To Artists of all Genres

Who are we that we should weave the wonder of paint, music, ink?

While others suffer pain and grieve for those who pass beyond Time’s brink

We tremble with the want of wishing ink could write their hurt away

But words are all we have to offer mingling with the thoughts we pray

Who are we, to strike the timbrel while another smites his breast

To the bugle-call of Taps before his precious child is laid rest?

We too are warriors bearing sorrows, some in flesh and some in heart

Bleeding ink and song and picture as we strive to do our part

We may not unbind the burden but beneath our bleeding thought

We beg God to heal the broken and to bless our humble jot

God is love; in spite of Eden’s aftermath He does not fail

As He pours grace and forgiveness from hope’s full and faithful grail

Who are we; but wounded warriors limping with our fellowmen

As we seek to cheer and comfort with whispers from brush and pen

© Janet Martin

When I think of the grief and suffering around me it's hard to write and I've heard others who write and sing/compose, paint, say the same thing but we press on trying to serve, trusting God to heal!  As we breathe the prayers in our hearts into song, poetry, painting we trust God to add the beauty!

Fresh Cup

A fresh cup of Unknown tilts gently to earth

Dawn softens the skyline of this new day’s birth

We are sojourners ‘neath hope’s gleaming sail

And cannot sit dormant within its travail

We touch the tools of our trade to the soil

Trusting One greater to measure our moil

In His hand life’s unknowns are shaped to our need

Testing our babble and trying our greed

Will laughter or heartache spill from heaven’s grail?

Before evening renders its somnolent veil

Who will have passed from this life to the next?

And who will remain to be tempted and vexed?

A fresh cup of Unknown employs mercy’s will

Goodness and grace in divine portions spill

We touch the tools of our trade to the sod

Plow to the furrow and glory to God

© Janet Martin

It seems every day there is a new tragedy in our community. A young mother dies suddenly of an aneurism, a 15 yr. old boy is missing in rushing stream,(my nephew's classmate),  a young man dies who, a few days prior, asked his girlfriends’ dad for permission to propose, body of Erin (waitress in local restaurant) found in the Grand River, another young man killed on his way to work, floods, and on and on…we NEVER know what a day will bring, but we know in Whom we have believed and He is able…

Without heartache we would not seek hope

Finding the Beauty in Beauty

If I see a sunrise

Or sunset

 Or a flower

Or each season's splendor as it decks the sod

If I see a child

Or a tree

Or the ocean

I miss the real beauty if I miss seeing God

© Janet Martin

Gardens From God

 I pass this field every day this week as I deliver and pick up the girls from  Son-shine Club.

From rivers of blue-strife decking hapless hillsides

Or frolic of flea-bane fringing pasture-lane

From chicory oceans and poppy percussion

God fills His gardens with heaven’s refrain

Cone-flower canticle, daydreaming daisies

Shimmer of clover, gaudy golden-rod

Anemone ambling and wild-roses rambling

Glimmering glimpses of laughter from God

Ballerina bracken blowing in bronzed breezes

Blue-bell breathed ballads and star-flower grace

Purple amaranthus and sumac-spun splendor

Or fine alabaster of fair Queen Ann’s Lace

Dance on the meadow of miracle-chassis

Lavender love-songs festoon solemn sod

Worship the One who flings floral oasis

Over the landscape in gardens from God

© Janet Martin

I love this time of year when God's gardens grow wherever they are planted!

What We Can Choose

So much in life we cannot choose

We ought not sulk or brood

For all the things we cannot change

We choose our attitude

The gray and gold we all must bear

In our allotted part

Our attitude molds and reveals

Reflections of the heart

Take heed for now the unknown spills

In mute half-breath unfolding

We cannot choose life’s good or ill

In moments we are holding

But for all that we cannot choose

We ought not sulk or brood

For everything that comes our way

We choose our attitude

© Janet Martin

I’ve heard men boast with bloated chests at what ‘they own’.

Beware; we have what God allots to test who we become…

We cannot judge by the facade of things, life’s ill or good

We all go by the grace of God; we choose our attitude

A comment on my previous poem We Cannot Choose let me to contemplate the things we have control over and I was stunned to realize that we do not really have control over anything...but our attitude.  

 All go to one place; all are of the dust and all go to dust again. Eccles. 3:20

On Summer's Eve

 The supper dishes waited while I joined in the fun. Oh, there is nothing as fair as a summer's eve sparkling with the laughter of a child. This Bubble solution needs to be mixed approx. 6 hrs. or let stand overnight before using. The recipe I used is a large batch! 2 cups Dawn dish-soap, I cup corn-syrup mixed with 12 cups hot water. The bubble-blowers: 2 drinking straws with a shoelace strung through them and knotted!

On summer’s eve the air is soft

With winnowing of haste; it’s hush

Painted in shadows by a brush

Toning the landscape from aloft

Child-laughter spangles on the breeze

In serenade of innocence

Before Time’s keen deliverance

Renders responsibilities

This prelude to quickened farewells

Bids us to linger in the gift

Of languid dusk where vespers drift

Across earth’s green and golden swells

Summer’s fortune spills to a hymn

Of daylight to twilight descent

The laden head of harvest bent

In worship as sun-splendors dim

Youth is exhumed in violet-musk

We join the frolic of a child

Before we are gently exiled

From garden air and lolling dusk

On summer’s eve the hour sprawls

Beneath the gloaming lullaby

Of luna moth and firefly

Of willow-sigh and zephyr-drawls

Soft summer eve’s serenity

Tugs us from duty’s tireless rod

To touch the finger-tips of God

As this day fades to memory

© Janet Martin

I LOVE this song for the summer! I crank it up because it is exactly how I feel:)

We Cannot Choose

Image Source

Oh that the whimsy of dew would fill up

Chalice of lily and gold butter-cup

Oh, that the sun would fly high in the sky

Beacon on back-drop of azure July

But we cannot choose a rain-drop’s descent

As earth over-flows with its silver lament

Oh, that the cloud could refrain for a while

Its rain-madrigal for the warmth of sun-smile

The wind moves its murmurs through drenched maple-tree

We place our murmurs in whispered prayer-plea

The moods of the morning we cannot refuse

Nor order the weather like a new pair of shoes

Goodness and mercy flow from Heaven’s throne

We see the moment; God sees the unknown

He tempers and tries our pronouncements of trust

Saints in the making from whispers of dust

We dare not grumble or challenge His Hand

But humbly submit to love’s perfect command

© Janet Martin

Toronto is flooded!

It is still raining...

Before I Let Go...

Stay near me now and do not haste so easily away

On earth’s far prow your shadow folds across this remnant fray

The nook between the apple trees where its green first-fruit fell

Is blanketed in memories within your velvet swell

…and where the noise of girls and boys sweetened the afternoon

Its echoed joys replay beneath a misty, mute new-moon

And somehow I must find a way to keep within my heart

The pictures of this darling day; too soon we drift apart

Oh, keep your chattel if you must but leave behind, I plea

A bit of chatter, laughter, dust, to keep me company

For you have lowered from the sky the dark veil of farewell

Stay near me yet a little while lest I forget the smell

…of rain on roses, mist on midnight, playful puppy-kiss

Tea mingling with a gentle candor as we reminisce

Of girly giggles, boyish banter, before all is still

As moments meld this darling day to echoes on the hill

© Janet Martin

We have four ‘guests’ aka cousins staying with us this week. They arrived on Sat. and will stay until Thurs. Also, we are dog-sitting a neighbor’s dog so there is lots of lively happiness going on at the Martin house…and many beautiful memories which I know from past experience will also fade in time. Even photos can only retain so much of a moment, so we live, laugh, love, let go…and then do it all again!

But tonight I want to hold on to today just a little longer before I let go.