Melissa, Katrina...and all other daughters of other mothers who pray...

They come and go,

And oh, they know

Wherever they may be

Their mother’s prayers

Like heaven-stairs

Surround them tenderly

Untried Knowledge

Meets ‘life’s college’

Need tames wanderlust

While daughters learn

And mothers yearn

And learn too, about trust

…and so they pray

‘Lord, be their Stay

Their keened and Constant Truth

While Independence

Is more important

Than mother’s homemade soup

© Janet Martin

Praying this morning for my daughter Melissa, my sister's daughter Katrina and all other daughters who are learning some 'tougher grinds' of independence...

(these prayers do not exclude sons!) Aren't you thankful that God can take care of what we can't?

The Rain

This is the 4th rainy Tuesday in a row! Galoshes, anyone?

It slips like a summer-soft love-song to us

It drips from leaf-tips in silver-lisped chorus

It rolls, a cajoling love-note, splish-a-splash

It trickles and tickles each petal and sash

It patters; a tempo of tiptoe feet fly

It splatters like tears falling from heaven’s eye

It chatters in monotone regale, drip-drop

And pours from a storehouse bereft of its top

It spills, washes hills, meadows, woodland and panes

It chuckles in puddles and giggles down lanes

It sighs in the street beneath tires that hiss

It renders to each up-turned bloom-face, a kiss

It plays its percussion from bands without shape

On every surface of land and sea-scape

It washes the world in sky-rivers unfurled

Then rests in the nests of flower-cups uncurled

It dallies then sallies in its downward race

To nurture earth-gardens in rivers of grace

It weeps from the lintel, and sweeps over plain

And slips like a summer-soft love-song; the rain 

© Janet Martin

Wandering Through Word-gardens...

Thought touches suggestion

Then feels the fabric of

This frond and that

To find exact

-ly the right one to love

Thought, like a savvy shopper

Scans vowels and consonants

Until it finds

The perfect blend

Of syllable-romance

A slip of silk, my darling

A rush of raw appeal

A sob, a sigh,

A sweep of sky

-high lavender and teal

A tip-toe tango, fox-trot

A hold-me-close-slow-dance

A riveting,

Breath-pivoting

Farewell or second chance

Thought does not tally moments

As they spill into hours

For oh, the poets knows

A rose

Must bud before it flow’rs

© Janet Martin

Reflections on Reflections

 

For all we tout and spout and shout

With devout and bold nerve

Our lives are a quiet reflection

Of the God we serve...

***

Not what we say

But what we do

Reflects what we

Love most, or who...

***

Where people are hungry 

and dying

and poor 

with never enough

of anything

God calls us

To light 

Life's hope

With humble,

Holy

Reflections of Him

*** 

As we reflect on all that 

God

gave on love's cross for us

It spurs the heart to seek new ways

To love-live

For Jesus!

***

I blush.

The truth is hard

And not

Disguised 

Too prettily

as I reflect on my motives

I see

Too much of

....

me...

Janet~

All I Need

 

So much that I could ask for, Lord,

As this new day spills from above

But, as I weigh my wants and pleas

All I need is

A Heart of Love 

Things cannot fill or satisfy

And they will never be enough

Lord, make me hunger, teach me how

To want for naught

But, Heart of Love

© Janet Martin

Plans Today?

In this edition of Today

Where its first mist-wrap falls away

We scan our planned perhapses; they

Are juxtaposed with come-what-may

Life’s come-what-may can interfere

With plans; our hope and-dreamland sphere

Alongside spoils of Now and Here

Where ever Unknown hovers near

But nearer still than all of this

Those bits in place, those scads amiss

A True And All-Loving God is

Caretaker of each moment-kiss

In this edition of Today

Where soon it first-wrap falls away

We trust each dust-must-come-what-may

To God who hears us as we pray

© Janet Martin

I plan to take lunch to hubby's mom today...I plan to try a new recipe which I plan to share if it turns out, but plans are ever subject to If... if the Lord wills then we will do this or that.