Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Survival Fete





Time’s survival fete
To remain clothed and fed
Bears on its ancient dust-born street
New prayers for daily bread

Good morning’s beaming wreath
Unfolds, then folds above
A back-drop to the prayers we breathe
For provision and love

Then, as we plant the soil
Where seed and trusting meet
We return to faith’s hope and toil
In time’s survival fete

For time’s survival fete
Though more than meat and bread
Demands the work of hands and feet
To remain clothed and fed

© Janet Martin


As I buttered bread for school-lunches(for the ump-umpteenth time!:) and watched the farmer's hasting by with tractors in the return of planting season, I thought of how life really is an endless fete for survival; repetition of  the same chores and duties over and over to remain clothed and fed.
We do our part and trust God for the rest!

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isa.54:10

Monday, May 4, 2015

What Then?




Tampa Bay
Lightning
(2-0-0)
6
Montreal
Canadiens
(0-2-0)
2









I'm married to a lifelong Hab (Montreal Canadiens) fan...I will say no more;-) 
We love watching sports and cheering on our favorite teams/players! But...

When all the teams we’ve cheered for
And all our dreams are done
When fortune's gleaming moment-lore
Fades like mist in the sun

…when all the paths we’ve taken
With all the care we’ve borne
Dissolves as we awaken
In God’s eternal morn

…when trial-error fumbling
Mutely disintegrates
Like paper castles crumbling
Beneath Time’s shutting gates

…when hope and heartache’s groaning
And faith and fear’s Object
Appears before eyes closing
To what none can reject

…when we lay down to rise up
To never sleep again
When Death cries to us, ‘Time’s up’
Pray tell me, love, what then?

© Janet Martin

Farmer or Gardener's Planting Prayer




I was digging up around the rhubarb just now, enjoying the hum of tractors on the land, all around...some cultivating, some hauling manure and some planting. Working the earth draws us near the heart of God, don't you agree?

 Whether literally or metaphorically, it's planting time!

Lord, help me do my best to tend
The plot you’ve loaned to me
Then trust You for the dividend
Of harvest that will be

Lord, stir in me a humble worth
As spring-birth stirs the sod
For as I till and plant the earth
I touch Your hand, oh God

Lord, let me never then forget
Within life’s rain and sun
That you are faithful to beget
What now has just begun

© Janet Martin

 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Phil. 1:6 


Breakthrough





An air of excitement, a thrill of something intangible rides the waking breeze
When spring breaks through the seal of bud and mud, to frill earth's hills and trees

The bloom breaks through the bud
The light breaks through the dark
The shoot breaks through the gloomy mud
To gild the brooding bark

Green breaks through shrouds of brown
Green breaks through cloven clutch
To clothe earth in a teeming gown
Beneath the Weaver’s touch

Spring breaks through poised delight
Like warmth breaking through cold
Like morning breaking through the night
In madrigals of gold

© Janet Martin