Of Postludes

How can it be

Both soothing and vexing

Invisible whisper

Of tender torment

Pleasing, compassionate

Teasing, perplexing

Ever time’s master

…a moment

Giver and taker

Lover, Heart-breaker

Beautiful thief

That none can dissuade

Gentle persuasion

Brutal invasion

And then in the end

…a memory made

J~

December Dusk

Over cold meadow still twilight comes stealing

Over my heart steals the wisp of a sigh

Here in the lull twixt late day and first-evening

I hear the close of a year drawing nigh

Sable surrender as moments retreat

Heart-wrenching, tender and blue bittersweet

Into the abyss of thoughts grave recollection

Spectacular triumphs and failures align

Tuning the echoes of midnight reflection

Time-tempered petals falling from life’s vine

Spiraling sparkle of laughter and tears

Filling the chalice of moment-shaped years

Paramount passion and trivial trouble

Slip like dawn’s dew-drops into the thin air

What is a moment; this silver-blue bubble

Cradling allotments of joy and despair?

Here in the twilight a melody seeps

Down from cloud-gardens to earth-frigid deeps

Rising then falling, the lilt of an hour

Feathers the sod; daylight disappears

The girl is a woman, the seed is a flower

Half-breath relinquishment spills into years

My heart overflows with hellos and good-byes

Here in blue dusk of December’s demise

© Janet Martin

The True Light

The darkness is not greater than the Light

One tiny spark will pierce the shroud of night

We are not doomed to blindness and despair

See how the morning melts night’s onyx air

Time’s Shepherd tends the hours while we sleep

His Light exceeds the gloom of midnight’s deep

From Dark to light; hope’s gate is open wide

We are the sheep for which this Shepherd died

Darkness cannot remain; the Light has come

Into this world; a Babe in Bethlehem

Shepherd became a Lamb; Lamb is the Light

I AM prevails beyond the transient night

He shines into the dark; Grace and truth rend

The veil that darkness cannot comprehend

© Janet Martin

John 1:1-15

Of Chapters Unwritten

 

Out on the skyline a new day softly gleams

Acquiescent out-pouring of moment-regimes

Unwritten chapters of what soon will be

Permanent pages in world-history

The Author and Finisher of Time’s lone volume

Entrusts to our finger’s life’s ephemeral plume

And thus now we splatter our laughter and tears

Obscurely they scatter from moments to years

Out on the skyline the turning of page

Sets into motion a gasp on this stage

Summer and sorrow and spring softly spill

Onto earth’s parchment from Time’s tempered quill

Beneath mercy’s promise God beholds our smears

Jots fraught with error; its plot blurred with tears

Questions and answers; then questions again

As happiness, heart-ache and hope fill our pen

Out on the skyline a new day unfolds

And nobody knows the storyline that it holds

Yet, it is not ours to decline or to flee

The moments ordained with what yet must be

Over each hand is the Hand that imparts

Grace without portion to comfort our hearts

Over and over His kind Hand bestows

Strength for each chapter in life’s moment-flows

© Janet Martin

Anonymous Angel...

 

Stripped of all pretense

You come to me

Mystery, fulfillment

Anonymously

As the still night is filled

With a whisper akin

To almost perfection

In what might have been…

J~

There is a strange allure in the 'almost perfect' of what might have been...

Of Retrospect and Reaching...

The sigh of a year rushes over my thought

Slipping like a tear to visages of naught

Unfolded moments are folded once more

Their visibility etched in a landscape of yore

Milky perception of all I should know

Taunts my reflection in Time’s glassy flow

Tragic indictments of haste’s foolish race

With tender enlightenment of love’s patient grace

Listen; can you hear it? Time’s flow does not stop

Nor the urge to keep reaching for an elusive top

The season of farewell slicks meadowland, tree

The blast of soon past haunts dawn’s tranquility

© Janet Martin 

Sunday Wordle #87: top, visibility, sigh, rushes, unfolded, tragic, listen, milky, glassy, lighten, blast, slicks

Keep-sakes~

 

Over and over and over

We brush the tears from our face

But not so with dear, precious memories

Etched forever in place

J~

Offerings~

 

Jesus, You owed us nothing

And yet You gave Your all

Jesus, we owe You everything

Why are our gifts so small?

Janet~