Almost Enough

Singing in the Rain...

Sometimes, when you press so close to me

It almost feels

Like it used to be…

Sometimes, when thought is vivid and keen

I almost believe

In what might have been

Sometimes, I re-visit the bittersweet so

I can revel in the pain

Of letting go

Sometimes I am satisfied with love

And sometimes I know

It will never be enough

J~

More...

Today I will not be content

Today I want more, more, more

More awareness of His love for me

That too often I blindly ignore

Today I will not be satisfied

Today I desire to know

More, more fully His plan for me

And where He would choose me to go

Today I want more, more hunger

For things not of flesh, but of Him

More gentle loving kindness

Before this day-moment grows dim

Today I refuse to be content

But I will not lust after things

I want more of what earth can’t afford

But knowing Him more fully brings

Today Lord, give me holy hunger

Oh my God, I beg and implore

For more compassion for my fellow-man

Oh God, give me more, more, more

© Janet Martin

A Carpe Diem

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt a Carpe Diem poem

Carpe Diem is the Latin expression that means ‘seize the day.’ Carpe Diem poems have a theme of living for today. It is a form in intent only; it is solely based on a theme.

Yesterday is sealed in the archives

Tomorrow is nothing more

Than the hope of something we cannot see

Today is worth living for

Today is the cup we are holding

Touch it to your lips; draw it in

Be imbibed with His goodness and mercy

Dripping recklessly from your grin

Seize the moment before you

Wring out every wonder of it

Let not one measure be wasted

Today is a beautiful gift

© Janet Martin

October's Song

She pleads in mirth and mutiny

A plaintive sigh, a bully-breeze

A skirmish on the grassy lea

An ocean rushing through the trees

She ripples in tranquility

Then grumbles, mumbles, hungry; cold

Tugging the laughter from the tree

In tears of scarlet, red and gold

She wanders fall’s bare-fallow girth

In search of summer’s melody

A desperate combing of the earth

A sweet, moody melancholy

She lounges in the bleeding dell

Then suddenly she lilts and leaps

No rhyme or sequence to her swell

She rises, falls; her maestro sleeps

Her sassy canto soon shall dim

The tremor of her farewell note

Will echo on the naked limb

And in the ache lodged in our throat

 Janet Martin

I’m going out to let her song tease and torment me for a little while…

Love's Sweet Sorrow

In the moments of holding and

Letting you go

In the bittersweet beauty

Of watching you grow

I am becoming

More aware, somehow

And understanding slowly

My own mother now

In the moments twixt yesterday

And tomorrow

I sense the shaping

Of sweet, sweet sorrow

How does one explain

The ‘I love you so',

As you plead for 'yes’

While my answer is 'no’?

 In the moments of holding and

Letting you go

In the tender-sweet beauty

Of watching you grow

I have become

More aware, somehow

Understanding the sweet sorrow

Of my own mother now

© Janet Martin

Sometimes when trying to explain the logic behind my words to the kids I find myself echoing the words of my parents, such as recently, ‘it’s not the ‘thing’ I dislike so much as what it will lead to’…

Power of Prayer

Helplessness is our greatest source of strength

***

The more self-sufficient we feel

The more equipped we are

For disaster

***

The Sum of Prayerlessness

Prayerlessness

=Burden-bearing

=Weariness

=Discouragement

=Disillusionment

=Drop-out or disobedience

=Disaster

***

If you want to be a strong leader, lead from your knees, not your feet.

***

These are some thoughts that really impacted me as I listened to In Touch  with Charles Stanley this morning.

Moment-drops

They roll in seamless waves

Across time’s formless shore

To seal in mystic graves

The echo of their roar

Hope, fear, anguish and awe

In passion-pulses weep

From future to our fingertips

To past’s unfathomed deep

Within the dead of night

They do not still their rush

And on the hinge of morning light

They shape its virgin blush

Against this obscure scope

We place desire’s fruit

Our sorrow and our hope

Both wickedness and good

Like flakes of melting snow

Its soundless storms descend

Perpetual moment-flow

Without beginning or end

We live and laugh and love

As to our lips they’re flung

Vertigo from vaults above

To glance upon our tongue

Simultaneous stream

Of future, present, past

In moment-morsels gleam

As history seals them fast

© Janet Martin

Where Do the Flowers Go?

They do not really die

They merely fall asleep

Beneath blue-blanket sky

And soil of umber keep

Gather your sorrows near

We cannot still the wheel

Of time as it doles out the year

In moment-pulsed quadrille

To everything on earth

There is a portioned hour

A season of new birth

From bud to lovely flower

A season to let go

Relinquishing to sod

The petals of life’s ebb and flow

For we belong to God

© Janet Martin

A Time for Everything...Eccl. 3: 1-12

 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,      

a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,     

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,      

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,      

a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,     

 a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,      

a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

 What do workers gain from their toil?   

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  

He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

He has also set eternity in the human heart; 

yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

Images of Praise

How can our praise remain

A brief, un-uttered thought?

As images of passion brim

In shades that Heaven wrought

We pass this way but once

A sun and shadow flight

Where images of love entrance

Our vision with His might

The earth, beneath His care

Spills seasons on the land

As stunning images declare

The wonders of His hand

How can our song be still

In brief, anemic gaze

As sky and sea, as field and hill

Burst forth in nature’s praise?

Dare we to remain dumb

While stones and mountains swell

With images of wordless song

Mere men can never quell?

Oh, may our hearts and lips

Pour forth in word and deed

Pure images of thankfulness

As He sustains our need…

…and may our songs of praise

Never dare to be still

As images of hope and grace

Adorn earth’s mortal rill

© Janet Martin

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” Luke 19:40

Holy, Holy, Holy

Thanksgiving Day Praise

I praise you, oh my Lord

Your mercies never cease

In tenderness out-poured

Of wisdom and of peace

Help me to serve you Lord

Not for man’s affirmation

But in true gratitude

With humble adoration

 Guide my footsteps, Lord

Across earth’s beaten sod

The beacon of your Word

My everlasting rod

Your goodness and your grace

Oh, let this be my joy

Not triteness of this world

That time and death destroy

I praise you, oh my Lord

Oh, let me honor You

With gratitude out-poured

In everything I do

© Janet Martin

It is the official Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. I will be spending the rest of it hopefully out-doors in God’s wonderful creation.

Oh, Do not Leave~

Oh do not leave

Or else I may forget

All the words I want to tell you

But have not

Yet

An hour is short
Darling, please stay

A life-time is too brief

For all I want

To say

Oh, do not leave

The night is dark

And long alone

Silence is too cold

And monotone

J~

Another Autumn Sonnet

It pierces through our pampered summer skin

A sudden chill spilling against the earth

Reality consumes youth’s guileless grin

As teasing zephyrs harness languid mirth

The landscape tugs the hemline of the deeps

Across the molten autumnal array

Far on the slope the towering maple weeps

Into the sepulcher of life’s decay

The circuit of its fleeting gasp is stark

Against the canvases of gath’ring dark

The fret-works of fall’s naked branches reach

In unadorned humility and praise

Toward their Maker’s throne; the empty beach

Echoes the laughter of fair sun-drenched days

As leaf by burnished leaf the autumn drips

Into a vault of summers predeceased

Realization in keen kindness grips

The heart in melodies of love released

And yet as seasons pass beneath earth’s sun

Love’s hope and happiness are never done

When the last leaf drifts soundless to our feet

And silence threads the passages of time

We pause; entranced within the bittersweet   

Of autumn’s sweet and solemn pantomime

The darling rose, the crimson anemone

Bleeds back into the dust from whence it sprung

And in the haunting hollow undertone

Of early night we hear a still-song flung

Into the void of autumn’s barrenness

Beneath the Hand of hope’s tender caress

© Janet Martin

Thanksgiving Praise Sonnet

How gracious is the Hand tinting the tress

With scarlet hues and bronze-petal array

He draws the eye to summer’s swift decay

And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness

Beneath the lowered arches of the cloud

The earth responds to Heaven’s will sublime

To everything purposed thing there is a time

Thus seasons pass through mercy’s tender shroud

And mortal marvels at His patient grace

That He should please our gaze with such delight

When oft we fret and thanklessly we pine

He lends to earth the shadow of a Place

Not made with Hands; where faith at last is sight

Our eyes traverse the barred horizon-line

We glimpse His love; astonished we descry

But earthly frames of Him as we behold

Each season-scape; the emerald turns to gold

Spring’s verdant rush is fall’s depleting sigh

The quadrille of life’s swift four-season scope

Dances across Time’s charted centuries

Thought cannot grasp unmarked eternities

And as we cling to promises of hope

Our wonderment abounds and escalates

For what is man that He remembers him?

And rescues us from utter wantonness

A mirror of His goodness He creates

As glory crowns the humble, wooded limb

And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness

Lift up your voice; oh, God accept our praise

You do not leave us groveling in the dirt

But in life’s grievous toiling and its hurt

You stun the meek spectator with Your ways

And though we do not understand your thought

We trust; holy compassion spills its heart

And lends to humble sod Your perfect art

In manuscripts of nature we are taught

To everything on earth there is a time

From seed to bud to bloom then back to earth

This is the way of dust; His righteousness

In grand profusion, wondrous and sublime

Imbues our paltry pittance with His worth

And gilds the autumn tress with awesomeness

© Janet Martin

 

Trembling...

Trembling

You came to me

Trembling,

I held you

And trembling

I loved you so

Trembling,

Soft moments

Slip by unnoticed

Soon, trembling

I must let you go…

J~

Hands let go, but hearts hold forever.

A New Beautiful

Yes, the week has succeeded in almost stripping this tree...It's next robe will be white:) The air has a 'white' feel to it this morning.

Do not weep

Though what we had

Has softly slipped away

We cannot keep

Within our hand

One jot of yesterday

But, oh my love

Within our hearts

We hold its echo fast

For sorrow’s joy

That day imparts

Is soon a shadow cast

But just as beauty

Fades away

And summer becomes fall

So, my love

Is this new day

A whole new ‘beautiful’

The canvas on

Which time is breathed

Is graciously imbued

With glorious dawn

And gentle eve

In twilight’s solitude

And though its eager

Fingers clench

Time’s ever-hastening hour

We smile

For it can never quench

The bud that holds the flower

Though it cannot

Revive the bloom

Of summer’s bountiful

It spreads across

Earth’s living-room

A whole new beautiful

© Janet Martin

Masterpiece

The other day I bicycled off the beaten track through a trail in a farmer’s field. It was so tranquil; the silence like a hymn, the atmosphere a paradox of hunger and satisfaction.

The rush of you embracing me

Is autumn’s keen

Reality

The beautiful and bittersweet

Fall like gold leaves

At my feet

Behind me tender echoes flow

Before me hope

And hunger glow

The whisper of your lips is kind

Soft fingertips

Against my mind

The rolling landscape of the past

Shapes memories;

I hold them fast

Love paints its precious, priceless art

To fill the walls

Within the heart

The rush of you embracing me

Blends agony

And ecstasy…

…where life demands tender release

Ah, this is love’s true

Masterpiece

© Janet Martin

My daughter told me last night when she looks out at all the autumn beauty, she is so totally happy and so completely sad…yes, me too.

Caledonia   the landscape 'felt' like the music in this song...
J~    

When all the World is Red and Gold

When all the world is red and gold

Against a gray-blue slate

When bounty gleams where buds unfold

To fill earth’s burnished plate

When lilting zephyrs start to moan

Adrift on autumn’s sway

We sense the solemn undertone

Of Time slipping away

The aster sheds its purple tear

The milkweed spills its pod

As remnants of another year

Adorns the umber sod

And from the tumbled garden; wild

With summer’s aftermath

We hear the echo of a child

Upon its trampled path

The harbinger of winter’s cold

Is such a dashing fellow

When all the world is red and gold

With scarves of orange and yellow

But as the woodland sheds its tear

In each little leaf-flower

We sense the closing of a year

Beyond this gilded hour

The daylight wanes; the eager dusk

Consumes its moody fringes

In bitter-sweetness; soft then brusque

A gate on soundless hinges

Closes; the darkness has no sound

Save for the vesper crying

In leaf-notes as they deck the ground

…another year is dying

© Janet Martin

Morning-tide

We stand upon the shoreline of a vast mysterious sea

Gazing upon the rippling mien of what is yet to be

A gold leaf hovers on the air then drops into time’s ocean

In petal-grief of summer fair and love’s tangled emotion

As daylight eases o’er the deep and morning warms its tresses

We cast aside the shroud of sleep beneath virgin caresses

Upon the cusp of centuries we reach for Love’s kind favor

A cup to fill with memories; of moment-drops to savor

…before it slips into the vault of vast never-returning

 We take hope’s cup and lift it up to living, loving; learning

© Janet Martin

I wrote this poem this morning but my cup started filling with the days moments before I had a chance to post it;))

Tell Me Again

Tell me again,

Who formed the earth and heaven?

Tell me again

Who parted the Red Sea?

Tell me again, why is it I’m forgiven

When my birthright

Is my iniquity?

Tell me again,

Who left His throne in Heaven?

A perfect Lamb

To be sin’s sacrifice

Tell me again, why is it I’m forgiven

When it is I

So guilty of its price?

Tell me again

A thousand times I’ve heard it

The debt I owed

No riches could afford

Yet, I am free, not because I earned it

But through the blood

Of Jesus Christ the Lord

Tell me again

May I never grow weary

Of this great joy

Of this, a sinner’s boast

Creator, Lord, Redeemer, God of mercy

Left Heaven’s throne

Because He loves us most

 Cho. Tell me again,

Who formed the earth and heaven?

Tell me again

Who parted the Red Sea?

Tell me again, why is it I’m forgiven

When my birthright

Is my iniquity?

Tell me again

May I never grow weary

Of this great joy

Of this, a sinner’s boast

Creator, Lord, Redeemer, God of mercy

Paid sin’s great debt

Because He loves us most

© Janet Martin

Caught Off Guard

Another Minnesang  

You come to me a bit like that

A deluge pelting my reserve

You trickle in beneath my hat

To claim what you think you deserve

I cannot resist you so I allow you to slip

Like raindrops on a window over my lips

Who taught you to be a reckless thief?

Your boldness startles demure poise

And you will surely be my mother’s grief

She warned me, ‘daughter, watch out for those boys’

For you are not a placid, gentle-noon’s rainfall

You are a ‘let’s jump from a plane and free-fall’

You came to me a bit like that

I grew accustomed to your style

So I pick out my favorite hat

And wait for you; it’s been a while

The sun grows hot; and I begin to doubt

Nobody taught me what to do in case of drought

 Janet Martin

Life-gems

 A minnesang 

(my internet was down all day so I took revenge...and wrote:) It was fun.

I hope you come to me

Completely un-rushed

For I need you next to me

But not hurried or pushed

How do we love each other; let’s count the ways

Time is a priceless commodity these days

I hope you stop long enough

Oh, I hope you stay

Until we have run out of

All we need to say

And even then, you would find no reason to leave

As we listen to the night slipping over the eve

Moments are life-gems

We cannot count or number

Or know how many of them

Fill time’s vault ‘til we slumber

True sorrow is looking back to yesterday

Regretting the life-gems we threw away

© Janet Martin

Te Amo, Te Quiero (another Minnesang)

Another Minnesang

You discard each rampart that I secure

You breathe; I melt, acquiescent in your gaze

Your presence is more than I can endure

Yet, like a moth to flame I seek its blaze

Drawn to you, I thirst; love’s gall is bittersweet

For you remain oblivious; I wallow at your feet

“O senor, Te amo, O, Te quiero

Me Encantas,’ ach, what is the use

You hang your fedora over my heart’s window

Completely untaken by my Spanish ruse

I watch from behind you but you don’t turn around

So I must follow; an invisible shadow on the ground

Would one tiny glance be too noble a favor?

Is there any chance; or am I doomed unseen?

Must I remain at your mercy forever

To die in the hollow of what might have been?

I have one ploy left; ah, leave it to me

Senor, I will attempt to seduce you with poetry

© Janet Martin