This Way...

I cannot walk this way alone

It passes through life’s vast Unknown

Then, beyond its unyielding sea

Lies immortal eternity

I dare not walk this way alone

In life and death I need Someone

To gently guide and comfort me

And know those things I cannot see

I need not walk this way alone

Through suffering of thorn and stone

Through searing sun and howling gale

I need a Hand that will not fail

I will not walk this way alone

Though the Unknown is still unknown

And I cannot foretell its ways

It never passes from His gaze

© Janet Martin

 The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Deut. 31:8

Of Heart-Holding

When having and holding

Are oceans apart

I feel you whispering

Deep in my heart

Miles are the oceans

Of land, sea and air

Traversed in moments

By one little prayer

J~

The Twinkling Tide

Waves surge, sweeping the sandy shore

Before they wash back out to sea

To break across the coast once more

This is the song of century

On century,

On century

But this is not

Eternity

Ocean's perpetual ebb and flow

Rises and falls incessantly 

As generations come and go

Still plays its haunting melody

From century

To century

But this is not

Eternity

© Janet Martin

Heaven's Kisses

Beyond her kitchen sink

The skies turn pink

Night lifts sable skirts

And slips away

From ethereal space

Long-suffering grace

Succors our hurts

It is a new day

Beyond her reach

Mercies beseech

Rendering hope

Amidst the fight

Out on the east

Dawn spills a feast

Across earth’s slope

It is no longer night

Beyond her window

Out past the meadow

Daylight rends

The muted deep

Gold-gilded kiss

Melts the dark tress

She prays the Lord

His watch to keep

© Janet Martin

Psalms 90:14 - O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Soul-Song

The silence holds an orchestra; its Maestro is our thought

And oh, the tender beauty of its soft, soulful requiem

Fills with an earnest solace the vast void of what is not

And lights the wick that once burned wildly with a daring dream

The sinister employment of our dubious tendencies

Dissolves upon the lilting notes of effervescent cheer

Be gone regret, and all its suffocating memories

The music of this silence weeps a sweeter sort of tear

…it will not pause to flounder in the dismal darkness where

We grapple with the conflict of desire and despair

This Maestro does not paint its smile with pretense or disguise

The measure of its tempo wraps us in love’s true embrace

No digital enhancements, no lip-syncing and no lies

For Thought is the discerner of the man behind the face

And oh, the sweet redemption that we seek for being us

And oh, the fervent longing to be heard and understood

At last spills free into a silence filled with what once was

But is no more; for Thought convicts where no man would or could

My failure and regret would be far more than I could bear

Forgiveness not for others, but for self ignites a tear

…the silence is not shattered as it falls upon my cheek

The Maestro gently nods but does not seek to quell its flow

A melody of grace-proportion fills unfathomed deeps

Its cadence fills the vault from whence the timeless night-winds blow

As mercy not ordained by what mortality deems fit

But from the One that tunes the Maestro in its rendering

Absolves me from a reckoning that flesh cannot acquit

And only in the utterance of full surrendering

Can I at last descry the melody that tunes the soul

As Maestro yields its baton to the One that makes us whole

© Janet Martin

Heaven's Disguised Kisses

Sometimes this...

Does not feel
like heaven's kiss...
...but it is.

'I found myself restraining a great big Monday morning sigh

As its relentless repetition at first glance, held no appeal

But as I studied it more fully suddenly I realize

Heaven-glimpses on earth are real

Mom; aka Janet

A few minutes ago...

Mom: Melissa, please go and tidy your room.

Melissa: Didn't I just do that?

Mom: I wouldn't know...

Sweet, Sweet New Day...

 Today she is modestly clad in frigid gray...

Sweet, sweet new day, what have we done

That you should thus return

With offerings of patient love

Which far too oft we spurn?

Sweet, sweet new day, what do you hold

Within your mystery?

What waits concealed within the folds

Soon shaping history?

Sweet, sweet new day, pure, pristine path

Soon your robe will be rent

Its hem stained with the aftermath

Of pride and passion spent

Sweet, sweet new day, we don’t deserve

Your kind, gracious embrace

Your predecessors bear witness

Of our sad disgrace

…yet with compassion you entrust

Your moments to our care

While we, pilgrim’s of humble dust

Your joy and sorrow bear

Sweet, sweet new day, humbly I pray

You do not come in vain

Sweet, sweet new day, for you will never

Pass this way again

© Janet Martin

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Ps.118:24

Refurbished Hope

 (some photos of 'her face' in the past week)

I never tire of your face

From dark folds you emerge

A newborn gathering of grace

Pure, virgin moment-surge

Somehow twixt farewell and hello

You shed your haggard stance

Where steps disheartened, weary, slow

Yearn now to leap and dance

Your form, refreshed and darkness-bathed

Exhales replenished mirth

Your labyrinth of yesterdays

Cannot return to earth

From charcoal cocoon your emerge

Draping the sunless slope

With tender mercy’s rampant splurge

And dawn’s refurbished hope

© Janet Martin

So often it amazes me, how the old becomes new in the morning.

What our mothers said is true, 'it always looks better in the morning'.