffing my soul to the air where nothing tangible is

yet HE IS transcends all.

Furthermore, sunsets have reminded me,

in spite of man’s stumbles and fumbles,

still God renders His glory

in glimpses

to sojourners of sin-cursed sod.

However,

something about a sun-rise stirs in me

an even greater sense of awe.

Sunsets signify ending

while sunrises proclaim beginning.

Our track-record of centuries

is proof of proneness to folly,

but God who is rich in mercy

rends the dark with Light,

choosing shades beyond our comprehension.

Indeed, He delights

to remind us who He is

on a canvas only the blind can ignore.

In fact, He has promised

His compassions are new every morning

so as I gaze at a sunrise, unlike a sunset,

I marvel that He has seen fit

to bless errant mankind

with another day of grace.

Clearly, we are undeserving,

yet He colors the skies for the just and the unjust,

(just) as he makes rain to fall on the good and evil,

for this is not judgment day

but the day of grace.

On the other hand, a day is coming

when we will have witnessed our final sunrise.

Indeed, it is imminent

for every life is as grass and does not stand long

but withers and dies.

Therefore we ought to give earnest heed

to the things which we have heard.

Also, if we have not done so

we must

make our calling and election sure

because the same hand that gilds the morning sky

is a consuming fire.

Nevertheless, He has provided

through Christ’s shed blood on Calvary,

Hope and redemption

for one and all

and though there is none righteous,

no, not one,

also no one is exempt from His forgiveness and grace.

Moreover, each morning as the sun rises

He affirms that He is not ready to close the door

to His ark of safety forevermore

so,  thus I am awed even more deeply at a sunrise;

not because of its colors

but because God extends His grace

for another day.

© Janet Martin

Twilight Rhapsody

 

Beneath his moody murmur and caress

Softly she comes surrendering her lilt

Of azure glance and golden sun-flecked dress

To lie where cobalt shadow-song is spilt

All day he waited as her overture

Wove mystery to history; but now

He drapes his crushing longing over her

And smooths life’s ruthless laugh-lines from her brow

Out past the fields where tree-tops touch the sky

The vesper croons its burnished lullaby

The wheel from which her gossamer is spun

Replenishes its thread with somber hues

The filament of moments in the sun

Deepens to shrouds of midnight-tinted blues

Yet, he does not excuse his solemn trance

But softly wraps her in his muted hush

He gathers her into a gentle dance

Kissing her wantonness; horizons blush

As on the fringe of yesterday and dawn

A molten glow erupts; then it is gone

Beneath the vault where love and life unfold

She lays aside her tattered, tear-stained gown

Relinquishing her being to his hold

How tenderly he watches her lie down

The hour of her gallantries subside

Within the candor of his raw embrace

Somewhere the fringe of earth and sky collide

But darkness spills its sigh across her face

And now against his brawny chest she sleeps

He strums the air as star-song fills the deeps

© Janet Martin

Awesome Artist

He sweeps a dripping brush across the sky

Soundless, beyond the silhouette of trees

The artist spills celestial ecstasies

 Of pink and coral blush, translucent dye

Perplexities and pining ease their grip
 With gentle strokes in heaven-hallowed calm

He feather’s harsher edges with his palm

Beneath twilight’s tender companion-ship

In benediction of purple and blue
 The artist dips his brush into a wash

And flings into the hush a starry sash

Daubing the vivid sky-line from our view

Painter of heaven’s ceaseless canopy

Cool darkness snuffs the burnished tree-lined slope

The Artist fills the endless sky with hope

 In master-pieces of His majesty

...and in the tender twilight growing dim
The Artist reveals but whispers of Him

© Janet Martin

 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalms 19:1

(approx. an hour before the sun set I looked up to notice a strange rain-bow tinted blitz in the sky.)

 

On This Evening's Eve

On this evening’s eve

The aural scrim descends

In sable folds; it weaves

The moments, gold

To dim, then deeper blends

Purple sweeping shadows

Like painted turrets sprawl

Across the land; the meadow

A stadium where

We watch night’s curtain fall

It tugs in motionless motion

The beauty and brutality

Of this day’s lot; an ocean

Of pure grandeur

Seals its jot in history

Alpha and Omega draws

The shade; it is dark

And day is done

But only day; His love and grace

Go on

And on

And on

And on…

© Janet Martin

I took my daughter and her friend out to a field a few miles from here to watch the sun set. Victoria said that she is going to name that field Sunset Stadium. I LOVE it!:) And all that great open sky, and all that wild wonder and all that awesome creation is a mere 'whisper of Him'  ...a mere speck of His glory and grace! Hallelujah.

The girls wanted the 'best seat in the House'...

Stuttered Praise

...and it just kept on shifting; frame after gorgeous frame!




The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge
  They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,     
their words to the ends of the world. Psalms 19:1-4

You receive our humble, heartfelt stammers

In our fumbles you fill in the blanks

Your Holiness embracing murmured thanks

Rising o’er the din of carnal clamors

You whisper to us from the gleaming Gate

As daylight folds beneath heaven’s command

Your glory tints the molten, mystic strand

Spanning the void twixt ‘welcome home’ and ‘wait’

Hatred and fear’s projections cannot mar

The portal where the feet of angels tread

The aftermath of daylight rests its head

Upon the Hand that lights the evening star

We stand upon earth’s shore; as stuttered prayer

Scales the unfathomed reaches of the air

© Janet Martin

The sunset tonight left me speechless with awe…

Any attempts at word; mere stammering ineptness.

All I could whisper was, “Oh God, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you”

The sunset was a sort of an almost circle north-west-south and partial east!..I had NEVER seen anything quite like it!

Lord Most High

Her Departure

(oops, I need to change the time on my camera ! no, I did not see tomorrow's sunset today:)

Beyond the trees she fell

A flaming crimson orb

Into the mystic swell

Of history's never-more

No farewell did she speak

But simply flung her shroud

Against the higher peak

And to the lower cloud

We watch in quiet awe

Her riveting descent

As night-shades softly draw

Across earth’s humble tent

© Janet Martin

Alliterations

But of course, I say as you suavely saunter through

the sunset slope of the sky. And I hear languid lyrics

of sensuous sorrow color your silent good-by. Blue.

Time is an alluring artist yet raw and ruthless in its rendering.

The exterior of mouthed, minute moments is nothing now

but a sallow silhouette surrendering its virile vaunts to my futile follies.

Still, I find myself peering passionately,
piteously within them so I will not forget

the lambent, lilting laughter of your cerulean swoon;

the dazzling depths of your azure afternoon after tangerine,

twilight tresses etch your eternal echo into the eager embrace

of burnished breezes caressing the deepening darkness  

obliterating your fancied, flawless face

J~

The Sunday Whirl #74

From the thirteen words, choose one word to use as a part of your title. That word becomes your “theme” for your wordle.
Using the “other” twelve words, craft your wordle poem.

Walt, my attempt at alliteration and internal rhyme is for you:) Thank-you for your 'coaching'...and I hope you can read it without cringing.

I Come Out Here to Listen...

I come out here to listen

To the sky-line lullaby

To hear its vesper glisten

On the deep end of good-by

The Maestro of this orchestra

The Hand that tunes its choir

Composes twilight’s masterpiece

In chords of holy fire

Above this troubled clod of dirt

With all its torn devotion

He calms our visages of hurt

With heaven’s flaming ocean

I come out here to listen

To love’s soulful solitude

As it melts upon the evening

In a tender-whelming flood

The bumps and scrapes of living

Are predictable and plain

But the overtures of heaven

Who can imitate its strain?

I come out here to listen

To His hallowed vespers swell

As I hear Him softly whisper,

It is well, it is well

© Janet Martin

Belated Sunday Whirl

In rose dusk a fence of etched trees lace

the painted air; nature’s charcoal pencil-trace

against a canvas where brief moments link

to form a chain of laughter, sorrow, strife

of forgiving and being forgiven; this is life

Now darkness obliterates dusk’s sky-line art

The hour is empty but for the aching of my heart

clasping life’s essentials within its grope

for the operator of Time’s wheel cannot steal

fond memories; life’s recipe for hope

© Janet Martin

The Sunday Whirl # 71

The Shape of a Memory

Don’t forget me, he said,

And he slipped away

As God laid a satin spread

Across the sky to close the day

Coral-pink and amber-gold,

The ocean in her eye

Is more than firm resolve can hold

While he whispers good-by

A thousand moments blend and blur

Then slip beyond life’s reach

She wonders, does he think of her

On thought’s elusive beach

Don’t forget me, his farewell plea

Whispers in her ear

She holds the shape of memory

Within her smile; her tear

© Janet Martin

This poem's inspiration is due in part to an awesome sunset tonight and watching Ann of Green Gables in the continuing story.