Still, There is Joy

On some-days the pen is heavy and inspiration falls

Limpid like a wilted stem beneath thought’s judgment calls

And the wind that moves through the willow-tree is weeping more than sighing

Like the rush that surges now through me responds; a kindred crying

But still,

There is joy

On some days the frying-pans are burnt and all the laundry soiled

Beneath the joy of living fully where forefathers toiled

And we spend too long hunting for things hastily mislaid

While the willow-wind is taunting us and spreading wide its shade

Yet still,

There is joy

On some days we are so weary that it almost hurts to breathe

But everyone is hungry; prudence bids us bind our sheaves

And count our many blessings as they pour from vaulted dome

In the tender-sweet caressing of a place that we call Home

So still,

There is joy

© Janet Martin

My grandma’s life was not nearly perfect, yet more often then not she would be humming a song of praise to her Creator as she worked (it seemed, tirelessly) and often she spoke of her blessings. I think of her now in another Home! Yes, this is the greatest Joy for the earthly home; that hope of another Home and we want to choose joy now, be that Joy, spread it like a love-song to everyone we meet!

Once Again

May we never grow weary of praising You, God

Your mercy unveils the dark hills

And over the glimmering, glistening sod

Your Majesty patiently spills

A clean cup of moments to have and to hold

In spite of fumbling evidence

Gently, from fathoms of love You unfold

Compassion’s tender recompense

Failure’s despair and discouragement’s doubt

Duel; a barbaric force

Still, moments pour from Time’s ethereal spout

In merciful, patient discourse

Hope and forgiveness transcends our worst

Heaven defends with Your best

We should be downcast; pitifully cursed

Instead we are graciously blessed

May we fill our mouths with Your praise; not complaint

For oh, how Your compassion pours

Over the Darkness with pure unrestraint

Like morning across night’s veiled shores

God, You are faithful and will not forsake

Us, though we are foolish and vain

Your grace and forgiveness in mercy-beams break

In newness of hope once again

© Janet Martin

This was not my best week-end; and it had nothing to do with the rainy weather or changes in plans. It had to do with words I spoke and the tone I spoke them in. They cannot be taken back... and we hurt those most that we love best! and this morning it felt like a brick pressed. hard. on my chest as I rose to face a new week. 

As I paused to watch the sun rise Hope whispered to Me...Once. Again. He gives a new day of Grace and I see Grace uttering those words 'it is finished' and Love forgives so we say I'm sorry and drink from His cup of Mercy...'oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Mercy-Medley

The landscape brims with nature’s hymns

The hillside with wild flower

And in the dell the drenched brook swells

With song after the shower

The holly-hocks in wandering flocks

Blooms where its seed awakens

The gardens surge with summer’s splurge

And shady banks with bracken

The little lad leaps from his bed

To chase a day-dream’s beauty

He does not scan the half-breath span

Twixt childhood’s dance and duty

Across the lawn dawn’s shadow’s spawn

A virgin breadth of chances

Soon dusk will veil its green regale

And seal its recompenses

But now the rush of moments blush

In morning-measure glowing

We touch the sod and trust our God

For mercy’s kind bestowing

© Janet Martin

It is so nice to see the sun after a week of cloudy or rainy mornings! Last year we had droughts and this year we have floods! It is not ours to ask God why...

Of Present Tasks

Sometimes the grief of what is not

Torments and tests our purest thought

The anguish of our heart’s desire

Ignites a raw and raging fire

Sometimes the void of what has been

In all its scratched, imperfect sheen

Threatens to rob us of the joy

As guilt and blame and shame deploy

Sometimes the aftermath of choice

Yields harvests hard to ever voice

As in our heart of hearts we bear

The consequences of its care

Sometimes, the weight of wanting burns

As haunting of failure returns

But God is faithful; if we ask

He fits us for our present task

© Janet Martin

Living in the Middle...

This morning yesterday's 'undone' greets me as soon as I step into the kitchen!

As the dawn breaks and we persuade our feet

To return once more to tasks left undone

As the clock ticks its staid, staccato beat

Expanding moments beneath rain or sun

We are not simply enduring its bliss

No, it is something much better than this

As life’s call reverberates through our senses

Tugging us into its sleek moment-tide

We tread the rubrics of its recompenses

Not simply to suffer a home-spun joy-ride

We should remember beneath toil’s routine

We form the echo of ‘what once had been’

As we embrace this new grace-gifted dawning

We are not merely employing its space

Here in the shadow of heaven’s cloud-awning

We shape the pictures that our thoughts will trace

Oh, what a blessed opportunity

To live in the middle of a memory

© Janet Martin

My Porch

My porch will never grace magazine covers

Or be a glossy, pull-out centerfold

But my porch in honest and humble endeavor

Is the foreshadow of heaven’s threshold

My porch has concrete all weathered and broken

But this won’t keep neighbors from stopping a bit

To talk of the weather, of gardens and children

There’s something ‘bout porches that begs us to sit

My porch is haven to small boys and kittens

Here candy-apple grins spread a mile wide

Beneath the poems of Browning and Kipling

To daisy-beamed whispers and dreams of a bride

Its borne the kisses of kool-aid pink splashes

Its worn the tracks of carefree muddy feet

It bears the tears of rain-song as it dashes

Over the proof of love’s precious heart-beat

It beams its beacon to night-owl teen-agers
It lends its front-steps to little bare toes
And oft in the evening these steps are the bleachers
Where we watch cool twilight strum rambling corn rows

My porch is nothing so special to others

But oh, how it echoes with moments of mirth

My porch is simple and yet humbly offers

A four-by-six glimmer of heaven on earth

© Janet Martin

My friend Megan (Lilacs and Lavender) and I chuckled yesterday at the thrill of being able to visit each others gardens and porches by the click of a mouse! Coffee or tea anyone?

Moments Dilute...

 Hint;  some moments dilute best in a cup of black coffee:)

Moments dilute where life’s dirt and its hurt

Mingle with heart-ache and hope’s happiness

Star-mottled midnight melts over the earth

As morning tip-toes above its dew tress

We touch our feet to its toil and its spoil

Footprints of yesterday etched in our wake

And yet we bend, tending earth's gracious soil

Too soon these moments drift over the lake

In echoes that cannot be rearranged

For footprints of the past cannot be changed

Time weaves a life, not in vast leaps or deeps

But in its half-breath, half-grin hungering

For as sweet summer smiles the hour creeps

To autumn’s brink and youth’s surrendering

The crown of wisdom is both wrought and taught

As tears of holding on and letting go

Are waged within the battlefield of thought

And in Time’s subtle, searing moment-flow

And though our fingers clench what love imbues

An hour eases from our grasp its dues

Darling, sometimes it seems we race and chase

For what? Its why and wherefore sadly lost

We are recipients of a holy grace

Our hands can never justify the Cost

And while moments disperse in miles, tears, smiles

Their purpose is of paramount import

This life is but a turning of the whiles

Its end begins what Time is all about

Moments dilute; we trod its dust and sod

Not to the grave but to the arms of God

© Janet Martin

Grasping His Goodness

Who but our God can paint thought on the air

In whispered pink, or on sod, shadow-blue?

Who tunes the quadrille of four-season fare

Or etches the limb on moon-lit avenue?

Who can restrain the darkness; rend its veil?

Who fills the bud, draws the fruit from its seed?

Who but our God pours the dawn from its grail?

Lavishing Light on our blindness and need

It is too much for mere poets to pen

This Father of nature and angels and men

Who, in the spring tints the earth with His Heaven?

Who plants the hills, guides the bird to its nest?

Who, with his blood can cry; all is forgiven

And bend to the whispers that bleed from our breast?

Who designs eons of petal-perfection?

Planting the earth with wilted aftermath

Who can declare, I am the Resurrection

Instilling Life where death threatened its wrath?

Thought in its greatest endeavor falls mute

Who dares His holy Deity to refute?

Who can fulfill the heart’s deepest desire?

Offering peace where life’s storm beats and brawls

Who threads vast ramparts with oceans of fire?

Yet beholds the wee sparrow as it falls

Who but the Author of creation’s grandeur

Longs to hold nearest the offspring of man

None can exceed His wonder and splendor

Or count the ages that God’s mercies span

The very soul trembles, within His embrace

Faith grasps His promise and drinks from His grace

© Janet Martin

 He does great things which we cannot comprehend. Job 37:5