The Intangible Corrosion

There are finger-tips

Not of skin

But oh…the touch

There are kisses

Not of lips

But oh…the desire

There are wanderings

Not of footprints

But oh…the destinies

There are oceans

Not of water

But oh…the drowning

J~ 

 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 1 Cor. 10:12

Of What Remains

Sometimes when the sky is full of night

and the wind slumbers

high in the poplar trees

where the song of soft summer rain

haggles the leaves by day…

Sometimes, when the moon is swallowed in blackness

as earth and sky coalesce

in inky nothingness

save for the thickening quiet

blanketing the hour…

Sometimes, when longing could swallow an ocean

and emptiness is full of aching

and aching is full of emptiness

save for a the echo

of what could have been...

Sometimes, then I weep for gladness

and the love of double-edges

for surely fulfillment and need

are the enduring offerings

of what remains

I remember

J~

Days of Grass

As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.Ps. 103:15

Man’s days are as grass

Soon its labor and lust

Returns once more

To coffers of dust

Man’s days are as grass

How fickle the bloom

Soon it decays

In earth’s vast tomb

Man’s days are as grass

But not the soul

It never dies

Though eternities roll

Of Water...

It fills the tear that stings the eye

In raw, unkempt emotion

It weeps in mercy from the sky

And forms the turquoise ocean

It cheers dull nooks in laughing brooks

It crushes as it rushes

Its nectar drips on parted lips

On twilight ponds it blushes

It drenches parched, drought-stricken lands

It floods, it flows and gurgles

It mirrors heaven’s vast expanse

And cools the sluggish turtles

It trickles, seeps, it drowns, it pools

Baptizes re-born sinners

It lures young lads from woes like school

To fish and dream till dinner

It gleams like silver, polished glass

On winter’s frozen shallows

It sparkles on dew-dazzled grass

And tames the dusty fallows

From cups it spills, in rip-tides kills

Too much or none; disaster

In midnight rain its soft refrain

Evokes passion's grandmaster

How cold the grave beneath its wave

But as the sun gets hotter

We tip the jug to fill our mug

And thank the Lord for water, water, water...

© Janet Martin

Written for Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Water, water everywhere

A Few Sunday Morning Thoughts

Who can tally

The measure of a moment

The fool sees nothing

The wise man,

Everything

It is hard to love

On paper

I laid my thought against the air

Soon it was swallowed by the hour

I laid my thought into a prayer

It rests now in God’s perfect power

It is hard to wait

Without faith

No path is so bitter

As the one of resentment

No lap is sweeter

Than that of contentment 

It is hard to

swallow longing

He who envies

Forgets to live

He who is happy

Learns to forgive

It is hard

To hold fast to the right

But it is possible

With His Word as our Light

Are you weary and weighed down with care?

Jesus says, ‘Come,’ do you hear Him?

He may not remove the burdens we bear

But He gives us strength to endure them

 Patience is a hard-fought virtue

it's battle can only be won

as we learn to become second

and make others number one

Beware of Things

They help us forget

The Living Truth

And a crossed stained red

He IS

The Way, the Truth, the Life

Why do we seek to compromise?

A fleeting gasp

Is earth's pleasure and strife

Eternity swallows ten-thousand skies

Janet~

Seize Yours

Seize this Moment

Squeeze it

Twist it

Wring it

Taste it

No, savor

Every vapor

Before it fades away

Wasted

Un-tasted

A shovel of naught

But what could have been

Had action met thought

So seize this moment

It is all we can clasp

Not past

Nor future

But one transient gasp

Threaded to the next

Of valor

Or victory

Or passion perplexed

Of present to history

Weaving a lifetime

From cradle to grave

Oh, seize this moment

It is all that we have

© Janet Martin

Moment of Potential

When all my numbered days have fled

Beyond the sweeping sky

And I awake

Not in my bed

But in the by and by

Then it will be too late for me

To love my fellowman

Now is life’s lone opportunity

To do the best I can

We do not live in ages spent

Nor in the mystic morrow

Now is the moment God has lent

To bear life’s joy and sorrow

We dare not pine, with backward glance

To past’s resolute span

Now is love’s rare, redeeming chance

To do the best we can

© Janet Martin

Seize this moment...it is all we have

Easy Street

It would have been easy

To let despair steal

The rest of the dream not taken

It’s hard sometimes

To know what is real

And where we are sadly mistaken

It would have been easy

To let doubt creep in

Subtle as night on the roses

And miss the sound

Of a door opening

As another behind us closes

It would have been easy

To let defeat fall

Not daring to challenge its candor

It would have been easy

To do nothing at all

But look back and forever wonder...

© Janet Martin  

These Past Twenty Years...

Emily asked me the other day what I think about motherhood and can I believe I've been one for almost twenty years...It got me to thinking...

I ponder them slowly, these past twenty years

For they have been like no other

They warned me back then, how fast time disappears

…the day I became a mother

I ponder them tenderly, these past twenty years

Of fulfillment as deep as my yearning

Of mustard-seed faith to combat mammoth fears

Of teaching midst all of my learning

I ponder them deeply, these past twenty years

The paradox of love’s mystic measure

The beautiful agony of laughter and tears

The wonder of life’s painful pleasure

I ponder them thankfully, these past twenty years

So glad that God never forgot me

Gently admonished, through my own scolding and cheers

At how much my children have taught me

© Janet Martin

I Saw Heaven Smile Today...

 Emily, first Birthday.

Emily, 20th Birthday

I saw Heaven smile today

As angels breathed upon my way

For Heaven’s smiles are sent, I think

In little bundles, soft and pink

Perfection, lent to trembling arms

From holy hands above

Yes, Heaven sends its wondrous charms

In babies dear to love

Today I held her tiny hand

And I began to understand

A strange new love, so rare and strong

As I held hands that knew no wrong

Nothing else on this old earth

Could touch it by a mile

For at the moment of her birth

I saw Heaven smile

Yes, I saw Heaven smile today

As pain and anguish fell away

And I know what perfection is

As I caress it with a kiss

For clasped against my awe-struck heart

In form of new-born child

The windows up above me parted

And I saw Heaven smile

© Janet Martin

Written for Emily when she was a baby....20 years ago (did a bit of editing)

Passion and the Fruits Thereof

Image Source: clytie-randomtrash.blogspot.com

Tis a plethora of passions that makes people tick

Be they words or numbers or a hook on a stick

Be it fallow acres waiting to be plowed

Or studying the whims in the mind of a cloud

Someone invented those dear alarm clocks

The curve on the base of a chair so it rocks

A toilet that flushes, better winter tires

And for the technician, multi-colored wires

Whatever we touch in an ocean of things

Is the fruit of a thought that’s been given its wings

Of nuts and bolts, metal, fabric, or wood

Someone declared, ah yes, this is good….(yes, even plastic)

God bless the seeker who chases his dream

Teach us to regard it with thankful esteem

And preserve the pleasure of its delight

Not by addiction, but healthy appetite

Tis a plethora of passions that stirs creature souls

The seed of fulfillment, the setting of goals

Born of inner thirst, need or desperation

The whisper of Passion is the bud of creation

© Janet Martin

This poem was inspired by a number of moments…

Wandering though the mall looking at all the ‘stuff’ and wondering …why?

Mulling over a comment someone made yesterday about an up-coming generation of stupidity because kids are ‘glued to some gadget and they don’t read anymore’…not true for all but WAY too many!

And this morning I suddenly wondered who invented the ANNOYING sound of an alarm clock!

By the way, I love you, you dear person who invented the coffee-perk.

Twilight Soliloquy

I love the way the evening lies

Contented ‘neath the folding skies

And all the memories we have made

Slumber now in history’s shade

I love the cerulean sweep

Luring the eye to lofty deep

And how my thought’s soliloquy

Is amplified on twilight’s knee

I love the roll of evergreen

Meeting the soul of heaven’s gleam

How tugs of love and longing clench

That aching void Time cannot quench

I love eve’s lofty out-stretched palm

Urging our bustling haste to calm

And listen to the vespers sigh

In anthems falling from the sky

I love the way the evening lies

Beneath celestial lullabies

As twilight's tucks night’s edges down

Against the landscapes silver gown

© Janet Martin

It's Just That Way

Here we have it

It's just that way

Whispers and pieces

Of  thoughts we pray

And maybe its true

That somehow, someday

We'll learn to let go

Because its best that way

Here we have it

I hear a door close

And footsteps begin fading...

Only God knows

The rhyme and the reason

Of good-byes and hellos

But here we have it

That's the way life goes

...and here we have it

The laughter and tears

Of loving and losing

Of days turned to years

Life is a ballroom

We pass through but once

Hold me closer

My darling, let's dance

Because here we have it

The bitter and sweet

Parting is simply

The road till we meet

So here we have it

The fall and the rise

Of pleasure and passion

Of hellos and good-byes

...yes, here we have it

A little thing called life

A culmination

Of sorrow and strife

A tender ballad

Of its highs and its lows

And where it will take us

Only God knows

...so we take love's chances

A faith-leap of dust

Over and over

We love and we trust

Here we have it

Love's dance in the rain

And darling, I know

We'd do it again

J~

Song of Thanksgiving

For mornings, heavy with un-scattered rain

For life’s constant bevy of glorious mundane

For man’s strength renewed as night-shadows wane

Lord, we thank You

For spring fields seeded with harvest’s fresh hope

For wild-flower rivers and emerald-green slope

For the steadfast Known as through unknowns we grope

Lord, we thank You

For blossomed distraction beyond my kitchen sink

For peony-splashes of petal-pure pink

For dishes to wash while I pray and I think

Lord, I thank-you

For smiles that gleam through love’s tender-sweet tears

For children that dream undeterred by aged fears

For memories to soften life’s chastening years

Lord, we thank You

For Master-piece moments in life’s darkest hours

For Master-piece miracles spilling in flowers

For Master-piece vaults of sunshine and showers

Lord, we thank You

Lord, we thank You for unfailing grace

The hope of heaven beyond life’s troubled race

For You, that You prepared such a Place

Oh, Lord we thank You

© Janet Martin

This morning Victoria suddenly turned as she was getting on the bus, with a big grin,  two-thumbs up and a merry wave…then they were gone. Just like that, my sink full of dishes and empty fridge and begging housework became beautiful through misted tears.

All I could think of to say is this…thank-you Lord.

 “Listen to this, Job;
    stop and consider God’s wonders.Job 37:14

Dear Flower...

You didn’t say a thing

As I gazed at you

Petal of virgin

Pink, gold, purple, blue

Delicate miracle

Sweetening the breeze

Of red, periwinkle

Intricacies

I am dumb-founded

As I study each gem

Unfolded from emerald

Leaves on a stem

Dazzling in beauty

And none that is greater

Each designed perfectly

By its Creator

You didn’t say a thing

As I studied your face

But I heard the whispering

Of God’s wonder and grace

© Janet Martin

 There is no 'fairest of them all' in God's flower-garden.
He created each of us just as He intended!

Precursor

Thought is a foot-loose wanderer

She follows no map or chart

Leaving no footprint behind her

A master of mind-numbing art

Thought is a subtle deceiver

No man is immune to her vice

She must be diligently guarded

This charge of inestimable price

Thought, though believed well-hidden

Cannot escape one simple fact

She is the lone precursor

To every word or act

© Janet Martin

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Phil 4:8

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7]

Realization

In certain moments we are suddenly gripped

With Realization, as we pause to think

Of how subtly, smoothly hours have slipped

In another year over Time’s fluent brink

And as we reflect on the invisible haste

With which fleeting life-times swiftly disappear

Surely we are challenged to savor and taste

Each morsel of living that forges a year

The ache in our throat and the sob in our chest

Sweetens the sorrow of loving and of loss

As Realization, in most earnest quest

Arouses awareness of dust’s feeble dross

For what is this life?... but a semblance of hours

In which all must be either servant or slave

Of this thing that softly, ceaselessly devours

The scope of our breath twixt the cradle and grave

Thus, in certain moments we are sacredly gripped

By the whisper of He who designs each life’s span

As subtly, smoothly another year has slipped

Far from the reaches and the will of man

© Janet Martin

Last eve we attended the wake of a neighbor in his 93^rd year…

He leaves his wife, also in her 93^rd year, to mourn with beloved family…

Birthday’s and Death…two keen reminders of the beautiful and sacred gift we hold in each day, for life, no matter how long, is a twinkle in the eye of eternity. Cherish it, hold it lightly and cling to the Giver.

Twilight Dirge

In silken shrouds of misted-gray

Dust-fragrant folds caress

The transient corpse of this wee day

As it is laid to rest

Across blue hill and dusk-cloaked pond

A soulful dirge begins

Drifting from crypts of earth beyond

This vale of mortal sins

And souls, yet cloaked in human flesh

Pause, ere they lie to sleep

As notes of loss and hope enmesh

The song that tunes the deep

The stillness of night’s hollow seas

With farewell tones is fraught

The rise and fall of memories

Resounding in our thought

Into the void of Past it slips

Buried, but not with sod

This Day is gone, from fingertips

Of man, returned to God

© Janet Martin

The Crux of Choice

In life, the road we choose to take

Will make us who we are

The crux of choice, an awesome blank

‘Til we look back from far

The obstacles along the way

And how we choose to bear them

Will leave a lasting legacy

To future generations

In life, the road we choose to take

Affects not one lone traveler

The footprints that our choices make

Some other soul will follow

The crux of choice; how can we know

Which way will be the best?

We cannot; but trust God as we go

And let Him do the rest

© Janet Martin

A 'Happiness Guarantee'

We are not born with wisdom

But if we would be wise

We should go and get it

As King Solomon advised

If we want to be happy

Then we ought to heed his word

For he who seeketh wisdom
Obtains favor from the Lord

© Janet Martin

Insatiable Appetite

Words feed the poem in me

For a little while

I am satisfied

But then,

As one starving

I attack them

With renewed hunger

For a poem

Is never

Completely

Filled

© Janet Martin

Invisible Alignment

When dim-lit eve turns up the dark

And rain, like tiny elfin-feet

Trips lightly on the onyx pane

That by noon’s light, frames bustling streets

…when this small day undaunted slips

Into a vault I cannot see

And Time exhales from ageless lips

Another little day for me

I pause, both grateful and afraid

For while Time gives it also steals

One hand conceals a two-edged blade

While with the other hand it heals

And I, with one hand holding fast

Allow the other to let go

As dim-lit eve turns up the dark

I hold love close, yet miss it so…

J~

On Writing...

Writing is  

Bittersweet frustration

A journey

Without a destination

To write is like climbing

A long, slow grade

But its summit is obscured in a mist

Curiosity

Keeps us pressing on

To a view that may not even exist

It is child’s freckles

And dimpled grin

A punch in the gut

Or under the chin

It’s a stroll

On periwinkle eve of June

Its hand to the pen

In a world out of tune

It is the hideout

Of phantom Muse

The lord to which

Thought pays its dues

© Janet

To Everything There is a Time...

Summer is a season of many loves for me...posts may be fewer.

To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Eccles. 3:1

What is June?

What is June?

June is a ribbon of coral and gold

Brushing the skyline while it is still night

June is maiden so youthful and bold

Flouncing her ringlets in girlish delight

She shakes out her skirts and rampantly spills

Wild-flower gardens over hollow and hill

What is June?

June is a door standing slightly ajar

To glimmer of turquoise and sea-polished shores

She is the threshold we seek from afar

As winter and spring trip across earthen floors

The cry of the gull and the trill of the lark

The song of the robin while it is still dark

What is June?

She is hands outstretched, sweetly running over

With peony, lupine, with daisy and rose

She is a soul-mate, a beautiful lover

Stirring our passion and holding us close

In vast, emerald tides her melody sweeps

Out to the eyes of azure-blue deeps

What is June?

She is a year’s darling; the middle child

The gleaming gem twixt spring and fall

Composer, as her Muse runs wild

Of summer’s haunting madrigal

Whilst from her radiant fingertips

A little glimpse of Heaven slips

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts~

There is a war

Intense, hid from sight

It is the battle

Twixt wrong and right

Fear the day

Should its conflict cease

As numbed discernment

Brings an illusion of peace

There is a tug-of-war

In love’s two-toned beauty

The urge of desire

And dictation of duty

A long line of laundry

Is a testament

To a long line of love

No man can serve two masters

The servant makes his choice

No words are needed because action

Carries a definite voice

Dream, but only a little

It polishes the mundane

The line is fine twixt little and much

And to dream too much is vain

Dream, but only a little

Don’t let it mess with your head

Lest you stand and stare into the thin air

While someone else butters your bread

Hurry, hurry; don’t be late

Hell

And heaven

Do not wait

Spare change

Changes lives

On some days we…

…Live, laugh, love and play

On others we

…Weep, wish, work, pray

This must be my Muse’s queue

A list with many jobs to do

Never yet has darkness set in

Permanently

He who hath no shadows

Hath no light

Janet~

Why I Write...

I never can explain it quite

This need, it seems I have, to write…

But paper is a patient ear

No words are writ, it will not hear

It never assumes what is not

But simply listens to my thought

Here life's pleasures and sorrows spill

In whispers from a poet’s quill

I write to preserve moments past

Knowing ink’s measure will outlast

This transient, ephemeral shell

I write, for there is much to tell

But time is short and listeners rare

And spoken word is soon dead air

Thus I must write; a diary

Of thought engraved in poetry

I write because I love to read

To feel the passion mortal’s bleed

To thrill beneath their ageless thought

The mark of quill on parchment wrought

Of Tennyson, Longfellow, Frost

And countless throngs of voices lost

Had they not taken time to bare

With ink, the thoughts they longed to share

Tis no small thing to hold a pen

And spill heart-linings out to men

Of hope, of longing; these we summon

For mankind has this much in common

And with the written word we trace

The heartbeat of the human race

Manifested on a stage

In filament of ink and page

 

Tis no small thing; reaching to God

Seeking Him within my thought

Tis no small thing to contemplate

What to write; what to erase

…to paint in whispered ethereal art

Upon canvases of the heart

An earnest, resolute vocation

Generation to generation

…and so I write, not to become

A famous author, world-renowned

I write to touch the low-flung cloud

Or lonely souls lost in life’s crowd

I write; for it seems I cannot

Quell the vast ocean in my thought

And I am glad, so glad indeed

That others write, so I can read

© Janet Martin

My Homework for Writer's Unite is done!
Assignment: 200-300 words on Why I Write

Word Count;300 (phew!)

What are you doing? hubby asked a few nights ago when he called
I'm reading Treasure Valley, I replied. It was written in 1908 by Canadian author, Marian Keith.
Thank-you Marian,(although you were gone before I was born) for writing and sharing your beautiful, timeless perspective.

The Mind of a Poem

They tell me how I should write them

The rules to rhythm and rhyme

But they fall from my quill

By their own free will

Regardless of meter and time

They tell me how I should form them

Can I shape a river’s fray?

For a poet’s need

Is to sit down and bleed

Let the drops fall where they may

They tell me how I should mold them

But rules never could sway a poem

In the still of the night

As I sit here and write

Words have a mind of their own

© Janet Martin

In Those Moments

In those moments

When I’m tempted

To reach far into the past

And retrieve

A fancied fortune

From its archives, iron-cast

In those moments,

Though I’m tempted

I embrace the melody

Of the sweet

And fleeting present

Flowing into memory

...and though I’m tempted
In those moments

I release its aching grasp

Lest I miss

The precious present

Because I was looking back

Janet~

Today, as I was waiting in a check-out line we o-o-o-h-ed and a-a-a-h-ed over a new-born baby, and for a brief moment I was drenched in longing as I watched the ecstatic first-time mother….next week it will be twenty years since I was a first-time Mother; a mere flash, really. That is why I determine to live in the now!

Horizons

Gently it ripples, softly it is slipping

Green tide adorning earth’s fallow and slope

Out to the lips of cerulean grinning

A perimeter man cannot follow or grope

Where is the skyline that seals our visage?

Earth rushes out to brush azure-blue shores

Man rushes forward but we cannot touch it

Elusive allurement to ethereal doors

Wilderness, frontier, mountain or ocean

Grazes the furrow twixt seeing and faith

Gently it ripples; our thought and emotion

Tracing the edge of its blue, mystic wraith

Gossamer ribbon of infinite measure
We cannot race through its translucent seal
Nor stroll the breadth of its line at our leisure
And yet we know, the horizon is real

...it is, isn't it?

© Janet Martin

Horizons...the proof of faith.

Happy Birthday, Dave

Tonight when you look up to the sky, bro

And think of the years that have flown

Will there be a tear in your eye, bro

As you ponder the course of the sun?

…and tonight when you hear twilight’s sonnet

Quiver in the deepening west

Will you pause to remember life’s losses

Or how you have been richly blessed?

Tonight when you gaze at the stars, bro

Will you feel infinitely small?

And wonder that He who paints skies, bro

Should be mindful of man at all?

Tonight when you contemplate time, bro

Where will your musing dwell?

For you’ve known some up-hill climbs, bro

Disappointment; you know it well…

…but life is a canvas of mystery, bro

And God is a faithful Friend

As this year slips into history, bro

Do you wonder what waits ‘round the bend?

And tonight when you look at the sky, bro

Recalling the years that have passed

Will the only thing you really know

Be this? Life goes by way too fast

© Janet Martin

Happy 47^th Birthday, Dave…from one sky-lover to another…Enjoy!

Here is a teeny glimpse of my sky-shot collection:)

This is the time-frame where I always think of mom and wonder how she did it! My brother Stuart turned 45 on May 28th, Dave turns 47 today, I turn 46 next week and the following week my sister (the oldest child in our family) turns 48...!!! and as you can see in the previous post, Mom is still going strong!...after raising 10 children...after the first four she had 3  girls and then 3 boys!!! I remember we begged her (as if she ordered us from a catalog or something, to PL-E-E-E-ASE have a set of twins to complete our family...didn't happen:)

When things return to 'Normal'...

Mom giving Salome one of her favorite drinks...Ginger-ale. She cannot talk but her body language and gulping say it all!

‘Normal’ does not hover in tomorrow

Nor does it reside in the past

It is not a sweet, coveted hour

Waiting in regions dim and vast

‘Normal’ is not a state or condition

It carries no guarantee

It does not linger on pining or wishing

When this day is history

But ‘normal’ is the bloom we are holding

The moment that meets our gaze

For even now this ‘normal’ is folding

Into planted yesterdays

Who knows the nature of tomorrow’s ‘normal’?

Will its filament be leaden or gold?

And will we wish as we reminisce

For the ‘normal’ that now we hold?

© Janet Martin

How often do we find ourselves thinking 'when things return to normal'?  The other day I used this line when I was talking to my mother...When they brought dear Aunt Salome (in above photo) to their home- the Dr. said it was  'so she could spend her last days with loved ones in a non-hospital environment'. That happened almost four years ago. Salome is thriving beneath tender, loving care in spite of  Down's Syndrome, advanced Alzheimer's and complete physical inability; the DR. says her heart is strong. Salome turns 57 in a few weeks. I mentioned to Mom that 'someday when things return to 'normal', and she asked me to read the quote on her fridge. Its a reminder that 'the 'normals in life are now, for we cannot know what tomorrow's normals may be'. I have been thinking a lot about that...

Salome and her care-giver's are the inspiration in this article...Angels Among Us

You Love Us...

Jason  Gray: Remind Me Who I Am

You who breathed the universe

On vast infinity

Celestial bodies You disperse

In awesome majesty

You who designs fragile bloom

And rides upon the gale

You who conquered mortal doom

And rent the temple’s veil

You love us…

You who sees the sparrow fall

Who walks upon the sea

You, most Holy all in all

Died for humanity

Who paints the glory on the sky

The dawn, the dusk, the dark

Who heeds man’s faintest, humble cry

And gives wee faith its spark

You love us…

You love us, sure, steadfast promise

We cannot comprehend

The fullness of its height and depth

A love that has no end

No time or thing can separate us

From His faithful hand

Through darkest hours He carries us

Though we don’t understand

For He loves us

Forever and ever

Amen

© Janet Martin

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:39