End of 'October' Poem...

Fall fades in flying colors as lawns don leaf-decoupage

Treetops relinquish laughter, stripped of summer’s camouflage

October’s beaming lanterns dim as wicks of wood are doffed

And earth is enveloped in hymns where waning whispers waft

Wishes and wonder rival although Time is nothing new

Its struggle for survival oft surprises me and you

Where season’s changeless charter gathers in as it imparts

An echo-laden harvest that we harbour in our hearts

Autumn arranges landscapes in a sudden soulful lull

As it estranges leaf from tree in earth’s intrinsic pull

Where all of life, no matter how rife, rich or bold its claim

After its numbered days are spent returns from whence it came

Fall fades in flying colors; we feel like its next of kin

Surrendering the height of bloom for what is setting in

Where seasoned season-spenders, by merit of Mercy’s gift

Are drawing ever nearer to the Hand that heals the rift

© Janet Martin

How to Make The Most With What We Have...

 Excerpt from Ann Voskamp's FB devotion today...

 If you let something steal your thanks?
You let something steal your joy,
And if you let something steal your joy?
You let something steal your *strength.* 

"The joy of the Lord is your strength" Ps 5:11.

We give thanks to God -- not because of how we feel
but simply because of Who. He. Is.

Ann Voskamp~

This little post helped set my mind on things above, not on things of the earth this morning!

How about you? How to you manage what/who masters your mind? 

Sharing yesterday's sunrise pics because they were far more colorful than today's wet-gray...
but beyond that let's leave yesterday where it is and concentrate on today before
it is tomorrow's yesterday!

To make the most with what we have is the best we can do

We leave behind the dust of yesterday to start anew

Where seasons rise and fall like waves that surge and disappear

While we are always caught upon the crest of now and here

To make the most with what we have must begin in the mind

A powerhouse of potential, we all are thus designed

To obey thought’s persuasion; where the ruler of its roost

Inspires deed’s direction as its power is unloosed

To make the most with what we have can throw us quite a curve

Because the thoughts we entertain become the gods we serve

Thus it comes down to this; the thoughts we think are paramount

The wells from which we drink to fill its thirst none should discount

To make the most with what we have demands our uttermost

Therefore we ought to pay attention to the thoughts we host

For, what may seem contained behind a wall of skin and bones

Is that which ultimately will arrange our steppingstones

To make the most with what we have is not some trite cliché

It begins in the mind that begets all we do and say

Therefore to make the most or best is quite impossible

If we draw from a cesspool then expect a miracle

© Janet Martin

A great message on how to live victorious lives!

Fall Falls...

 Little Girl and I spent what might be the final morning under a canopy of golden-leaf...

Our trees tend to lose their leaves almost overnight in the next week or so

and with all the cold and rain in the forecast fall will fall fast!

Fall falls in frost-kissed embers decking earth with nature’s dirge

Fall falls in flutters of farewell too copious to count

Fall falls from lofty lattice in a collaborative splurge

Fall falls in flower-showers from orchard and forest fount

Fall falls in notes of music from mottled, mosaic chimes

Fall falls in little love-letters from He who gives and takes

Fall falls in benedictions layered over fading climes

Fall falls in lullabies across lost gardens spring awakes

Fall falls in wordless madrigals that steal our very breath

Fall falls in annual estrangements; bud to bloom to earth

Fall falls from heights of glory to life’s end of story, death

Fall falls into the Hand that cups a casket primed with birth

Fall falls in Beauty’s free-for-all-to-behold, bittersweet

Fall falls in golden fathoms no merchant or thief can steal

Fall falls from vaults above us to A Vault beneath our feet

Fall falls in tears where woodlands weep and wait for spring to heal

Fall falls in wonder times ten-thousand ways a leaf can waft

Fall falls and calls to mind the cherished leap of childhood’s day

Fall falls and tucks the world beneath a blanket, whisper-soft

Fall falls prey to the wind that wails and steals earth’s shawl away

Fall falls in silver sparkles from a forge beyond our reach

Fall falls in darkling shadows over autumn’s afternoon

Fall falls in shattered rainbows strewed like shards of rose and peach

Fall falls in leaf-shaped pixies that dance to the Piper’s tune

© Janet Martin

Forever and Ever, Amen

The power is His Majesty

That metes the miracle

The glory is the part we see

That makes Him visible

The kings and kingdoms of this world

Exist for numbered days

God’s power and glory unfurled

Abides with us always

Amen.

Janet Martin

 For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Matt 6:13

Ocean-Front Property Or Something Like It...

This past week left me somewhat fatigued 

so I took a Monday-afternoon sabbatical...sort of.

To 'feel' an autumn day!

I had not yet taken the time this month to read the October chapter in the book

The Shape of a Year. Below is a peek at why this book is now in my top ten favs...

There's something comforting in the counsel of a golden, olden tree!

An autumn day can make one feel as wealthy as can be

A little like home-owners of ocean-front property

With cause for celebration for what creation achieves

Where earth is like a shoreline washed with waves of wind-tossed leaves

An autumn day can make us feel like colour connoisseurs

Although, we are all always awestruck autumn amateurs

The heart can savour flavours that evade the poet’s script

And it can sense an intense Silence, smoking-ember dipped

An autumn day can make one feel free and forever young

It tugs us from to-do lists to catch salt-breeze on our tongue

Before it is too late to seize its opportunity

Pretending we are owners of ocean-front property

An autumn day can make one feel unworthy of its ways

How sacred seems the canvas whereon Season spills its trays

The brush that paints its pictures for each one of us will cease

But not before we are all part of mercy’s masterpiece

An autumn day can make one feel undaunted by its spawn

Each moment like a leaf, one of so many, here then gone

Until the afternoon is drawn across a deep blue sea

That swallows all but echoes of ocean-front property

© Janet Martin

'why ocean-front property?" queried hubby...
'because the wind through the leaves in the trees and grass sounds like
waves washing across a shore,' I replied 😊