Who Knows What An Hour Brings?

Swift the seamless tide of seasons

Ordained order of the earth

Falls prey to the interchanging

Changeless laws of death and birth

What is old and what is newness

Falls through fingers, ne’er held fast

Vexing us in the awareness

Of ever-impending Past

No permission sought, or pardon

Time tries green-leaf innocence

Where earth, planted like a garden

Startles us with its advance

Learning hello and good-bye, love

Fills and hollows human hearts

Tomorrow and yesterday, love

Are always Today apart

Touch Today with sacred fervor

Where the stream of seasons sings

Both hello and good-by hover

Who knows what an hour brings?

© Janet Martin

I held my uncle's hand and words failed both of us...for the hour of his wife's departure had come far more quickly than expected and such sorrow is shared without words...

Ah, Summer

 

We celebrated Father's Day and the first day of summer at the Toronto Bluejay's game. It was a fun game to watch...lots of hits and runs!

Baltimore Orioles (36-33)

13

Toronto Blue Jays (37-34)

9

Recap - Box Score - More Highlights

Summer rolls out her green carpet

For Guests at an informal ball

Sprawled beneath a blue umbrella

Topping earth’s bloom-and-belle hall

Summer uncurls yellow laughter

Anticipation is a girl

Giggling her way through each chapter

Where bloom-and-belle hellos unfurl

Summer becomes her; the ribbons

Of breeze through tree-tops waft noon-soft

Teasing hours and flowers grinning

With bloom-belles that once snowflakes quaffed

Summer, earth’s reply to winter

Summer, earth’s song to the soul

Summer, the dreamer’s forever

Summer, a love-letter world

© Janet Martin

To the Lordship of Eternity

Sometimes, my lord, we tremble at the very thought of Thence

And how the vow of things to come will not keep us apart

Somewhere beyond this pond of sky-blue-eyed indifference

You wait, Formless Supremacy, to quell the human heart

…and what is man against the span of Unfathomable?

You hover, covering the imminence of what will be

With what Is; and sometimes Time’s teeny tick and tock can lull

Us to complacency, distracted by mortality

The Great Debaters challenge you; you never say a word

Your existence no one can prove, yet everyone must guess

At your vastness; some jeer at fear of you, still undeterred

You loom; we groom thought-images of baffled emptiness

My Lord, the loudness of Today cannot shut out for long

Death’s silence and Hereafter where life’s laughter and its tears

Inevitably lead to you; the On and On and On

Of ten thousand years but a day; a day ten-thousand years

© Janet Martin

What Then, My Love, What Then? (a question of utmost importance!)

Internet is too slow for pics;(

When all the days that we have known are melted into Yore

And Past is that Last steppingstone into Forevermore

When all the summer-longs are gone and all the winters thrust,

Pray tell, what then, when sons of men lay down this garb of dust?

When we join death’s begotten where forgotten ages roll

And all that yet remains of us is our undying soul

And even those who once loved us lie as we in That When

Of on and on and on and on, pray tell, my love, what then?

When all we deem important falls like soiled and crumpled socks

And nothing that we do can woo the etiquette of clocks

When Choice has sealed its freedom and The Voice from Heaven hails

As grace resigns its sympathy and Mercy seals its grails

...what then, my love, what then, when that last, Awesome Exhale bows?

When Repentance or Unbelief acquaints us with our vows

Will that last breath called Death unveil for us Heaven or Hell?

And if we think we will escape, what then, my love, pray tell?

© Janet Martin

Pay Attention to Salvation

…For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.

 Heb. 2:2-4

Do you know Jesus?

 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12