Meeting-place

 

He meets us

Not where we ought to be

Or in visions

Faint and far

But when we ask

Then God meets us

Exactly

Where

We

Are

He does not meet us

If and when

We earn

A silver star

But if we call

He meets us then

Exactly

As 

We 

Are

 

© Janet Martin

The Known in our Unknowns

Dear Father, I must place my hand in Thine

For oh, You know I do not know the way

A new day breathes on the horizon-line

And what a-waits, God, only You can say

The unknown like a mighty, rolling sea

On which the sailor and his ship must sail

Conceals within its depths life’s mystery

Our vessels without You, oh God are frail

But if You place Your hand beneath the tide

Then we will make it to the other side

Dear Father, keep us in Your constant care

Mortality cannot dissuade the course

Of trials that we all must surely bear

Within life’s storm; it’s cold and bitter force

Would surely toss us to merciless deeps

Where we would sink beneath fear’s murky wave

But with You, God, we trust the One who keeps

His uttered word; God, You alone can save

And in the comfort of Your promises

We press ahead into the misted tress

Dear Father, Captain of our battered bark

And Master of the currents that converge

Protect us from the demons of the dark

And shed Your Light across life’s little surge

The reward of love’s humble diligence

Will someday in Your arms be gratified

So Father, take our hands and lead us thence

Knowing in You our want is satisfied

And though the unknown trembles in the air

Dear Father, oh we know that You are there

© Janet Martin

For J&R K. Please continue to pray for the family which I constantly plead prayer for...they have sent us a letter today confirming their deepest fears and need our prayers more than ever before as they face drastic and sudden unknowns. I do not have the permission or freedom, due to their safety to tell the details of their story, but they are packing as we speak and trusting God to lead.
Here are a few of their specific prayer requests;
You can be praying for:
- saying goodbyes, there are many dear ones whom we will terribly miss and we can only pray that God will meet them wherever they are in their journey with Him
- for the details of packing up 4 years of life here, what to keep, sell, give away etc.
- for our aching hearts, it is hard to say goodbye to a place that we have come to dearly love

And they close with this verse:
 

When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more,
But the righteous has an everlasting foundation.
Proverbs 10:25

Intimacy of Ink

 

With you

The intimate

Possibility

And desire

Of what may transpire

Keeps me returning

Again,

Again

For the burning yearning

Of its hidden fire

Spawns intricate fantasy

An unrestrained intimacy

In obscure romances

And beautiful dances

Flowing enchantingly

A perpetual ecstasy

In the bittersweet

Melody

Of 
The Pen
and The Poetry

© Janet~

Winter Wandering of Feet and Mind

Across the frozen field of brittle plume

Raw, ragged mumbles grumble, tumble cold

They wander through earth’s barren living-room

Like wastrels searching for their squandered gold

Bronze shroud of milkweed shivers, robbed of silk

Flung fecklessly in autumn wantonness  

Now sunlight, pale as sallow honeyed milk

Spills impotently on winter’s duress

While we, trespassers on its powdered hush

Caught in the vortex of longing and love

Pause on the fringe of muted underbrush

To drink the echoes trickling from above

Of green leaf sigh and murmured melodies

Borne in the bantering of summer’s breeze

***

The fallow, in its brief sabbatical

Inspires farmers; his anxieties  

Don eager dreams; his passion virginal

Despite its annual perplexities

And as the wind sashays and pirouettes

Across the still and stricken country-side

Where furrows sleep beneath the silhouettes

Of evergreen against the eventide

And as the farmer nods beside the hearth

Of flick’ring flame while blizzards deck the fir

Somewhere within his chest as in the earth

The nucleus of spring begins to stir

Beneath life’s disappointment and its doubt

Tender belief and hope begins to sprout

***

The woodland does not cast judgment on us

Or render its assumptions as full proof

Of our ineptness; here kind moments pause

As we bow beneath limb and snow-scrim roof

To worship without barriers of time

Or the distraction of man’s shallow ploy

Woodlot cathedral, sacred and sublime

We praise its Maker with unguarded joy

The hour of strife’s turmoil will subside

We battle its forces beneath, above

Though gods of self are never satisfied

Our One True God simply desires our love

Here on the palm of argent hinterland

I hear Him whisper in the winter-land

© Janet Martin

Yesterday's wide open afternoon was the perfect canvas for thinking and skiing as far and fast or slow as the heart desired:) It seemed like even the wind was taking a sabbatical; all was calm and still...the calm before freezing-rain-storm.

Ice Tears

She weeps,

Weighting the plush hush of winter’s girth

In silvery grief against the earth

Ice tears from Mother Nature’s eye

Ellipses dripping from the sky

Where we would fling our poetry

But for the gray melancholy

As glassy shard emotion rends

A sea of white indifference

© Janet Martin

...a light freezing rain is coating everything in a brittle glaze. The field is full of ice-flowers.

 

Behold...

Behold, the orb of burnished gold

Heralding a new day

Behold, the earth bathed in pure garb

Of sin-stains washed away

Behold, the chains of night are gone

And He makes all things new

Behold the trembling of the dawn

Gilding earth’s avenue

Behold the glory of the Lord

Rending dark ether veil

For He has promised in His word

His mercy will not fail

Behold, His day of joy a-waits

Behold His patient love

Gleams from the the port of heaven’s gates

To man from God above

Behold the testament of hope

Streaming from unbarred lea

Behold, His grace bathing earth's slope

In virgin purity

Behold, behold, the glorious Light
Behold, behold the One
He draws the dawn across the night
Behold, behold the Son

© Janet Martin

  

Country-girl Request

Thoughts while hiking through fields last week, where one can sing at the top of one's voice and only God, the wood-creatures and the wind can hear:) I drew on the memory of some summer-walks as well, for this poem

Oh, do not take me from this wonderland

Of azure dome and rippling stream of sedge

Of bloom and bee-song dripping from the hedge

Where God alone nurtures its unchained strand

Oh, do not take me from this throbbing stage

Where night-wind croons a winsome lullaby

Or murmurs a reverent soliloquy

As cricket-cadence ripples from brush-sage

Oh, let me dream on earth’s four-season swell

Dancing with zephyrs drifting from the south

Welcoming winter’s sunbeam in my mouth

Laughing in arms of hinterland and dell

Oh, let me worship the Creator God

Not from cold altars of concrete and steel

But here in humble gladness let me kneel

Upon a plot of wide open-space sod

© Janet Martin

Every so often Jim (hubby) says he would be ready to move into a nearby town. He knows that I am not! (and he's not really, he admits, but likes to see what kind of a reaction he might provoke.:)

When All is Said and Done

 

 When all is said and done...

When all is said an’ done, my luve

And we come near this journey’s end

When we have little left to prove

In clamoring for boasts of men

Will we, when all is said and tried

As twilight edges to the deep

Will we, my luve, be satisified

When we submit to that last sleep?

When all is said and done, my luve

And we are nothing but their tears

As petals whither on a grave

And bygones echo in their ears

Oh, will it be a kind caress

The cadence of that silent song

As tenderly they reminisce

My luve, when all is said an’ done?

When all is said and done, my luve

And swallows skim the vernal crest

Where thence we’ll rest; then tender youth

Will rise to greet life’s luring quest

Shod with the immortality

That slips away beneath the sun

As they advance toward the lea

My luve, when all is said and done

© Janet Martin

I am at a stage in life where my ears are filled with grand hopes and dreams of my own children and their friends as they ‘plan’. Yesterday I chuckled quietly as I listened to their well-laid ‘dreams’. Life, the great Teacher patiently and subtly plies her touch.

I felt like adding a teeny 'Burns' flavor to the poem this morning in memory of him. He was born on Jan. 25. 1759. In my mind there is no other poet quite like Robert Burns.

From my book- Songs from Robert Burns here is a fav...

Now Westlin Winds
(Robert Burns)

Now westlin winds, and slaught'ring guns
Bring August's pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather;
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
The moon shines bright, as I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.

The Pairtrick lo'es the fruitfu' fells;
The Plover lo'es the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lanely dells;
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Thro' lofty groves, the Cushat roves,
The path o'man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.

Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The Sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,
The flutt'ring, gorg pinion!

But Peggy dear, the ev'ning's clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms o' Nature:
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And ilka happy creature.

We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shines clearly;
I'll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I lo'e thee dearly:
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!