All, But This

 This snowy winter is allowing for new 'firsts', like cross-country skiing after supper beneath sunset skies! Skiing is a great time to meditate...

 Ah, Thou art He who spoke into existence land and sea

And everything therein; above, beneath, the night and day

Fair, fragile frond, reed-studded pond and mountain majesty

Soft silver snowflake sparkle, dusk, as daylight fades away

Your Hand touches Time’s treadle; moments course in seamless tide

As seasons spill their petals; moon, sun, stars Thy edict heed

Our thought cannot in full traverse this sod to sky divide  

But wonders at the One who every law of it decreed

Oh, Thou art He who watches from a high and holy place

Yet not with shouted threats of doom for our inherent sin

Your love and mercy pours unbounded in each day of grace

And whispers to us tenderly from soul-space deep within

For Thou art He who gave Himself, sin’s sacrifice and died

So man may live; you came to earth Your every law to prove

Then as redemption poured in red its need was satisfied

In You, who spoke to being All but this; a Father’s Love

© Janet Martin

We Write Because...

We write,

Not because we’re professionals

Or perfect

At what we do

But,

When we feel that beautiful feeling

We write because

We want you

To feel it too

We write

If only to share a little

Of our life-window hue

But when God breathes

His Beauty

Over the world

We write because

We want you to

See Him too

So we write of

Hunger and heartache

Of things past,

Yet to come,

We write about leaving

and loving and home

…Of passion’s hurricane

Bold bittersweet

Pleasure and pain

On farewell-cobbled street

We write to the gong

Of one a.m.

Roundels of rain-song

Longing’s diadem

Dusk’s darling doggerel

Dawn’s dew-drenched dream

Midnight’s mute madrigal

Retrospect’s requiem

We write of holding

And then letting go

Of moment’s bestowing

Life’s yeses and No

We write ink-pictures

And portraits of thought

Ravaging hours

For just the right jot

The poet confesses

Fathoms of the heart

Novelist, playwright,

We tear words apart

To measure their music

To treasure the taste

Of moments once more

Plucked from summer’s haste

Where the bloom is still heavy

With diamond of dew

And the heart is a levee

Of ‘missing you’

Or where noon on the boardwalk

Is misty beach-blue

Ah, words are thought’s medium

To experience The View

So, we write

Nothing strange 

Or foreign

Or new

But simply

Because

We want you

To be there too

© Janet Martin

I Love You, Not Because You're Pretty

 

I love you

Not because you’re pretty

Or blue-eyed

Handsome and cool

Not because of where you live

Or here you went

To school

I love you

Not because you’re rich

Or poor

Or somewhere in-between

Or because the grass

On your side of the fence

Is far more green

I love you,

I think you’re pretty

And you have such

Kissable skin

And I’ll likely always fall for

Your adorable half-grin

But these are not the reasons

That I love through thick and thin

For the person that I dearly love

Is who you are within

© Janet Martin

 I love when Edward asks her, 'do you find me handsome' and she says, 'not particularly' , then, when he asks her why, Jane replies,

"Appearance is of little consequence…it is the person within that is the attraction!"

~Jane Eyre~

Summit of Life's Hope-slope

 The sun seemed to stir from that summit this morning, washing the sky in riveting pink before slipping behind a wall of gray...

The Summit of life’s hope-slope; may we strive to reach its top

Forever straining to that scrim from whence Time’s mercies drop

And may its zeal and passion stir us ever up and on

From earth’s thorn-thistle thoroughfare to Heaven’s ageless dawn

See how seasons spin their sonnets from a thread of ether ilk

Or, how echoes weave upon it through Time’s sun and sable silk

Run, wee one toward your dream-tree groaning with prospect

Soon you will turn to see its crown in hoary halo decked

Ah, depression and oppression and confession confound

Yet hope rings forth eternally where God and grace abound

For man, though foolish fumbling, stumbling flesh cannot annul

The hope of Jesus’ righteousness and pardon paid in full

…and thus we press by faith toward a goal we cannot see

The Summit of life’s hope-slope ends beyond mortality

So now we touch our feet upon this cold and chafing sod

For we are on a journey to Hope’s Fold; the arms of God

© Janet Martin

What I Should Like...a Little While

 It's been a 'toy morning':)...

I should like my home to be

Not a showplace of pride and pomp

But a solace where children romp

And shape their childhood memory

Home; oh dearest, happy word

Let these four-letters symbolize

A sort of heaven-paradise

Where prayers are prayed and cares are heard

…and I should like my home to wear

Love’s mended woes, life’s spills and such

And not withhold from it the touch

Of childish fingers free of care

…and may its rod and rule be kind

The Word of God read and revered

Lest vainly innocence is reared

To thirst for truth, yet to it…blind

...and I should like my home to smile

With humble, thankful happiness

A tiny nook that God will bless

And dwell in for earth’s little while

© Janet Martin

‘Oh Mom, just leave it there’ said my daughter as I was about to polish away a handprint from the window, ‘that hand print reminds us *Nathan was here!’ (* little guy I babysit)

...jotted this while having lunch. One of the little guys I baby-sit is slurping applesauce and chatting about the 'nice, nice day' and I looked out at its gray offering and back at his innocence and laughed, yes! it is a nice, nice day!'

Time to do dishes and pick up toys!

Help My Unbelief

 

 Image Source

Regret,

Fear,

Condemnation,

Doubt

Cleanse me Lord,

Within,

Without

Gird my faith

In Love's release

Grace,

Hope,

Redemption

And

Peace

© Janet Martin 

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. Whether we practice Lent or not as we draw near to Easter it surely probes a deeper soul-searching of who and what we believe!

Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Mark 9: 23-25 

Mystery...

What do you hold in your mold, little day?

Far on the east you release your first sigh

Touching with gold the low fringe of the sky

Greeting the morning where night slips away

What will you spill to the rill, minute-hand?

Meted in moments of tick-tocking stealth

Flicker of fortune and whisper of wealth

Fought for in trenches beneath love’s command

What will you seal on your reel, little hour?

Ere you surrender your silk to the air

What will we hear on June night-fathoms where

Echoes embellish the breeze in the bower

What will we chase with your grace, tender Time?

Jingle of pocket or treasures of trust?

Soon you return to slumber in the dust

What will you tell ere the evening bell chimes?

© Janet Martin

...as I was about to post this our hydro went out again! What other surprises await this day?...No man knows!

A Beautiful Feeling

  

I can’t explain it

Beautiful feeling

Reeling from somewhere

That I cannot tell

Laughter and sorrow

And bittersweet

Stealing

Over the rampart of

Pulsing farewell

Hope and fulfillment

and longing unfathomed

streaming in

moment-drops

from here to there

draining an ocean

without sound or motion

filling the silence

with echo-drenched air

where uncurled fingers

touch traces that linger

only in thought

as the years disappear

and I can’t explain it

the beautiful feeling

of having and holding

wrapped up

in a

tear

© Janet Martin

...just got a crazy, beautiful feeling as I listened to this song... but cannot quite capture it in verse; this is sorta what I could shape it into...sort of the same feeling I had when hubby teased Emily (our daughter) yesterday at church and said, 'I remember you. You used to live at our place...'