Where Streets are Stained With Blood...

 

We live where streets are stained with blood

And even where the grass is green

A soldier’s body paid for us

To breathe the air of freedom’s sheen

Look down, look down; behold your feet

One in the cradle, one the grave

Look up; look up, for only He

Is God and mighty yet to save

The gutters swell with evil’s flood

Where hatred, hurt and hunger wail

A brother spills his brother’s blood

It seems the gates of hell prevail

We stagger low beneath the grief

Of Ramah; here our children die

Before they breathe; their right to live

Decided by a 'mercy-lie'

The roar of guns deploys its noise

The river runs dark and blood-red

Daughter or son is everyone

And love will mourn her precious dead

For love, this universal thread

Will bind and heal hate’s wretched wounds

Look down, look down, there lies our dread

Look up, look up, His love abounds

We live where streets are stained with blood

And gutters surge with filth and fear

We live where our forefathers stood

To face the Foe; love brought us here

And hate can never slay the One

For God is Love; He will prevail

Look up; someday hate will be done

But Love will never, ever fail

© Janet Martin

  

When the Earth is A-wash...

 This was my view from the kitchen window while making supper last night. We kept our eye on that cloud but it dissipated shortly after I took this photo into this...

When the earth is a-wash with blue rivers of spring

And the yard is a splash of verdant rendering

When each ditch is a brook and each stem bronze with bud

When young lads find heaven in meadows of mud

Then our dreams burgeon and hope is renewed

For surely the winter’s last blast is subdued

When robins are saucy in breast-coats of rust

When nooks wooded, mossy stir our wanderlust

When the breeze is imbibed with blush-pink apple-bloom

And trees are like brides all be-decked for the groom

Then we feel the joy of our care-freer hours

As spring comes a-dancing with arms full of flowers

When dark-days of winter expand then grow pale

Twixt autumnal splendor and spring-time’s regale

When we drink the nectar of sunshine and rain

And join in the laughter of violet-fringed lane

When daffodil-radiance beams from umber sod   

Then we sing for Spring and the mercy of God

© Janet Martin

As Long as Long You Can...to Victoria

I will not ask too much from you,

But I must ask enough

 This is the duty kind and true

Of a mother’s love,

So I have one small wish, my dear

Time waits for no man

Then will you just stay twelve, my dear

As long, as long you can?

Your other sisters seemed to rush

The hours through a year

And soon the days when they were twelve

Dissolved, a bubble-sphere

So, if you could, my dearest dear

Elongate this brief span

And just stay twelve in spite of years

As long, as long you can

© Mom aka Janet~

12 year olds are SO carefree!

Lest Evil Wins...

 
Image Source

I'm listening to the news; the man-hunt in Boston

I don't want to write but...

If artists forsake canvases

Put down their brushes

If poets dissuade muses

And the sea that rushes

To be spilled on page

While evils rage

And man destroys

While hate employs

Its lethal grief

While disbelief

Rocks to the core

And our tears pour

For those who suffer

First-hand its horror

And as we contemplate

The repercussions of hate

We weep

For its ripples run deep

And yet, if we still brush and pen

Until the evil of evil men

Is over and done

Then, I fear, evil has won.

© Janet Martin

Oh the layers of grief…

Of those who love the one who commits heinous acts of violence and those who suffer because of it…

Mighty Fire

April PAD Challenge: For today’s prompt, write a burn poem. I actually wrote a poem titled “burn” earlier in this month’s challenge, so I’m going to have to think a little on this to avoid repeating what I’ve already written. However, burn can represent many things–from getting burned by a bad deal (or a friend) to feeling the burn when working out to physically burning from fires.

They burn with mocking ruthlessness
Somewhere inside my head
Those hasty words of selfishness
I never should have said

What mighty fire the the tongue ignites
How long the sad regret
Of brief and thoughtless moment-spite
I now cannot forget
  
Janet~

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. James 3:6

I Like It Like This...

Someday I’ll get the chance to rock

And read those books still on my list

This steady pace of tick-and-tock

Slips quietly into the mist

And I, wearied within its leap

Climb into bed, my book in hand

But oh, alas, three pages deep

And I am off to slumber-land

Someday I’ll get a chance to write

Those words that evade me of yet

Or come to me within the night

And in the morning I forget

And someday I will organize

Those scattered thoughts within my mind

Instead of shoes and laundry piles

And tasks shaping the daily grind

Someday, too close to me, I fear

My moments won’t include the fuss

Of teen-age angst on what to wear

Or school-girl waving from the bus

Someday the noise of boys and toys

Will slip to sudden quietness

This kaleidoscope of moment-joys

Rotating where echoes caress

Someday, but oh, not now, not yet

The books upon the shelf will keep

Tonight when I climb into bed

I am so glad that I can sleep

The luxury of mundane toil

Startles with raw and fresh appeal

And I must tend its precious spoil

Which even now life’s moments steal

© Janet Martin

His Everlasting Gift

When, at the tender thought of you and me

Without a spotless lamb to sacrifice

When, at the knowing what our doom would be

Without a Savior’s blood to pay sin’s price

When, at the awesome horror of it all

As He beheld our doleful frames of dust

Convicted since the woe of Adam’s fall

To sweat and toil, to pain and greed and lust

Then He, with comprehension of our fate

And visage of timeless eternity

Left Heaven to become for us the Gate

A Ransom to set curs-ed captive free

While theologians and doubters debate

They cannot alter His Supremacy

He died to set us free and yet we choose

In spite of His death for humanity

To enslave ourselves if we refuse

The gift His offering purchased on that Tree

We cannot save ourselves and on the Cross

He did not need to save Himself; this Lamb

Suffered and died and rose again because

He IS Alpha, Omega and I AM

No earthly force can comprehend or quell

The will and might of Heaven’s Majesty

And none the tenure of His thought can tell

As we groan beneath hate’s insanity

His Love is not diminished; death and hell

Have not conquered His divine Deity

We cling not to the feeble boasts of flesh

For what a man is dies with his last breath

And none can defy, evade or reject

Eternity; the mystery in death

But we cling to the written Word of God

For what He said will surely come to pass

Our flicker of existence on this sod

Is a brief season like wild-bloom or grass

Yet, whosoever has believed in Him

Will not perish though dust returns to dust

The gift of God, when this wee life grows dim

Reveals at last the Image of our trust

As face to face we touch the nail-scarred Limb

And fall to worship He who so loved us

© Janet Martin

Tell Me Then...

Tell me then, when warm late-day shade bends

And blends with the clear, cooler rivers of dusk

When the air grows heavy with mist where the levee

Is cloaked in the heady young whispers of musk

As spring comes tiptoeing with emerald gown flowing

Dappled with stars of forget-me-not

As you sit and ponder the mysteries yonder

Tell me then darling, what beguiles your thought?

Tell me then, when still shadows are blotted

Gently from hedge-row and sea-bank and rill

And far overhead night’s awning is dotted

With silver-strung sequins and crescent moon frill

Tell me, what nurtures or tortures your being

Is it what must be or what lies behind?

When you close your eyes love, what is it you’re seeing?

What shapes the slideshow that plays in your mind?

Tell me then, when this hour’s tenure

Fades like a flicker into night’s abyss

And melodies tremble in unwritten splendor

Where thought is the Maestro of its own tenderness

Tell me my love, of the songs you are hearing

Strumming the back-drop of nocturnal deep

Tell me then love, for the morning is nearing

What is it you think of when you cannot sleep?

© Janet Martin

Higher Window~ Josh Groban