Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Of Fellowships



To fellowship where slumbering blues
Steal over late-day avenues
And where the chill wind sweeps awry
Smoke trails from chimney to the sky

Where snow-bunting and sparrow flit
To nests as each star-lamp is lit
And all we hear is twilight’s tune
Dripping from pallid crescent moon

To fellowship with nature’s kin
Of tree and hill and echoing
Of seasons that have swept their girth
Returning thus, from earth to earth

And to behold the great, the small
In winter, spring, summer and fall
To fellowship with miracles
Is to touch living’s pinnacles

But for one holy, higher plain
Where heaven bends to heal earth’s pain
As we commune with He who shapes
The fellowship of nature-scapes

© Janet Martin  



Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
2Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.
Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Imminent Change





It drips to the quiet
A somnolent strain
Intangible trembling
Of imminent change

Nothing lasts forever
Nothing stays the same
We live in a moment
Of imminent change

Hill-top or valley
Or wide open range
Are ever the pathway
To imminent change

What must be will be
We cannot re-arrange
The way of a moment
And imminent change

Live freely, love fully
And think it not strange
That life is a journey
Of imminent change

© Janet Martin

On some nights I feel it keenly and then I'm so thankful that
  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb. 13:8





Memory-Quilts





It hovers above me
So I draw it near
A quilt stitched with laughter
And heartache and tear

Morning and evening
And all in between
Shape love’s darling patches
Of what once had been

Invisible handiwork
Intricate blend
Of snippets and pieces
That living will send

And fitted together
To warm and to cheer
Are four-season colors
Of year against year

Who knows the fabric
Waiting to be placed?
Who knows the patterns
Waiting to be traced?

But oh, what sweet comfort
To draw to our hearts
Those quilts made of memories
That loving imparts

© Janet Martin

Tonight when I called hubby for our evening chat he told me he had a flash-back as he watched a truck-driver hug his little girl and she wailed as he climbed in his truck and drove away ...

This was one of those rare evening when all four kids were at home AND in a good-ish mood! So we were downstairs where the fire crackled, each with our books, puzzles, ipods, and I fell asleep. They laughed at me as I woke from a solid nap and a missed 'together' time. I guess they'll remember how mom used to fall asleep with a book on her face:( I am so cross to have sort of 'missed' the evening, even if they likely didn't notice) Then after talking to Jim, (hubby) I pulled at that old memory quilt and added a patch.



Merry Christmas to my Russian Friends




We do not celebrate
A season or a day
We celebrate the Christ-child

…and so we celebrate
The everlasting joy
Of Heaven’s Own come down to earth
In that wee baby boy

Is our celebration
Offering salvation…


With three words; ‘it is done’

And so we celebrate
Not seasons or a day
We celebrate the Love of Him

© Janet Martin

My friend Alexandra Palmer posted this. So beautiful.



Of Shorelines, Seas and Sailors...some Sonnets





You lean against the silence; deep inside
Your plaintive sigh aches in dawn’s pristine hush
Where colors of a rising, falling tide
Fills winter’s stricken stance with summer’s rush
Tracing the outline of thought’s shadow-land
The bloom and bracken sway in buxom breeze
Along a bank where footprints in its sand
Have washed upon a shore of memories
There is no proof of moments I may seek
But for its whisper gleaming on my cheek

***



I am not discontent; Time has no rules
But one; it takes and gives in the same breath
While hope unravels from its lofty spools
And dodd’ring dream succumbs to its last death
The crimson morning rends the slumb’ring deep
Where faith and fantasy, their duels wage
And we beneath their vigil laugh and weep
Across the twinkle of Time’s vapor stage
Replenishing with virgin hope the stream
Reaching to seize the dreamer from her dream

***



Moment by moment, like a pink platoon
Dawn’s squadron marches to its ordained height
Where gold and azure vertex of high-noon
Drops from its pinnacle into the night
And we, caught twixt its future and the past
Where silences are filled with memory’s sigh
Ponder leviathan moments mercy-cast
Dripping from heaven to the by-and-by
While we glean from its effervescent tide
The drops that form an ocean deep inside

***



The aftermath of moments sweeps a shore
That we are each the lone spectator of
Gazing at life’s bygone forevermore
Fraught with framed fragments of longing and love
Borne in the limbo of mortality
This surge of moments cannot pause or cease
As we, the sailors on its silver sea
Point our prows toward heaven’s release
Recognizing He who holds the cup
Whereon we sail and moment’s tears fill up

© Janet Martin  


 The Lord rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness. 1 Samuel 26;23

This day is climbing with quiet haste
Filled with moments too precious to waste





Monday, January 7, 2013

A Little Rusty



90


Darling, are you still awake?
And will you venture out with me
Into the tumult of a night
Stark still with frigid clarity
Where breath hangs frozen and our step
Creaks loudly in the bitter cold
The giddy flame upon the hearth
Invites us from our midnight stroll
But we decline its luring grin
To listen to blue solitude
Ignite a fire deep within
Akin to passions of our youth
…darling let’s practice if we can
The thrill of being young again

© Janet~



Monday Musings while Cross-country Skiing





Life does not ask
From any man
But this; to do
The best he can

***

Fulfillment comes each day we live
Not by what we amass, but give

***

It is not those without visual sight
Who are truly and dubiously blind
But those who seek without delight
For things they never find

***

I searched for joy
And it found me
When I learned to live
Thankfully

***

We all are human
And must admit
That the best of us
Are hardly fit
To point and judge
Of us, the worst
We ought to examine
Ourselves first

***

Sometimes you try to tell me how you feel
Forgive me for not listening
Now, how I long to reach to you and steal
The un-shed tear sadly glistening…

***

Don’t sugar-coat the truth or lies
Both are immune to its disguise

***

Our children are taught
Not just by what they’re told
They learn with keen perception
By what they behold

Vanilla-frosted World





Winter flung wide her cupboards
And to the earth unfurled
In soft, snow-sugar aftermath
A vanilla-frosted world

In heaps of silent splendor
Unfathomed morsels drop
And now each lowly fencepost
Is a lustrous lollipop

…and now we all are children
Fleet-foot and fancy-free
As winter spills its wonder
In vanilla-frosted glee

© Janet Martin

Inspired by my daughter as she shouted, 'Look. The world is covered in vanilla frosting!'