When We Have Closed Our Eyes...

When we have closed our eyes

To open them no more

When we have crossed from here to there

Like many gone before

When the Giver reclaims

The gifted breath he gave

Then, only then will we behold

What lies beyond the grave

When we have closed our eyes

To never-more-will-be

When we have written the last page

Of our life-legacy

It will be too late then

To change those things we chose

As we traverse that final realm

In death’s common repose

When we have closed our eyes

From sin and suff’ring free

When our testament is sealed

In thought and memory

When Jesus takes our hand

As that last bank we climb

The only footprints we will leave

Is what we did with Time

© Janet Martin

 Funerals have a way of stirring tender truths within us...(we spent the day with family after a relative's funeral...a time to fellowship and remember) and we return to our homes to keep on keeping the faith.

It is customary in the culture I grew up in to sing this song at the graveside...and so we gathered where the sun gleamed on a heaven-gilded earth as we sang...(I like the 4th stanza)

Asleep in Jesus

Margaret Mackay, pub.1832

Copyright: Public Domain

1. Asleep in Jesus! Blessed sleep,
   From which none ever wakes to weep;
   A calm and undisturbed repose,
   Unbroken by the last of foes.
2. Asleep in Jesus! Oh, how sweet,
   To be for such a slumber meet,
   With holy confidence to sing
   That death has lost his venomed sting!
3. Asleep in Jesus! Peaceful rest,
   Whose waking is supremely blest;
   No fear, no woe, shall dim that hour
   That manifests the Savior’s pow’r.
4.  Asleep in Jesus! Oh, for me
   May such a blessed refuge be!
   Securely shall my ashes lie,
   And wait the summons from on high.
5. Asleep in Jesus! Far from thee
   Thy kindred and their graves may be;
   But there is still a blessed sleep,
   From which none ever wakes to weep.

***
First, as I was out with my camera this morning I thought it was far too lovely a day for a funeral; as we stood out at the grave I changed my mind. It was gift from God, this beautiful day!

Of a Door Half-ajar...

Kiss of a new day rests soft on the brow

Mist of its morning wafts on waking dell

Heart-hope of heaven, whisper to us now

As we embark to what? No one can tell

Test of time’s tick-tock commandeers our touch

Love extends grace; we, creatures of dust

Suffer its seasons of sorrow and such

Hilltop and valley to Him we entrust

Merciful Master of moment-embrace

Humbly we step to time’s threshold once more

May it be more than the wind that we chase

As we slip through morning’s half-ajar door

© Janet Martin

 The LORD'S loving-kindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "Therefore I have hope in Him."…Lam.3:22-24

What We Have...

What we have is all we have

What was and what will be

Are merely hopes, before what is

Becomes a memory

What we have, my love, is more

Than we can fully taste

For moments offer no encore

As through our grasp they haste

Both good and ill pass through our clutch

How quietly Time slips

To grace a shore beyond our touch

Save for thought’s finger-tips

…and what we have is all we have

Pray that we do not miss

Its fullness rushing to a grave

Of what no longer is

© Janet Martin

I love to look back to photos (and memories) of what once was...

but not too long, lest I miss what now is!

Happy February, all!

(ps-s-s-t! this is the month before the month that leads to this...!

Sometimes Paper...

Sometimes paper

Is the kindest of strangers

Easy to talk to

No judgment, no guile

Patient companion

It never stops listening

Here we can pour our

Our tear and our smile

Sometimes paper

Is thought’s finest option

Sirens of schedule and

Living are loud

Whisper of wishes

And heart-held ambitions

Seems to be drowned in

Life’s everyday crowd

I’ve heard the heartbeat

Of midnight and strangers

Ink-spilled confession

And penned poetry

Sometimes the silence

Of thought-rendered ocean

Helps us relinquish

What never can be

Sometimes paper

Is thought's sacred soulmate

Patient confidant,

Listening long

I've felt the rush

Of  farewell fill its pages

Only to feel you

Back where you belong...

© Janet~

Life...

You ask questions for which I have no answers

You whisper wishes too wondrous to bear

Darling, the window of past does not open

It is enough to feel you out there, somewhere

We cannot rearrange moment or memories

Somehow the summertime slipped into snow

Darling, desire and duty-persuasion

Battle on half-breaths of love’s letting go

© Janet Martin

Today's Song

 (Matt laughs at me as I pause in the middle of things to quickly type before I forget) Today it was this song that did it:)

Love bleeds and pleads and longs and needs

There’s not one living soul

Who can become permanently

Another being’s Whole

Want taunts and flaunts in endless vaunts

Weaving a grieving mesh

Evoking, stoking discontent

In ineptness of flesh

Words cleave and weave a hollow hurt

When uttered by mere lips

The heart hungers for more than noise

In fumbling fingertips

Oh, I have bled the broken brogue

Of lonely bittersweet

Like flower-petals ‘neath the snow

Or font of flip-flop feet

Penned poetry is naught but thought

Vexatious twist of mist

We brave life’s wave for what we crave

To be loved once and kissed

...ah, to be loved just once and kissed
It is enough, my sweet
To be caught in the twist of mist
Where love and longing meet

© Janet Martin

Somewhat Like Morning...

 The landscape sprawls like a blank page, waiting for thought to spill its ink...

I sit and stare

This page is bare

Waiting for ink-curls

Shaped in word

Then word relays

Its gold and grays

As touch unfurls

Where heart is stirred

And hidden thought

Curves to the jot

Of trembling

Vulnerability

Whilst others read

What fingers bleed

Of want and need

In poetry

I’ve touched within

Time’s half-breath grin

The ‘almost’’ of

Discounted dreams

The have and hold

Of moment-gold

Is but a penny

In life-streams

This restless quill

Can never fill

Thought’s hungering

Mortality

Yet, ‘was’ and ‘is’

And hope’s kind kiss

Bleeds broken bliss

To poetry

I cannot stare

Too long; the air

Devours hours

Shamelessly

This barren page

Extends its stage

Soon touch will spill
In memory

Time's self-same star

Gleams where you are

And shines its little

Light on me 

I sense your lips

And fingertips

As ink-thought drips

In poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Moment-gold

 Just think! beneath the snow a whole garden is growing restless!

We dare not mourn though time has torn

Another page from future-sheaf

Where swift we spent the hour it lent

Before it lay to rest its leaf

Yester’s quixotic fantasy

Has etched its little legacy

We dare not weep; from morrow’s deep

We reach to thread our half-spun dream

Not with the past but what yet wafts

To tease the tempest with its ream

A sweet and silent canticle

Unfurls its moment-miracle

We dare not pine for soon the vine

That spilled its swarthy summer bloom

Will warmly wake; its bud will break

Then spill its seed back to earth's tomb

As all the while soft through our hold

We touch the wealth of moment-gold

© Janet Martin