Beautiful Ordinaries

Embrace them,

All those beautiful ordinaries

Shaping our toil and strife

Embrace them

For beautiful ordinaries

Shape a life

Embrace them

The endless clean-up

and clutter

The chatter, the scatter

Of shoes, back-packs,

The scolding of Mother

Embrace them

The beautiful ordinaries

To which we become blind

Because in the still of retrospect

The ordinaries bind

The scattered fragments

Of duty’s strife

To color the pages

Of a beautiful life

© Janet Martin

It's Saturday,

My beautiful ordinaries are calling:) .

There She Remains...

…and there she remains

In the crook of belonging

Love is life’s beauty

There is nothing more

So there she remains

To touch with thoughts reaches

And cover with prayer

Those who part from her door…

There she remains

Sweet, tender assurance

Even as hours

And miles spin their years

There, on the Shoulder of Love

She embraces

The beautiful Knowing

That Love conquers fears

© Janet Martin

Love bears all things...

My kids don't know (actually, maybe I should tell them) that my prayers follow them each time they leave and cover them while they are gone...

Before We Ask of Him

Sometimes we do not know the words

To shape our prayer and beckoning

But our God knows; He has heard

Even before we ask of Him

Then, as we cry and beg and plead

In fear and angst and wondering

He sustains our every need

Even before we ask of Him

Our lives are not our own

A gift bestowed; no reckless whim

He reaches to us from His throne

Even before we ask of Him

With God there are no accidents

No unknown hovers vague or dim

His tender mercies intercede

Even before we ask of Him

© Janet Martin

How swiftly an accident can shift our ordinaries

As life becomes a sudden dark vale

But injury, sickness and death cannot pluck us

From Hands of love that will never fail.

We stood, watching the orange chopper (air ambulance) circle over our property as it turned to face Toronto or Hamilton, knowing it lifted off from my cousin's farm and not knowing why …we watched as the chop-chop-chop grew faint and the orange dot disappeared, and all we could do

Was pray…

My cousin, a farmer, a dad, a hubby, suffered a farm accident yesterday, losing a limb.

He is in serious condition. I do not know many details at this point other than he lost a foot or leg. Please, if you read this could you pray for him and his family?

Update: He lost his foot at the ankle. He is doing as well as can be expected at this time. they will need our prayers for a while.

 

Echoed Refrains

The year is closing in

As silently its door

Will seal within Time’s resting-place

Retrospect’s nevermore

Fearless, the moments pass

As future moments urge

Like whispers in life’s hour glass

Or autumn’s stricken dirge

Thought wings in shadow flight

Across the wending year

How quick the bud turns white

How soon winter is near

Nature’s sage interment

In solemn stillness weeps

The lowered shadows bent

Where resurrection sleeps

The Year is closing in

How swift the daylights wanes

And twixt its rising, setting sun

We write love’s rare refrains

© Janet Martin

Joy-shapes

Who can explain the shape of its cup?

These moments of joy that we hold up

To our Maker; as we dance and laugh

On summer’s tangled after-math

Even the chill wind cannot dull

The song in our heart and mouth; thankful

Thankful for the golden walnut tear

Marking the close of another year

Thankful for duty, never-ending

For the colors of farewell softly blending

With nature’s response of mute, barren trees

Stoking the moan of the wandering breeze

Thankful, yes, even for the aching sigh

Spawned by love and the tear in our eye

Who can define its measure of worth?

Humble design;  startling treasures of earth

Shaped in a smile, or the driving rain

As we dream from the dry side of the window-pane

Shaped by the leaf dangling from a limb, brave

Before spiraling, drifting to its umber-musk grave

Or else, by the madrigal of bronzed corn

As it rustles; once emerald, now brittle, forlorn

Shaped by the reaper bent on filling his sheaf

With the scattered remnant of sun-flower grief

What is the shape of summer-end joy?

Of bittersweet, beautiful autumn alloy

Of moment-drops melting away soundlessly  

In prelude to the music of memory

© Janet Martin

What is Longing?

What is longing, this inferno

Burning, yearning hunger

This groaning internal reaching

For what?

Is longing

Self-induced affliction

Carnal appetite?

Or is it holy hungry

Of things spiritual,

out of sight?

What is longing?

It cries, un-heard

Un-hushed

Weeping in the dead of night

Moaning in the noon-day rush

What is longing?

Is it folly?

or is it real?

Is it perchance, earth’s lonely sorrow

That only Heaven can heal?

© Janet Martin

Equations~

Life is a drop

In Time’s vast sea

Time is a drop

In eternity

Janet~

His Word IS...

Sometimes as I gaze upon you

Dear child, young woman, man

I wonder who will lead you

When from this nest you’ve flown

Then a sure sweet assurance

Surges from within

For His word IS, forever

And ever on, amen

His Word IS, not fleeting

Like flesh-tongue salutations

His Word IS, not bound by Time

Or parchment imitations

His Word IS, pure, faultless

And changeless through the years

A rod and staff, sure, ageless

A comfort in our fears

His Word IS; creation

Its tangible first-fruit

But it will reign forever

Though it was flesh and blood

It IS; death could not conquer

Or dis-annul its power

For His Word IS; not something

Transient as earth’s wee hour

His Word IS; true, faithful

In every age to come

His Word IS a beacon

To guide the pilgrim home

His Word IS; eternal

Dear child, young woman, man

His Word IS; infallible

Forever without end

© Janet Martin