Of Half-breaths and Hope

Though apathetically we crowd You out

Choosing the dread of what we cannot see

Vainly embellishing each half-breath doubt

With hope that is not hope outside of Thee

And though in cold and blatant disregard

We turn to broken foibles of our lust

When disappoint plays another card

While we disdain the One we ought to trust

Still from the throne of grace Your mercy pleas

On the behalf of our iniquities

Oh Lord, my God how long will you contend

And still remember we who soon forget?

We drink from cups of blessing that you send

And yet despise its rivers on our head

Pride, shame and our inherent enmity

Would seal our doom; but wait, Love will prevail

For Time and man cannot annul the Tree

Where you became redemption’s sacred grail

Spilling, willing Your life-blood once for all

To save us from the curse of Adam’s fall

You do not bar the dawn from eastern brink

Another day of grace kindly implores

As night surrenders to soft-whispered pink

One half-breath from Your everlasting shores

We inhale, exhale; gossamer, the thread

Twixt now and unfathomed eternity

Oh Lord my God, how utter were death’s dread

But for the Offering that sets us free

Conquering death; this Hope abides, oh God

As one half-breath transports us from this sod

© Janet Martin

 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Heb. 8:12

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!