Of Waves and Second Chances

No spent waves tune morning’s gladness

From the Hand of all things new

Comes a morning drenched with mercy

Sweet with kiss of heaven’s dew

Hope expands beneath the tresses

Where, since Eden’s paradise

Light, with ever-faithful graces

Rends the dark with morning skies

Here we laugh and weep and wonder

Dare to dream the dreaming dream

While the bloom falls from the poppy

Scarlet whispers on life’s stream

Still, we press toward a portal

Past the lintel of the sky

Where mortal becomes immortal

In the twinkling of an eye

We are not adrift on oceans

Of spent waves and happenstance

Morning rends the dark with dawning

And the gift of second chance

© Janet Martin

The other day I read a quote that has stayed stuck in my mind…It is not too late to become who you dreamed you would be.

Press on, my friends. God’s grace is new every morning.

Also, please let us pray for those suffering in Egypt. Prayer changes things!

  But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),  and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,  not of works, lest anyone should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph. 2: 4-10

Of Memories

Tomorrow, today will be a memory. Let's make it a good one!

We cherish our own, each precious and dear

Be they ever so humble how we hold them near

Echoes of living where only thought sees

This is the treasure of memories

Pictures of spring where carefree children dance

Pictures of summer, roses and romance

Pictures of autumn; stunning middle-age

Before winter’s silver-swift turning of page

Softly the sifting of sands coalesce

Brimming with love’s bittersweet tenderness

Oh, how the moment at hand quickly flees

Joining our collage of memories

Nothing on earth can their measure replace

These are love’s offerings of trial and grace

Picture by picture fills thought’s galleries

Time-tempered walk-way of life-memories

© Janet Martin

Mother of the Bride

Image Source

Oh, do not look too closely

How her filament of youth

Has drifted to the pastures

Where its prey denies that truth

And do not look too closely

Lest her smile of brave disguise

Tells of sorrow in her gladness

As you look into her eyes

Oh, do not look too deeply

She is strong but not too much

You would be her sure undoing

Troubadour of tender touch

Oh, and do not whisper softly

Joy and grief align, you know

As she recalls another bride

A few swift years ago

Oh, do not look too closely

Joy and mourning coalesce

But she wears its meek adorning

With a smile of happiness

For she too was once a dreamer

Now an ocean breaks inside

As they turn to see her daughter

To the tune ‘here comes the bride’

© Janet Martin

Beginning that mental preparation:) 

August Poem

Heaven on earth is Augusts’ afternoon

Of cricket seraphim; sun-flower swoon

Of parched meadows primed for the draught of dusk-dew

Of harvest sprawled gold beneath dust-denim blue

August is heaven spilled gently to earth

Where hollows are brimming with wild-flower mirth

Where drifts our care; silver flecks in the sun

We count summer’s blessing slowly, one by one

August is heaven in rippling sweet-heat

Cajoling the highways and tickling bare feet

It graces the garden where mother and child

Gather the harvest as memories grow wild

August requiem, you murmur in the stream

You sigh in the willow and cry in my dream

I could not measure your peach-pungent worth

Beautiful pleasure of heaven on earth

© Janet Martin

Of Forevermore

Oh mystery, no one can see

Beyond earth’s threshold or Time’s door

Nor where this brief mortality

Will fade into forevermore

No one can tell how near or far

The road extends before That Call

But this we know; this little life

Leads to the Meaning of it all

Beyond earth’s threshold and its end

Begins this thing that we strive for

Mere mind can never comprehend

Infinity’s forevermore

Oh mystery; Eternity

No one can tell its depth or height

Its span of immortality

Perplexes our mortal sight

No straining of thought’s fantasy

Can form an image to portray

The rise and fall of timelessness

When flesh and blood will fall away

But this we know; none can return

When they have passed through that last door

To tell what joy or grief a-waits

In that timeless forevermore

© Janet Martin

It began with a box of empty baby-food jars, this conversation with Matt, our 15 yr. old son. ‘Where did they come from?’ he wondered. 'I think they were an add-on at a yard sale purchase and they ended up in our garage', I said. 

'Wouldn’t it have been easier to re-cycle?' he asked. 

 Then we began discussing the religious fervency with which some people recycle and why. We agreed that we want to take care of God’s earth, to be faithful stewards and we should do all we can, but we know this earth is destined to end. It will end and we thought, wouldn’t it be great if everyone were as zealous in preparation for Jesus and  forevermore. This life is but a Door to what existence is all about! and my heart burned with desire that everyone may know of The Way, the Truth and the Life before it is forever too late.

Then I thought of this parable;

The Rich Man and Lazarus

 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.  At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.  In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.  And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ Luke 16: 19-31

Everlasting Blue

Some questions I am loathe asking

Do you miss me like I miss you?

When we are far too far apart

Is your heart also billow-blue?

Or is it just another day

Of green and gold with bits of gray?

August is filled with cricket song

And you were gone with spring’s last snow

Future comes swiftly but the past

Reclines beyond time’s moment-flow

Where missing you is like a chant

Of blue where twilight shadows slant

The mind can hold a world of thought

Never released in written word

Strange how wind-song can break the lock

Where fondest farewell tears are stored

I trace the void of missing you

In everlasting shades of blue

© Janet Martin

There's something about cricket-song that evokes the blue in me... perhaps because it's the prelude to summer's end.

Of Heart-tugs and Harvest

 ( I always miss this after we return home, back to the rigorous and relentless rush of duty)

As morning unfolds from sky-rivers of gold

And dawn wears a garment of glistening dew

As yesterday sleeps in past’s infinite deeps

We cradle those heart-tugs of ‘missing-you’

And as the day breaks over valleys and lakes

Chasing night-shadows from earth’s avenue

As morning-song drips from hope’s refurbished lips

We sense seasoned heart-tugs of ‘missing you’

The hour of noon is upon us too soon

Laughter and loving and loss ramble through

The rooms of the heart painting life's ether art

A harvest in heart-tugs of ‘missing you’

Dusk spreads its robe over Time’s little globe

We gather, small beneath daylight’s adieu

And all we can keep as we labor and sleep

Are those precious heart-tugs of ‘missing you’

© Janet Martin

Most serious conversations happen at the most unexpected moments. Such was the case as I drove my son to a friend's house early this morning. He said he thinks we are living in Time's most wicked days so these must be the 'last days'...surely they must be, I replied, yet none of us knows how long these' last days' will tarry...and love for this boy, almost man wrenched my heart, as I prayed there and then that he may grow up strong in the Lord.

The Poet and her Pen

 A comfy chair, coffee, lake and a pen in hand; who could ask for anything more?

When she is gone from you

Or you too far from her

She bears its quiet blue

Without your written word

But still she craves your touch

For she cannot exist

Without the fearless recklessness

Of being almost kissed

You force no obligation

And she with tempered ease

Runs searching fingers over curves

Of want and memories

No chancellor condemns her

No jury sits in wait

Beneath the tune of shimmered noon

Sleeping on silver lake

She slips from dogged hours

And rigid rules of Time

As thought treads bracken-bowers

And sea-song’s rushing rhyme

She does not still the passion

Perplexing Duty's ream

Nor stems its tide; somewhere inside

She dares to dance and dream

When she is gone from you

Your absence keens the deep

Of farewell rending echoed deaths

Where formless poems sleep

Ah pen,what worlds you veil

She craves your humble due

For she is only half a girl

When she is gone from you

© Janet Martin

My family laughed long and loud when they saw my 'farewell' posted a week ago; 9and that farewell is there because when busyness compels me to withdraw I will, for a little;) But the truth is... I see and breathe a little more freely with a pen in my hand;  whether this is a curse or a blessing I cannot say.