Dawn-song

Dawn drips its radiant runway from the deep

Returning color to the silhouettes

Etched in still-life above the gleaming sweep

Of opportunity over regrets

And from the ridge above earth’s minute trace

Where galaxies unfathomed coalesce

Beneath the visage of a Father’s grace

Dawn’s lends its kind, compassionate caress

Then cast aside those mantles of despair

And close the lips of cold, thankless complaint

The God who tends to sparrows of the air

Surely cares for the feeble and the faint

The diadem of morning’s gladdened mirth

Breaks through the veil of darkened somnolence

To clothe the ramparts of heaven and earth

In shadows of divine-breathed radiance

The dawning of a virgin day unfolds

Pray what will be the bloom in its embrace

Before west-seraphim of gilded gold

Will tuck its scattered petals into place

The dawning of a new day gently spills

Against the girth of somber, slumb’ring sod

Rosy resplendent ripples ‘cross the hills

In mercy-beams to us from gracious God

© Janet Martin

Of Everything We Cannot Change

The weight of everything we cannot change

May press against the levee of the heart

And though we yearn to shift or rearrange

The filament of its woven rampart

We cannot touch past’s immutable stage

Its frozen landscapes to obliterate

Nor crumple like an error-splattered page

The flawed, fragmented pictures we create

But look, upon the east from God’s embrace

He renders to earth’s offspring new-dawn grace

The imperfections of another day

Will soon unfold their mortal mystery

Its path of burnished evidence will splay

Fresh-footprint miles in frames of history

For we cannot thwart Time’s persistent breath

From night to day and back to night once more

Its astral clock will not succumb to death

Until the declaration of the Lord

As on the cusp of earth’s four-season dust

We spill the follies of our love and lust

…and thus, we bear its subtle aftermath

For what we sow is what we stoop to reap

Yet, grace aligns itself against the path

Where joy and sorrow tune the tears we weep

And mercy washes guilty stains away

The weight of everything we cannot change

Will not be held against us on that Day

For none redemption’s flood can rearrange

Or reinstate the debt that Love forgave

To break the curse that bound us to the grave

The bulwark of His promises abide

We are not doomed in spite of our dross

Look; listen to the words before He died

Sealing eternal pardon; from the cross

Where His blood poured in Passion’s agonies

As life ebbed from the limbs of perfect love

And “it is finished” rent the galaxies

Now hope fixes our gaze on courts above

Where Time can never shift or rearrange

The joy of everything we cannot change

© Janet Martin

Of Patience and Moment-flows

 

Image Source

Dearest child, clothed in blissful innocence

And dancing on life’s placid moment-flow

Like everyone, you too must learn patience

For soon you’ll see how swift the hours go

We smile and envy cautiously the restless gleam

Spurring you on to greener pastures sweet

The pure delight of youth’s unhindered dream

Is hampered only by Time’s sluggish feet

…and though we murmur ‘patience, child’ we nod

And urge you on in spite of what we know

For patience is a thing learned as we trod

The hastening of living’s moment-flow

© Janet Martin

Victoria began sewing her rag quilt today. She just asked if it will be done by tonight?! We are both having patience lessons as she is still learning all the little 'tricks' of the sewing machine, but she is doing great!
p-s-s-s-t! I am glad its the sewing machine though and not a car;)) v-r-o-o-o-o-o-m! Sc-r-e-e-e-e-e-c-h!repeat.

Glad Song...an Opposite Poem

A smooth calm sweeps

The warm-waking world

Come hither, glad day

With new joys unfurled

For lo; soon twilight creeps

Over the western steeps

And blue shadows of dusk

The heavens salute

Lo! From the depths

Of woven dirt

With joyful thought

Its lays assert

To softly tease the Day;

And smooth the night awry

They make glad the slumb’ring breeze

And with its mirth ally

Comrade from the deep

Laughing in bliss-pink

Before dawn we tiptoe

Toward earth’s brink

Embracing the mystic east

We drink its celestial feast

Brimming with dark heart-sorrow

And yesterday's tomorrow

Janet~

An opposite poem to

Mad Song by William Blake

THE wild winds weep,

And the night is a-cold;

Come hither, Sleep,

And my griefs enfold! . . .

But lo! the morning peeps

Over the eastern steeps,

And the rustling beds of dawn

The earth do scorn.

 

Lo! to the vault

Of pavèd heaven,

With sorrow fraught,

My notes are driven:

They strike the ear of Night,

Make weak the eyes of Day;

They make mad the roaring winds,

And with the tempests play,

 

Like a fiend in a cloud,

With howling woe

After night I do crowd

And with night will go;

I turn my back to the east

From whence comforts have increased;

For light doth seize my brain

With frantic pain.

Evening Epitaph

Here lie the gathered moments of her day

A rendering to every man the same

Of hours, burnished gold or sullen gray  

Resting within past’s immortal acclaim

Here the deceased forevermore will rest

No horse-drawn procession draws her along

But crimson dirge upon the molten west

Consoles the bystander in vesper-song

Here lies mercy’s allotment of the dawn

Asleep within Time’s chimeral embrace

While trembling hope spurs us to journey on

To our repose; faith’s final resting place

© Janet Martin

Last night, Matthew tells me (as he leans on my chair reading the epitaph) he had a dream that he wishes he could paint; he and I popped out of the water in the Arctic where we saw the most amazing sunset, glaciers and strange, beautiful birds!

Of Footprints and Sun-sparkles

The dawn has stretched its panoramic veil

In wordless rhapsody from east to west

While yesterday, a footprint in life’s trail

Points one day nearer to our ageless rest

But now the beckoning of hope and love

Rolls out its moment-carpet from above

We tread its thoroughfare, oft thoughtlessly

The miles that draw us up then down again

Are transient as sun-sparkles on a sea

Where dusk begins to lean from ether-plain

To brush another foot-print to a shore

Where we can never tread it anymore

Darling, love is a whisper intertwined

In fingertips, in lips and heart and mind

Though Time may steal flesh bodies from our touch

It cannot rob love’s essence from our clutch

A gossamer and silken undertow

Of echoes where the flaxen lilies blow

Today a corridor of fresh unknowns

Invites us to live, love and laugh once more

Across its shimmered breadth of sticks and stones

We dream and dance, life’s homely joys implore

Beseeching and admonishing, for we

Draw ever closer to eternity

© Janet Martin

Nine years ago my Grandma Martin passed away but her voice and her laughter remain. We ALL miss you, Lizzie.

The Love of God...a Praise sonnet

His gentle finger frustrate man’s design

For we see only fringes of His thought

Where nature’s petal-miracles align

With tempest tossing our dreams to naught

The schemes of our feigned humility

The crass rebellion of our stubborn pride

Can never alter His Supremacy

Or dis-annul the rivers from His side

Pouring to set the captive sinner free

He drank the gall of death for you and me

Look, look; redemption’s Lamb the Father chose

Is His own Darling; oh, how can it be

That He who formed the trillium and the rose

Offers Himself to die on Calvary?

Where mobs assault with ignorance, the grace

Of sin-chains loosed; death crushed beneath the flood

Of scarlet hope; they spit upon the face

Veiled red with teardrops from the Son of God

“Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani”

He died; the Savior of humanity

What greater thing than this can any boast?

The King of kings clothed in meekness dust-wrought

Suffered even to death love’s uttermost

His Mystery frustrates our groping thought

That He who breathed to being galaxies

Did not keep His Beloved at His side

But saw beyond the cross’s agonies

The intercession of the justified

Oh Lord, no greater love will ever be

Than Jesus Christ who sets the sinner free

© Janet Martin   

Jesus, Savior- Alison Krauss

Life-journey Sonnet

This load of mortal care that we must bear

Would press us hard into the ruthless dirt

And there would be no comfort for our hurt

Or healing for the wounds we suffer here

But for a Touch, if we would pause to see

It’s loving grace, from knowing nail-scarred Hands

To carry us through storm or sinking sands

As we long for immortal victory

And oh, we could not rise to meet the day

Or face the onslaught of hope’s brazen foe

But for arms of One who shows the Way

Because He IS and by this grace we go

For He who wept blood-tears sin’s debt to pay

Has suffered more than we can ever know

…and so we rise, not on the emptiness

Of merit won by failure’s fleeting worth

For we are creatures of a second birth

If we have touched His robe of righteousness

By His stripes we are healed; if we believe

Then we know that this fight is not in vain

And though we bear our lot of promised pain

And though through sorrow’s seasons we must grieve

There is a crown of joy waiting with He

Who wore a crown of thorns pressed on His head

And oh, there is redemption full and free

In rivers of Creator-God blood shed

As He offered Himself on Calvary

And for the hope of wretched sinners bled

God is not mocked; we dare not spurn His Gift

Or blame Him for the burdens we must bear

For He has gone fair mansions to prepare

For those who will endure; this mortal rift

Twixt earth and sky in one wink will dissolve

The vapor of its temporal constraint

Will dissipate and nevermore will taint

The laughter of breath-eons that evolve

Where moments are not counted into years

Or hours portioned into day and night

In Heaven earth’s familiar disappears

And faith at last will become glorious sight

Unmarred by foolish fantasy or fears

We touch the hem of Everlasting Light

© Janet Martin

 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Gal. 6:9

Alan Jackson; What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Ty Herndon: Journey On