Heartlands

Stealthy, across the snow-bound heath the dark is closing in

And silence like a frosted wreath muffles the busy day

Ah, Flight of moments, once again how subtly you wing

The hope of morn to noisy noon to brink of yesterday

As pantomime of suppertime and eventide ignite

A fire on a hearth somewhere in heartlands out of sight

From rush to hush the chanting tick-tock carries our feet

We hurry to the harbor of that dearest place on earth

Of wood and stone, oh darling home; though to labor is sweet

Our heartlands pine for family-time and hours round the hearth

And now the dark mounts aerial steep and draws the shutters tight

The hour is a thing of beauty in deep blue twilight

Time’s journey whirls in sanguine swirls and colors on the air

How easily it seems the dark slips over gold-gray-blue

As easily as youth slips through the gleaming raven hair

To taunt the man of middle-age with silver-stricken hue

The convoys of life’s moments melt on heartlands breath by breath

Riding the darkness closing in across the snowbound heath

© Janet Martin

The kids have no idea how much I love that 'gather-round-the-table-time' as I listen to the tales about their day ...

'Neath the Influence of Ink

No 'private property' signs, no fare. A pen can take you anywhere!

‘Neath the influence of ink

No blockade or broom can bar

Us from that fair and phantom brink

Where our un-penned poems are

Take me to that place, my sweet

Where Time’s field is giddy-green

We will wander in bare feet

Pen away this snow-spell sheen

Lie beneath magnolia-tree

Wade through knee-deep flower-streams

Touch the pen to paper; we

Will dance the doggerel of dreams

Kilimanjaro-height

Noon-hour on Pacific Grove

Mediterranean midnight

Morocco at dawn, my love

Summer-touch on winter-dusk

We can bear the cold, my dear

Fill the quill with moody musk

Vex the senses with a tear

Ne’er will we imprisoned be

As long as our minds can think

Life becometh poetry

‘Neath the influence of ink

© Janet Martin

It Never Grows Old

I was staring through the window, saying to myself as I watch another storm vent itself, ‘This picture is growing old!’ And in the same breath I am spell-bound as a junco battles the gale to land on the snow-drift beneath the feeder…

 No, His wonders never grow old.

It never grows old; His blue-golden-gray

Falling in pictures along living’s way

Author of everything; see how His Hand

Moves through the ages in changeless command

Stunning man’s gaze with the power of His might

Filling our hearts with love-songs of delight

It never grows old; white, scarlet, bronze, slate

Awing spectators of lowly estate

Always spring-green overwhelms white-capped limb

Pictures of wonder and worship in Him

Over and over this canvas of sod

Tugs from its depths darling portraits of God

It never grows old; briefly we embrace

Each vapor vertex of season-spun grace

Ere it slips softly into history’s hold

While a new painting has replaced the old

Drawing our eyes from the crypt of the heart

To nature’s gallery of heaven-art

© Janet Martin

 Look around and praise Him if you are well and fed and clothed enough to enjoy it! What a gift indeed to be ticket-holders to the greatest gallery of all; God’s creation.The past two days were filled with sun-snow SPECTACULARS!

(these are a couple of the 100 or so shots that I've taken in the past few days:)

About Work

 Do you have work? Don't forget to thank God for it every day!

The merchant’s salvation

The sluggard’s dread

But ever the ration

That butters our bread

The wise man's blessing

The dreamer's curse

But ever the jingle

To pleasure the purse

Our waking purpose

Our well-earned rest

Of all that life offers

I say work is the best

Janet:)

Wednesday Poetry Prompt

If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
Marc Anthony

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!