Toast to January

We chase June echoes across feathered pane

Grand Jack Frost empires melt beneath our sigh

Up from the skyline of mottled terrain

Dawn drinks iced-ebony from midnight’s sky

Mute magistrates of a law undeterred

Oversee icy extolments obeyed

Orderlies dressed in stiff, white over-shirt

Tumble, responding in cloned escapade

Winds scold and simper, as warm zephyrs slink

Like chastised ruffians to sunny-south pews

The brogue of winter moans at every chink

Bent on fulfilling its preordained dues

We brave its volley of steel-tongue barrage

Pouring Colombian second-cup toast

'...to ether-esque echoes of mist-morn mirage

Shimmering somewhere beyond Jack Frost boast'

© Janet Martin

Mother's Midnight Musing...

My mind is somewhere else tonight

Complacency and thirst compete

As wanderlust leaps past this white

Of winter-night to you, my sweet

Upstairs my precious babies sleep

But one; and though fain I rebel

The tides of Time and youth are deep

And dreams tug deeper than farewell

Thought is an eager stead; the air

Is kinder than earth’s froth of snow

And almost I can feel you where

We used to dance too long ago

My mind is somewhere else tonight

Miles fold away beneath its feet

As longing sweeps the shores of white

Until I am with you, my sweet

© Janet Martin

Forever, My Love

Forever, my love, for now and for always

We will keep passion and prayer intertwined

Pity the one who dies while he is breathing

Inhale, exhale without dream, wide-eye blind

Forever, my love, for there is no quitting

Long-haul or uphill, we cannot cease

Darling, the hilltop and vale in life’s painting

Augments the beauty of love’s masterpiece

Forever, my love, beggars cannot be choosers

And I’ll be a beggar for love until death

To have my fill of our love would be torture

Climax of hunger fulfills every breath

Forever, my love, and that but the beginning

True love surpasses this flesh-blood divide

Hold my hand darling, life’s highway is slippery

And oh, lest we stumble, let’s walk side by side

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts~

Tender shepherd, how you love us

Oh, what comfort fills our cries

For one is of no less value

Than ten-thousand, in your eyes

***

Now I lay me down to sleep

And place within your care

Those things I tender to your keep

On wings of wafted prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep

For true love has no fear

What sweet assurance, Lord, to know

That you are ever near

***

Time, what weaves your season-strings?

Where is your vast, vaporous Sea?

You fly on tireless, transient wings

Toward That Thing…

Eternity

***

Mortality; the dust and sod

To Immortality

And God

***

Truth is not altered

Though Deception tries

To twist it and change it

Through golden-lipped lies

***

Oh, wondrous quality of truth

No matter how Time’s change

You are steadfast; Hope’s solid Rock

Nothing can re-arrange

***

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life

Unless I take my eyes off  Thee

Fixated on fear’s strife

***

We, wayfaring fellowmen

Of common toil and test

Should seek to help each other then

To do our very best

..for we,

Wayfaring fellow-friends

Are bound for the same shore

This trial-and-error road soon ends

In God’s forevermore

***

We ought to do all that we can

Today; tomorrow’s gate

Can offer us no guarantee

If we decide to wait

So we should call upon the Lord

Before it is too late

How sad to forfeit Hope’s reward

Because we chose to wait

***

Sweat, prayer and toiling

As tears drench the dirt

...all things worth having

Must suffer this hurt

***

Love…takes a deep breath

And then bites its tongue

Trying to remember

…once she too, was young

***

Vexatious flow

Of high and low

As by the grace

Of God

We go…

Have a blessed Thankful Thursday!

© Janet Martin

Ah, Season-sweep

Ah, season-sweep, how swift you leap

On nimble feet from stone to stone

You spill your fare of faith and prayer

Into the vortex of Bygone

From page to page and age to age

Unknown’s mute metamorphosis

Of what will be… is history

As what we touch, no longer is

Ah, season-sweep, within your keep

You gather little boys and girls

As soft you seal upon your reel

The innocence of un-teased curls

With deft disguise, love’s laughing eyes

Distract us from Time’s subtle ploy

Of yester-yen and making men

Of last summer’s rambunctious boy

Ah, season-sweep, the past is deep

With centuries of your demise

Where bud and leaf and joy and grief

Pass through our touch in moment-guise

From heaven’s urn your no return

Spills; thrilling, filling our reach

With season-ware and painted air

And lessons only you can teach

© Janet Martin 

Ah, we cannot reverse the sweep

where Time's tumble-weed seasons sleep...

Of Vantage and View-points

What do you see, bird in the tree?

Flitting freely from limb to limb

Or you, as you look back at me

Judging appearances of skin

What do you see, dear girl of twelve?

The outside looking in won’t show

Heart-oceans where love steals my breath

In rushing, reeling over-flow

What do you see as you pass by?

Vague view-points from the street won’t tell

Of life here on the other side

...its glimpses of heaven or hell

What do you see? Our vantage-point

Renders and shapes our point of view

I wonder sometimes, would mine change

If I was standing where you do…

© Janet Martin

School buses are up and running today! I saw Victoria double-check to see if I was at my usual waiting-spot inside the kitchen window and then, as she waved to me from the bus I suddenly wondered what her memory of this looks like…mine is the outline of a girl growing a little bigger every year; someday, like everything in life this too will disappear…

Sometimes, to change our point of view, God changes our view-point.

Of Hearts, Unknowns and Faith...

I know Whom I believe

I know that He is able

To guard the Unknown seeping through

Dawn’s faint and far-east gable

I know Whom I believe

Beneath life’s great Unknown

He cups His hands in faithful keep

And fills dark night with dawn

I know Whom I believe

Keeper of field and heart

Cradles in ceaseless vigilance

Unknowns unformed rampart

 

I know Whom I believe

Each fear and doubt I place

Into His promises and then

Press onward by His grace

© Janet Martin

My Dad, who has known little sickness in this life found out the other day that he will need heart-bypass surgery.( initially they assured him they should be able to avoid this) He suffered a heart-attack two days after we celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary in September, but we are thankful that this warning made us aware of his heart-condition. This down-time is testing the patience of a man who thrived on keeping busy, but being a man of deep faith I know that He knows Whom he believes and Knows that He is able…so his ‘heart-condition’ is okay in the Hands of the Keeper.

 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. 2 Tim.1:12

Of Illusion And Memories

Illusions are not memories

Nor memories illusion

Now and then we are perplexed

By illusion’s intrusion

Thus causing momentarily

For us to become blind

To what we hold of moment gold

By fancy of the mind

Illusions are not memories

Though thought flings wide a door

To sundry painted fantasies

Of what one wishes for

But we are thought’s proprietor

And must be diligent

To guard that wide and winsome door

From thankless discontent

Illusions are not memories

Nor memories illusion

Though perhaps they vex and tease

In chimeral confusion

Majestic wave from rolling seas

Its grandeur awes and pleases

To disappear in moment-ease

Upon the sand beneath us

Illusions are not memories

Although they spread their fare

In likened manner, readily

On thought-scapes boundless stair

We cannot hear the echo of

Illusion, only want

As memories console with love

Where vain illusions taunt

© Janet~