The Knowns in our Unknowns

The sun rises and then it sets

Upon what was or lies ahead

The hours between; life’s stepping-stones

In our journey of unknowns

With gasps of faith and hope we strain

Against the tides of ill refrain

But there is One who hears each groan

In our journey of unknowns

We cling to Truth eyes cannot see

Yet He consoles our misery

For we will never be alone

In our journey of unknowns

The path of hope is narrow, straight

Leading to Triumph’s gleaming Gate

His arms of mercy, bastions; strong

In our journey of unknowns

Step by faltering step we come

Toward the veil twixt earth and Home

Love’s nail-scarred Victory pleads us on

In our journey to His Known

© Janet Martin

Glynis, love, hugs and prayers.

Simply Moments

Every stunning failure

And each triumphant gasp

Every trembling utterance

In every love we clasp

Every breath of courage

And every tender tear

The cistern filled with laughter

Or the belly filled with fear

The sorrow in our parting

The pleasure in hello

The obligations of sound reason

The reckless joy of letting go

The wine after the harvest

And the toiling and the strife

These are simply moments

But in time they form

A life

© Janet Martin

On This Evening's Eve

On this evening’s eve

The aural scrim descends

In sable folds; it weaves

The moments, gold

To dim, then deeper blends

Purple sweeping shadows

Like painted turrets sprawl

Across the land; the meadow

A stadium where

We watch night’s curtain fall

It tugs in motionless motion

The beauty and brutality

Of this day’s lot; an ocean

Of pure grandeur

Seals its jot in history

Alpha and Omega draws

The shade; it is dark

And day is done

But only day; His love and grace

Go on

And on

And on

And on…

© Janet Martin

I took my daughter and her friend out to a field a few miles from here to watch the sun set. Victoria said that she is going to name that field Sunset Stadium. I LOVE it!:) And all that great open sky, and all that wild wonder and all that awesome creation is a mere 'whisper of Him'  ...a mere speck of His glory and grace! Hallelujah.

The girls wanted the 'best seat in the House'...

The Person I Used to Be

I am not the shape of my body

Or the color of my skin

These are merely landmarks

Of the person I am

Within

Once upon a distant time

I was a girl of many dreams

But somewhere in life’s forward march

They got lost,

It seems

Too many passions folded

Then surrendered to Time’s greed

The future does not give us

What we want, but what we

Need

Sometimes, in perfect moments

As the evening slips away

In gold-vermilion vesture; I become

For blissful half-breaths the girl of

Yesterday

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not ungrateful

But being a woman is bitter-sweet

Girlish freedom is a pasture

Beneath lost day-dreams and

Bare feet

I’ve traded luring day-dreams

For a better mystery

Of motherhood and the adrenaline rush

Of what is yet

To be

© Janet Martin

'Between the girl I once was

And the woman I’ve become

Lie too many

Years'

Doris Day in Don’t Eat the Daisies

Our Writer's Group challenge; Where is the person I used to be?

Stuttered Praise

...and it just kept on shifting; frame after gorgeous frame!




The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge
  They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,     
their words to the ends of the world. Psalms 19:1-4

You receive our humble, heartfelt stammers

In our fumbles you fill in the blanks

Your Holiness embracing murmured thanks

Rising o’er the din of carnal clamors

You whisper to us from the gleaming Gate

As daylight folds beneath heaven’s command

Your glory tints the molten, mystic strand

Spanning the void twixt ‘welcome home’ and ‘wait’

Hatred and fear’s projections cannot mar

The portal where the feet of angels tread

The aftermath of daylight rests its head

Upon the Hand that lights the evening star

We stand upon earth’s shore; as stuttered prayer

Scales the unfathomed reaches of the air

© Janet Martin

The sunset tonight left me speechless with awe…

Any attempts at word; mere stammering ineptness.

All I could whisper was, “Oh God, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you”

The sunset was a sort of an almost circle north-west-south and partial east!..I had NEVER seen anything quite like it!

Lord Most High

We Call it...War

They go away

These dear dads

Leaving behind

Little girls with golden curls

And blue-eyed freckled lads

To fight

Other dear dads

Who leave behind

Little girls with golden curls

And blue-eyed freckled lads

We call it war

© Janet Martin

Tonight we (myself, Matt, Victoria and her friend) watched the movie

The Littlest Rebel (Shirley Temple)

‘But how does that help?’ they ask me as they watch soldiers plunder and kill.

‘Mom, how does killing people make things better?

Mom, how can being so mean bring peace?

Mom, why do we have war?

Mom, is war sin?

In the Arms of a Poem

 (one of my favorite quotes)

From all over God’s earth

from sundry trails

we come; to languish in

the vexing delight

held in the arms of

a poem

nothing quite compares, it seems

no other form of art

can evoke or charm

the seeker who dreams

best in the arms of

a poem

its lure, its lull

its push and pull

are like coming home

to a flickering fireside

in the patient arms of

a poem

© Janet Martin

The Best that We Can Hope For...

Since you must depart

I will let you go

I keep within my heart

Love’s very best, you know

For time can never steal

The pictures that I see

A cherished phantom reel

Of precious memory

Then, when the night wind howls

Spurring the embers glow

When winter’s heaving jowls

Spew blasts of ice and snow

There by the fire’s verve

I’ll re-play tenderly

The moments I preserve

In precious memory

We cannot force the hand

From which life’s moments spill

Soon autumn’s sanguine land

Succumbs to winter’s chill

Soon babies learn to crawl

Soon they are twenty-three

The best that we can hope for

Is a precious memory

© Janet Martin