Monday, February 11, 2013

Love; Sweet, Sweet Love



 

Love does not seek
To bring to self
Glory or recognition
Love serves;
Never turning to draw
Applause or adulation

Love; sweet, sweet love
Life’s simple best
In ways of complex wonder
How is it that you
Steal my breath
As your discourse I ponder?

Love; gossamer
And warrior
And pleasure’s painful splendor
You tear blood-oceans
Out of me
In whispers soft and tender

Love; sweet, sweet love
Never demanding
Equal compensation
Yet in its giving
Comes a joy
Beyond word-explanation

Love; miraculous mystery
Increased
By its bestowing
Love; double-edged 
Bliss-agony
Within a tear-drop glowing 

© Janet~

A Love Song to God



 

Who is a God like You? To pierce infinity
And breathe into its darkened void unnumbered galaxies
The eons of Your Arm mere mind cannot contain
Nor ever fully comprehend the fathoms of Your reign

Who is a God like You? Teacher of nature’s law
Of tempest wild and tender bloom; we gaze in stuttered awe
Your mercies manifold, our diligence demands
For who can dare to disregard the touch of nail-scarred hands

Who is a God like You? Becoming sacrifice  
Choosing to leave Your glorious throne to pay sin’s awful price
Your guiltless deity suffered wrath’s vilest ill
Perfection became ransom-blood to satisfy Love’s will

Who is a God like You? Delighting to erase
And blot out our transgression with the mercies of Your grace
No record do You keep of our guilt and shame
Oh God, no other God redeems or absolves our blame

Who is a God like You? That You should seek; approve
Our stumbling, fumbling offering transforming it with love
Oh, there is none like You; before Your mercy-seat
We bow in humble gratitude to wash a brother's feet

© Janet Martin
   







Sunday, February 10, 2013

This 'Love Thing'



 

I do not know much of love but this
‘Tis bittersweet
Its images of glory
Tarnished, broken
At my feet

I do not know much of love and yet
With my stumbling dust
To learn
The little that I can
I must

I do not know much of love, but oh
To give up
Would be to fling back to God
An overflowing
Cup

I do not know much of love, its true
But one thing I do
I cannot explain it
But to say
‘I love you’

© Janet Martin

"sometimes I think I just do not get this love thing" said hubby in frustration, today at lunch:)
The more I thought about it the more I began to believe its a constant re-learning. 1 Cor. 13 love is hard to learn all at once, isn't it?

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Of Enlightenments




Maybe someday they will understand
And forgive me for all those words
I tried to say right, but somehow came out wrong

Maybe someday they will agree
That happiness is something
That we cannot touch or see

Maybe someday they will know
It is enough to love
And to be loved

And maybe someday they will touch
On the reasons their mother
Loved them so much

…but didn’t always have the perfect way
To spill from her lips
What she wanted to say

© Janet (Mom)

I Love Blue





I love blue
Cerulean sky
Noon-day sea
The light in your eye
When you think of me

Janet~

Suddenly winter feels a whole LOT like...winter:)
Suddenly thought drifts to things like the song of surf sweeping sand.

I Love Pink





I love pink
The glow of winter
Kissing the cheeks
Of a little girl
All carefree and giddy
As we splash and play
In a white-washed winter-world

Janet~

She lasted longer than I did out in the cold. Suddenly from the door I heard her call 'Mom, help! I''m literally frozen!' Her ponytail had frozen to her scarf and hat, a tangled mess! She screeched and howled as I tried to separate hair from snow and yarn:)


I Love Mornings





I love mornings
You just can’t get that feeling
Any other time of day
The newness of God’s grace-gift
In sun-sparkles, slips away

Janet~ 

'I love mornings' I said to Melissa while we enjoyed being the only two up for a little while.

Before the Poems...





Already then, I knew
That there was something more
To life than what we see on skin
Of moments as they pour

How else could walnut-leaf
Etched bold on cobalt sky
Kissed gold in late-day sultry sun
Hurt me so perfectly?

And how could babbling brook
Evoke, without a word
Irrevocable bliss-song
Within its silver splurge

Or how could jaunty breeze
Drunk on clover-pink bloom
Invite this little me to dance
In nature’s grand ball-room

…or this; weeping of wind
Drifting lost; aimlessly
Through winter’s stricken woodlot
Where a leaf-song used to be

…soft purple-misted dawn
Heady with dazzling dreams
Of summer-splashing recklessly
Through merry moment-streams

Already then I knew
When I was but a child
Something unwritten beckoned
In the air, driving me wild

© Janet Martin


When I was a child, on Saturday mornings before we were old enough to help, we were 'shooed' from the kitchen so Mother could give it it's weekly floor-scrub and wax. Those mornings sometimes seemed to last eternally, esp. in the cold winter when I didn't feel like waiting in the barn. But then I would 'traipse' all over the place. Some of those memories are etched in my mind. This morning suddenly I recalled standing in a woodlot, wondering what made it so different in the winter...ah, yes! the silence. This woodlot is mostly cleared away now, but it was there I fell in love; with violets, lilacs, apple-blossoms, forget-me-not and sun-dappled green. At our creek I discovered the thrill of brook-song; I can hear it still. Thank-you Mom:) and God.