Holding the World

 

One little now
is of far more value
than all the yesterdays
in the world
One little now
is the Holy Grail
of every possibility
unfurled

Janet~

Ambrosial Intoxication

On some nights

The ambrosial intoxication

Of your rendering

Is almost enough

Until realization

Cuts to the quick

For the weaving of words

Can never make

Or be

Love

© Janet Martin

Now Drifts the Dirge of Dusk's Defeat...

Now drifts the dirge of dusk’s defeat

Across the surge of silver sea

A madrigal, somnolent, sweet

Clenching, wrenching the heart of me

The winnowing of zephyr-zest

In subtle, season-serenade

Gathers diurnal hours to rest

Muting daylight’s dulcet aubade

Gladness and sadness intertwine

A raw and riveting requiem

Drips from the honeysuckle vine

Stripped of its hazy summer dream

Where is the Maestro of the throng

Composing anthems overhead

Of sun and star-spun moment-song

As my glass slipper turns to lead?

Yet, I am drawn into this trance

Of love-and-mercy-meted grace

Beneath dusk’s drifting dirge I dance

And reach to touch the Maestro’s face

© Janet Martin

Cerebral Contortion

Longing contorts the present

For we cannot touch

Shadow-and-whisper essence

Echoes and such

Yet, in their keen rendering

Of tormenting bliss

Awareness surrenders

To memory’s kiss

J~

Time-trace

(it is storming like mid-winter today, instead of almost spring)

I watch

Time trace her proof

Where virgin-bud

Of spring and youth

Have fled

Relenting to

Summer’s passage

Then red

as autumn is spent

And winter

Unleashes its elements

On your head

© Janet Martin

Tracing Tempests

The ragged fringes of the heart are like a battered shore

But oh, the tender treasure cradled where tempests implore

As moment-gems of days gone by render a brooding gleam

To diadems of memory’s indelible requiem

For we can never sever from time’s merciless rampart

The pattern of love’s whispers in the fragments of the heart

The hand of time doles out its share of hellos and good-byes

Meek mourners congregate; somewhere a new-born baby cries

Ah, life and death; none can escape its ordained certainty

Our final breath is but the gate to vast eternity

The feathered brush of finger-tips and lips extend their touch

Within the rush of rising tides and sinking ships and such

Darling, sometimes I hide behind the skin that shapes my face

Where love is strung; silver sequins on echoes I embrace

For utter grief and joy are imbued by a tear's caress

An uncharted alloy of bitter-sweetest tenderness

Evoking in keen, sudden half-breath, a tsunami force

Yet delicate awareness of Time’s ethereal discourse

Time is nothing but moments melding one into the next

The past an unveiled eon of hope’s imminent pretext

For now the tune that spawns our laughter falls into the deep

Of ageless ever-after; unmarked graves where moments sleep

As hearts with ragged fringes bear its onslaught valiantly

A gate of mystic hinges opens and shuts soundlessly

© Janet Martin

The Light

No one can turn on the dark on a whim

Darkness evolves as light grows dim

Light overcomes darkness as dawn fades the night

And darkness can never extinguish the Light

Take heart fellow pilgrim, this journey through life

Will take us through valleys of turmoil and strife

While doom-criers wail ‘it is dark’, we fight

For darkness will never extinguish the Light

© Janet Martin

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Gen1:1-3

The Word of God begins with Light!

The Morning Comes...

The darkness blots beneath its reach

Earth’s swell of pasture, hill and beach

The field that bears each season-sweep

Fades out into ebony deep

The pallid moon, a soundless wraith

Above charcoal landscapes of faith

And though the darkness steals our sight

Though faith alone must be our light

We know, in spite of what we see

No night is for eternity

And just beyond this onyx scope

Glimmers the morning-tide of hope

Even the void of darkest dark

Is pierced by nothing but a spark

And by and by the blackest hour

Softens beneath a keener power

Of mercy whispers; night succumbs

To heaven’s rule; the morning comes

© Janet Martin

The morning comes

No night remains

The Light of faith

Succors, sustains

And by and by

Shalom, shalom

We lift our eyes

The morning comes…

 They were also to stand every morning to thank and praise the LORD. They were to do the same in the evening 1 Chron. 23:30