Blue and Brusque

 I'm cooking supper and watching dusk steal ever bluer across the day...gone the glistening sweep of dawn

Brusque breeze intensifies the blue

Begging to brush this day from view

I watch, reluctant to release

This ‘little bit ‘o heaven’ piece

But Time has no regard for hearts

And treats as equal all her parts

She tugs the child from daddy’s knee

And tosses wild and merrily

A mother’s love; hold and let go

Like evening steals across the snow

She reaches with subtle blue kiss

Tucking to naught, this thing that is

A pessimist dies every day

I could not bear to live that way

So I will suffer her romance

Reach for her arms each dawn and dance

Before she winks, coaxing the dusk

To stir its breezes, blue and brusque

© Janet Martin

God's Autograph

I popped through a little hedge and thought I fell into heaven!...

  

...until I came to this;( There won't be No trespassing' signs in Heaven;)

This little lens cannot fully descry

The awesome surfeit of God’s ‘let there be’

His masterpieces filling sod and sky

Amazes our gaze with majesty

We crawl and reach and lean, lie down and laugh

Trying to capture heaven’s autograph

Ah, what is man that God should awe him thus

Again, again He stuns our meager glance

Four seasons worth of wonder drench His brush

No, this is not serendipitous chance

God lets us glimpse the glory of a place

Waiting for all who are saved by His grace

This circle-scope of hello and good-bye

Makes bearable the suffering of sod

As elements of nature testify

In boldest declaration; this is God

We crawl and reach and lean, lie down and laugh

A lens cannot contain God’s autograph

© Janet Martin

…but oh, the bliss of trying to capture fringes of His signature! Is there anything better?! No.

The way these shadows fell across the gully seemed like they wrote, Yours truly, God.

Thus Far

Thus far as moments roll, cajole the sod in season-strain

We sow and tend and reap and rest then do it all again

The pantomime of summertime and autumn-winter-spring

Amalgamates; we contemplate this inhale-exhale Thing

How swift an hour becomes a day; days shape a month, a year

And somewhere not too far away death wields its solemn spear

So we, as moments roll, cajoling sands where seasons spar

Ought to consider now and then, what we have done thus far

From yonder brink, pink turns to gold, then gold to blue or gray

God places in our fumbling hold His gift; another day

But soon it too will don the hue of vapor serenade

A breath-by-breath framed legacy of choices we have made

Ah, we cannot afford to tilt Time’s cup and never taste

This ether draught, so drink it up; one drop we dare not waste

Then stand and stare dispassionate, to midnight’s whimp’ring star

Now is the time to contemplate what we have done thus far

God does not weigh our offerings by what the eye can see

He searches every spirit for love’s best; humility

And rich or poor alike He gives time’s moments to employ

Silver and gold can never buy His hope that brings us joy

Nor can the cash of miser’s stash claim what cannot be bought

We touch a tide we cannot see as action proves our thought

And somewhere One beholds our give and take; Time’s door ajar

Offering grace to human race for what we’ve done thus far

© Janet Martin

I read the words 'thus far' in an article this morning and it jolted a train of thought... 

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