But this...

From yonder brink a pool of pink

Expands into a sea of gold

And none of us can dare to think

Of what this mighty tide may hold

But simply trust the One who wills

The dawn to break across the hills

Oh, who will rest beneath its crest

Ere twilight sweeps the wooded ridge

Twixt earthly sod and heaven-best

And who can know what mercies bridge

Life’s gaping void of mortal woe?

Ah this, by God’s kind grace we go

The hour consumes time’s jasmine blooms

Washing its summer to a shore

Where pantomime of season-rooms

And petals strewn across its floor

Never utter one guarantee

But this; its end, eternity

© Janet Martin

They Never Really Met...

 

He always called her by her first name

Though they had never met.

At the grocery store

or, while he was refereeing a hockey-game

he would skate over to the glass

and grin,

‘Hi Janet, how’s it going?’

She always smiled and said ‘fine’

because she could never remember his name…

He had that uncanny gift of never forgetting a name

though they never really met;

…Friend of a friend.

The other week at the checkout

he said, 'Hi Janet, have a good Christmas!'

And she said 'thanks, you too' and she remembered his name

‘Rick’.

They never really met.

They never will.

Rick died today.

© Janet Martin

 

Rest in peace, Rick.

Thursday Thoughts of Thanks on Friday...

It’s not always easy

Life’s struggle and stumble

Yet it’s these imperfections

Which help keep us humble

***

Sink to your chin

In a tub full of bubbles

Tomorrow is waiting

With a new set of troubles…

***

We cannot edit moments

They sift through our embrace

Ephemeral deliverance

Forever etched in place

So we should treat its mercy

With grateful, utmost grace

These drops soon paint a picture

That no one can erase

***

Equipped with God’s promises

Beautiful stead

We have within us

Everything we need

***

God bless the happiness of noise

And never-ending mess of toys

And heaven’s best; our little boys

 

***

Nature inspires and comforts the heart…

Each day is a canvas of Masterpiece art

***

…But no matter how many miracles fall

Babies are surely the sweetest of all

***

In the muddle of laundry and toast crumbs and such

I’ve felt the beautiful, breath-taking touch

Of something that leaves me full-speechlessly stirred

In heavens too holy for commonplace word

***

This is a Friday unlike any other

Treasure its gifted refrain

For this special Friday of virgin allotment

Will never be granted again!

© Janet Martin

Echoes of Shangri La

There, where the sea runs its melody

Over a shore of footfalls erased

Replaced, until retrospect’s recall

Is suddenly, surreptitiously graced

With keen remembrances skimming the blue

The having and holding and missing of you…

There are many ways to make love, I suppose

Samurai beaches or second mile sweeps

Where sacrifice bleeds colors of the rose

Into the wanting and waiting-drenched deeps

As hope, faith and trust tune tresses of blue

In loving and longing and needing of you…

Ethereal Edens echoing soft

Where once we danced, ere the invasion of

Moments drew us from the Shangri la

Of uninterrupted making love

Better the echo than never to know

Words to a song we whispered long ago

© Janet Martin

Recognize the beauty of love in your hand

Soon its soft echo will silver the sand…

Time's Tender Turbulence...a 'sort-of Sonnet'

We all must bear Time’s tender turbulence

A tide coursing from heaven's ether source

It gathers in its mighty, muted force

Intangible deaths and deliverance

Then rushes o’er a brink into a sea

Where oft we search in vain for its lost shore

But cannot tread Time’s spent for-never-more

And so we brace for storms that yet must be

Before the Captain guides our vessels where

Time does not hinder us from here to there

The footfall of a moment rends the air

In soundless and boundless intensity

Its dividend of brief uncertainty

Soon tugs the ribbons from a wee girl’s hair

And laces traces of silver-soft proof

Where many midnights kissed our dreams of dust

And disappointed schemes of wanderlust

Though we have ducked and tried to stand aloof

There is no bastion for fool’s lament

Where we can hide or escape Time’s intent

…so we embrace the kiss from its abyss

Storm cannot dissuade the morning sun

See how its tide, mighty yet moment-spun

Bestows allotments of heaven-lent bliss

Dumbfounded then, we cannot curse the sweep

Tugging life’s best and worst into its surge

We are compelled by morning’s mercy-urge

To love and laugh and touch and taste and weep

While moments course in river’s through the air

Time's tender turbulence we all must bear

© Janet Martin

I wrote the first two stanzas then looked up to see the Creator stunning the morning landscape with Majesty!

Missing Parts...

I’ve stood at my heart-and-mind mirror

To stare past reflections of ‘ought’

And covered the skyline with whispers

Never cut free from my thought

The words I have never written

Would cover the sky and the sea

Where tears are the voice of the smitten

And silence its full agony

Down where the lane dips to nothing

Where meadow-grass and blue sky touch

I think there must be an ocean

Filled with lost poems and such

Honor must wear its thorns bravely

Siphon its crimson and drink

The cup of loneliness, baby

Fills wildernesses with ink

© Janet~

Soft Among the Reeds They Wake...

Soft, soft among the reeds they wake

To wander ‘cross the sky

A glimmer on time’s winter lake

Into the by and by

Moon-mellow moments spill to naught

Then daylight tips the scale

Before its blue and gold is caught

In midnight’s mystic grail

From far-off shores to home-front door

This breaking, taking wake

Of kissing you and missing you

Tucks years into its strake

© Janet Martin

Of Well-springs and Wonder

Well-spring of wonder

Merciful Morning

Soothes yester-heaviness

From troubled brow

Somewhere between

Dusk-darkness and dawning

God fills the hour

With Morning’s new Now

Just as the New Year

Melds o’er the departed

Merciful Morning

Melts night’s ebony

Light fills the ocean

Of onyx impression

Well-spring of wonder

In grace-symphony

See, heaven’s hand

He held Jordan’s waters

Doom and deliverance

Meet at death’s brink

See how He fills

Night’s hollow with morning

Kneel at His well-spring

Of mercy and drink

© Janet Martin

Over and over morning melts the night and Grace extends His arm.

Tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’  For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.  He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:22-24