Tracing Tempests

The ragged fringes of the heart are like a battered shore

But oh, the tender treasure cradled where tempests implore

As moment-gems of days gone by render a brooding gleam

To diadems of memory’s indelible requiem

For we can never sever from time’s merciless rampart

The pattern of love’s whispers in the fragments of the heart

The hand of time doles out its share of hellos and good-byes

Meek mourners congregate; somewhere a new-born baby cries

Ah, life and death; none can escape its ordained certainty

Our final breath is but the gate to vast eternity

The feathered brush of finger-tips and lips extend their touch

Within the rush of rising tides and sinking ships and such

Darling, sometimes I hide behind the skin that shapes my face

Where love is strung; silver sequins on echoes I embrace

For utter grief and joy are imbued by a tear's caress

An uncharted alloy of bitter-sweetest tenderness

Evoking in keen, sudden half-breath, a tsunami force

Yet delicate awareness of Time’s ethereal discourse

Time is nothing but moments melding one into the next

The past an unveiled eon of hope’s imminent pretext

For now the tune that spawns our laughter falls into the deep

Of ageless ever-after; unmarked graves where moments sleep

As hearts with ragged fringes bear its onslaught valiantly

A gate of mystic hinges opens and shuts soundlessly

© Janet Martin

The Light

No one can turn on the dark on a whim

Darkness evolves as light grows dim

Light overcomes darkness as dawn fades the night

And darkness can never extinguish the Light

Take heart fellow pilgrim, this journey through life

Will take us through valleys of turmoil and strife

While doom-criers wail ‘it is dark’, we fight

For darkness will never extinguish the Light

© Janet Martin

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Gen1:1-3

The Word of God begins with Light!

The Morning Comes...

The darkness blots beneath its reach

Earth’s swell of pasture, hill and beach

The field that bears each season-sweep

Fades out into ebony deep

The pallid moon, a soundless wraith

Above charcoal landscapes of faith

And though the darkness steals our sight

Though faith alone must be our light

We know, in spite of what we see

No night is for eternity

And just beyond this onyx scope

Glimmers the morning-tide of hope

Even the void of darkest dark

Is pierced by nothing but a spark

And by and by the blackest hour

Softens beneath a keener power

Of mercy whispers; night succumbs

To heaven’s rule; the morning comes

© Janet Martin

The morning comes

No night remains

The Light of faith

Succors, sustains

And by and by

Shalom, shalom

We lift our eyes

The morning comes…

 They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the LORD. They were to do the same in the evening 1 Chron. 23:30

Live Gently...

The first shoots, fresh and green

Are fragile, delicate

We must treat them with gentle care

Lest in our haste they break

Speak gently to the child

That in life’s road we meet

Lest thoughtlessly we wound the heart

So young and pure and sweet

Live gently, do not run

This race with frantic rush

For then we may not turn to see

The tender souls we crush

Hold gently to the hand

Of love, for who can tell

When the last drop of moment-song

Will whisper Time’s farewell?

© Janet Martin

image source

We are eagerly a-waiting those first shoots of spring!

Of Impossibilities

It is impossible

To love

And hold a grudge

Simultaneously

***

It is impossible

To trust and fear

Simultaneously

***

It is impossible

To serve self

And God

Simultaneously

***

It is impossible

To be happy

Without thankfulness

***

It is impossible

To be unhappy

With thankfulness

***

It is impossible

To give our best

While harboring guilt

***

It is impossible

To glorify God

While seeking personal gain

***

It is impossible

To dislike

Sleeping children

It is impossible

To teach

Simply by speech

***

It is impossible

To have friends

Without being a friend

***

It is impossible

To rejoice with those who rejoice

While jealous

***

It is impossible

To live a godly life

And a selfish one

***

It is impossible

To enter Heaven

But by the grace of God

© Janet Martin

We cannot escape
the awesome wonder
of God in this world!
It is impossible.
~Adrian Rogers~

March Wind-song

Above the crypt of Time’s lament

The March wind moans in discontent

Its discourse fingering the limb

Of nature’s stricken diadem

Where soon its dormancy will swell

And fill the void of winter’s knell

Moments startle then pass, benign

Shaping the earth's horizon-line

To seasons where softly we brave

Its rendering, before our grave

Is decked with rose-and-wreath-caress

Tuning the March wind’s wantonness

The shroud of life’s unknowns evoke

Within the heart a tender cloak

Of courage, hope; for what are we

But whispers of mortality

Before we take our place among

The notes composing March wind’s song

© Janet Martin

Today its gray song wanders the gray landscape, threatening to spill in gray snow-tears.

Friday Thoughts

 

It’s Friday

And with the laundry

We fold another week

To our breast

Where soon its cup of

Laughter, loving

And trifling toil will rest

It’s Friday

Another week of memories

Gathers where

We linger to finger

Its brush-strokes on the air

Knowing in our heart

Rests living’s most priceless art

It’s Friday

And the beauty

Of what was, rivals

With the hope

Of what is to be

Before another Friday comes

To take its place

In history

© Janet Martin

Image Source

Good or bad

Happy or sad

Soon this day will be

A memory

I'm writing this midst chatting with my older two daughters as we wake up over coffee (a sweet moment because we almost never get up at the same time:)

...also, here's to hoping today’s memories will include the kids helping me clean;)) We’ve all had lots of fun this March break week, now it’s time for some good, down-to-earth living.OXOX.

Dear hubby, someday these past few weeks will be nothing but ‘in those years when I had that truck…It’s been a truck/year of high frustration and financial strain for him and the company he works for!

Anticipation...

 

Good-night…

then soon the dawn

will fill my mouth

with dark-roast Colombian sunshine

from the south

Janet Martin

Can’t wait!

Midnight Peace

 

Beneath the star-frothed sky

I feel so very small

And yet it seems I touch

The Hand that made it all

The vastness of its scope

Is but a glimpse of grace

It fills my heart with hope

As I feel Love’s embrace

Beneath ebony deep

I am but a dot

What peace to know that He

Knows all that I do not

© Janet Martin

Beyond Horizons~

There are no horizons in love, my dear

Though moments tumble from Time’s finger-tips

Teasing an hour into a day, then a year

I yearn only for you; your lips

Plead to me across miles beyond

These walls where staid clocks mark

The narrowing span of what is to come

Darling, I reach for you in the dark

The passage from before-to-after us

Pulses with mortal hellos and good-byes

And though Heaven waits beyond this dust

I’ve seen its shadow in your eyes

When I close mine and you are there

And I am here; it is enough

Thought transports us to places where

We touch; this is the way of love

You whisper to me without words, I hear

In the moan of midnight's deep

A love song written for us, my dear

Strummed on the air where willow-winds weep

And longing would be a violent grief

But for the knowing of mutual pain

And I lament not but cling to the belief

That somehow, somewhere we will meet again

© Janet~

Taken...

The pale shoot sprouts and waits beneath the dirt

Moody March pouts, sashays and seethes and flirts

The azure thirst of spring’s impending bliss

Must suffer first, winter’s keen, farewell kiss

Maidens with frocks of apple-blossom pink

Prance restlessly beyond earth’s umbral brink

Cloud-billows pregnant with blustering sham

Will scatter soon like wooly, wand’ring lambs

While winter’s ice and snow-sparkle melee

Melts into a dear, distant memory

Ah, ides of March, should we a tomb prepare?

And tremble? Is there sorrow in the air?

Nay, who can scorn the hour of your wrath

Leading to hyacinth and lily-path?

What is will be, but this one thing is sure

No winter can Spring’s serenade endure

And from her pristine pastures in the sky

She winks and captures Old Man Winter’s eye

He grumbles but cannot contain the glow

Of golden sunbeams blushing on the snow

His portly foreboding cannot resist

The fantasy of being softly kissed

And though with mustered will he fumes and frets

Her whisper flusters his well-designed threats

Beckoning him to 'come, lay in her lap

For surely he could use a long, long nap'

What is the use? Love’s longing pays no heed

To reputation in the hour of need

He pauses, taken by her winsome smile

He’ll rest; but only for a little while…

© Janet Martin