Fear Versus Faith

To live in fear is to die while yet breathing

Fear cripples courage and robs us of hope

Lord, teach me to trust you each day I am living

Without Your assurances how else could I cope?

Death is the wages of sin without pardon

You paid its debt as you died on the cross

Breaking the curse that began in The Garden

Offering grace for mankind’s hopeless dross

If God is for us, then who can be against us?

See the true banner of comfort unfurled

Wonderful wonder, Jesus, precious Jesus

Greater are You than any of this world

© Janet Martin

 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”

⁶ So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?”

⁷ Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:5-8

If I Met Me...

If I had to look at me instead of you

Would I want to be my friend?

Would I care to get to know me better?

Or would I be content

To smile and nod politely

Careful not to meet my eye

Lest I desired something more

Than how are you and then, good-bye

© Janet Martin

He Tells Me...

He tells me the pizza isn’t ready yet

His accent is heavy…what language? I cannot tell

He tells me the price…

I search for the change to make 58 cents

He tells me not to worry about it

It doesn’t matter, he smiles

Then he tells me about the kids that come in after school; hungry

He asks them what kind of pizza slice they would like

They tell him, ‘we have no money’

He tells me how he likes to give them pizza anyhow, just to see them smile

He tells me again; ‘it doesn’t matter

It’s just money and I have enough to get by’

I tell him, 'those kids will remember you forever'
His voice is husky with emotion as he tells me 'I hope so'

He tells me then, with sudden tone change

I had two once; and a wife

He tells me about the war in Yugoslavia

Poof!  and everything he had was gone

He tells me that life in Canada is good

I ask him about his loss; how long ago?

…and he tells me; long ago, thirteen years

I tell him, but thirteen years isn’t that long

With tears he tells me, no, it isn’t

And he tells me when I ask, his first language was Serbian

His second language was Russian; no good in Canada

He tells me he took six months of English school…

He owns two pizza shops and life in Canada is good

© Janet Martin

this happened a few hours before I wrote this. Yes, it is true.

Of Empty Beaches...and Love

another Sonnet...

Across the canvas of this little day

The purple of fall’s waning hour creeps

As we recall the cerulean deeps

Of summer where life’s tender echoes splay

The sea rushes across the quiet beach

Where shrieks of children-laughter tunes our thought

Enlarging the expanse of what is not

And what remains forever out of reach

To love, and then let go is love’s great test

For what we truly love we never own

Yet, if we love we’ll never be alone

When time extends its hand with love's request

I hold you close in spite of what I know

God, give me strength when it’s time to let go

© Janet Martin

Of Ellipses and Moments...

There are no ellipses between moments

One melds into the next

Thus I want to endeavor

To love you in moment-bests

One moment with you darling

Simply leaves me longing for

Its full measure without parting

For at least one moment more

Farewell of fingers tracing

Is love’s inevitable

But heart-to-heart embracing

Is love’s subliminal

There are no ellipses between moments

They pulse in farewell’s kiss

But moment-hope anticipation

Is love’s tender-sweetest bliss

© Janet Martin

When the Love Falls

Of Interests and Others...

Do you like to be encouraged?

Encourage others

Do you like to be appreciated?

Appreciate others

Do you like to be needed?

Need others

Do you like to be praised?

Praise others

Do you like to be smiled to?

Smile to others

Do you like to be missed?

Miss others

Do you like to be ‘heard’?

‘Hear’ others

Do you like to be loved?

Love others

Because

In the end

Others

Are much

Like

Ourselves

© Janet Martin

We Pass This Way but Once

 ( I do not know the author of the above quote, but I like it)

Poetic Bloomings indulges The Sonnet today.

We pass this way but once, no trial run

Time is a live-and-learning entity

It doles in moments its shadow and sun

While we accept that what must be will be

Do moments spiral; do they drip or glide?

Where is the fount of Time’s ceaseless discourse?

Without consent we join its forward-slide

Age keens the senses to its soundless force

Intangible, its urgent undertow

Stirs apathy to sudden consciousness

Of moment-dispensation’s virgin flow

Into the grasp of human wantonness

We pass this way but once and we must choose

The handling of pure moments; use, abuse

© Janet Martin

One Certainty Abides...

Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt The Sonnet.


The SONNET is a poem, properly expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment. It consists of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to one of certain definite schemes. In the strict or Italian form it is divided into a major group of 8 lines (the octave) followed by a minor group of 6 lines (the sestet). An a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets. For the sestet there were two different possibilities: c-d-e-c-d-e and c-d-c-c-d-c. In time, other variants on this rhyming scheme were introduced, such as c-d-c-d-c-d.
The English form break the poem into 3 quatrains followed by a couplet. Each line containing ten syllables and written in iambic pentameter, in which a pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable is repeated five times. The rhyme scheme in a Shakespearean (English) sonnet is a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g; the last two lines are a rhyming couplet. Alternate Rhyme Scheme: a-a-b-b, c-c-d-d, e-e-f-f, g-g

Future does not conform to fantasy

We cannot glimpse the portend of its will

Nor does it murmur hints of good or ill

We press in moments to its mystery

Desires of the heart will ebb and flow

And fickle are the wishes of our want

The past seeks to remind, to teach or haunt

The wise man learns to learn then let it go

One knows our future’s intricate design

While we were still a whisper in the womb

He shaped the numbered days of our bloom

Into His perfect will our wills resign

One certainty abides in our defense

From seeds of choice we reap its consequence

© Janet Martin