Year

Folded together

In a four-letter word

Hours of laughter

Or longing and hurt

Time, ever stealing

Like five p.m. blue

Over December’s

Dusk-drenched avenue

Then, every so often

We mark with a cheer

The end and beginning

Of something called

Year.

Into this four-letter

Eager embrace

Hellos and good-byes

Softly take their place

Life’s centuries

Of battle and romance

Recorded in unassuming

Four-digit stance

As heart-rending

Life changing

Days disappear

Into a cup that we simply call

Year.

The pier where summer

Slipped into fall

The tear that composed

Heart-madrigal

Climactic capsules

Of triumph, despair

Holding, letting go

Ephemeral square

Of learning and living

And faith versus fear

Folded into four letters

We simply call

Year.

© Janet Martin

It Is One A.M.

It is one a.m.

Pale moon reclines

A crescent-gem

Pinned to

Navy lapel

Of a minstrel

Unhindered

By hours

Or silver-soft dazzle

Of snow-flake showers

He plays his tune

On a phantom flute

Soloist serenading

Dark wood

Or poet or lover

We wait until

His song is over

Then

All is still

Save for the clock

That cannot choose

But must tick and tock

To mark time’s dues

But for a brief minute

We lie on the hem

Of silver-soft nothing

It is one a.m.

© Janet Martin

I was about to turn off all the lights but stood a moment to admire the night...there is something rare and brooding about one a.m.

...on that note, good-night!

oops, good morning;)

Beginnings

 

It does not stop

Yet

Endings are merely beginnings

Of what is next

Parting begins the waiting

Until we meet

Waiting begins the trusting

Of life’s bitter-sweet

Trusting begins the shaping

Of our faith

Faith begins the Hoping

After death

And death begins

The hereafter

The hereafter

Has no end

Time does not stop

Yet

But it will,

My friend

And we should give earnest heed

To where we will be

When this life’s end

Begins

Eternity

© Janet Martin

From Me to You...A New Year's Wish

Incomprehensible

 

Greater than failure

Is God’s forgiveness

Greater than doubting

Is God’s hope

Greater than burden

Is His power

Greater than darkness

The Light; this we know

Greater than sorrow

Mercy’s assurance

Greater than loss

His gifts from above

Greater than anything

We can imagine

Is the faithful Promise

Of God’s love

© Janet Martin

Our Care-taker

Sometimes, even before I open my eyes

To see if morning has wakened the skies

They assault me; life’s fears and burden and such

So I keep my eyes closed until I feel God’s touch

We cannot see to the far end of the day

Or beyond a moment; it is wise to pray

To the One who can, then trust to His care

Those things we lift up as we touch Him in prayer

© Janet Martin

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isa. 26:3

Sometimes these promises are all we have and it is enough! because these promises are not a fairy-tale; they are from God.

Of Artist and Athiest

I saw Him draw the night aloft

And fill day’s dawn with hope

The Light reveals what dark can not

Of winter-gilded slope

Where Heaven spills its authorship

In masterpiece array

As every somber stem is dipped

In silver-dazzled spray

And Wonder manifests Himself

In tiny little flake

In dam’s of light that rends the veil

Where midnight’s legions wait

His earth is clad in bridal-white

The Groom bedecks each limb

With proclamations of delight

No one can transcend Him

The outer fringes of His work

Surpasses mortal thought

His whisper fills the universe

Time is a vapor jot

Held in the palm of He who breathes

Each glorious frame of art

Sunrise, sunset, each masterpiece

Faint glimpses of His heart

…and all the atheist can see

is sky or snow, or field or tree

© Janet Martin

Wonder, Worship and White Worlds

Where dusk spilled gold and corn stood green and lean

Earth’s halls are cold, ensconced in silver sheen

The quiver from whence sultry dog days fell

Has stripped the fence of all but winter’s knell

As lanes where bare feet stirred its silky dust

Persuade a bitter-sweeter wanderlust

The harbinger of spring is gruff and brusque

He rushes through dawning to early dusk

His austere stance is grim, tormenting tress

He graces laud-less limb in glass caress

His kiss upon our cheeks is keen and harsh

Yet as he speaks his whisper stuns staid marsh

The zephyr-lilt of August afternoon

Must don a quilt to suffer winter’s tune

Surreal, the frozen field and aftermath

Of icy seal on daisy-dappled path

And we are awed anew within its hush

By what our God can do with His paint brush…

© Janet Martin

I felt as if I was crashing through a glass temple, wondering anew at winter’s wonderland and worshiping without word the Wonderful One who whispers white worlds into being!