Beneath Winter Sky-dome

 Captured a few fresh shots of God-art tonight...enjoy! For a close-up look right click and press view image. Skiing across the field suddenly struck me with a surreal feeling of standing on a frozen sea of time...the storm yesterday whipped up some awesome snow-scapes!

There are no stragglers here

And time is far away  

Earth’s white capped sea is mute beneath

Dusk’s golden overlay

No children on this beach

No lulling ebb and flow

But here and there a masterpiece

Is laid upon the snow

A half-moon over there

A sunset over here

And on one face a tiny trace

Of little bitty tear

For every season ends

Taking in turn, its art

So she must find a way to bind

Its pictures in her heart

Beneath winter sky-dome

On twilight’s snow-swept hush

Twixt half-moon-rise and sunset skies

The Painter dips His brush

© Janet Martin

Of Heartstrings and Other Such Things

When I would be there with you 

but I can't

And it must be enough

to fill the air with prayer 

and want

I think about the first day

When I held you close to me

Not knowing then how

riveting

A mother-love would be

...and how we never leave in full

the child; though miles may spread

twixt them and us

ah, 

Heart-strings are love's

never-ending thread

They bind us to our off-spring

and its tug, 

keen and unspoken

Comforts and reminds us

that heartstrings

cannot be broken

Janet aka, mom

There's just enough going on to remind me of this poem written the other summer;

Labor-pains 

When they tell us it’s over,

'It’s a girl; it’s a boy'

We're about to discover

As 'new-mother joy'

Washes our faces

  That with daughters and sons

Love's labor-pains

  Have now just begun

Oh, the labor of love

The ebbing and flow

Of white-knuckle clinging

  While learning to let go

Is a sacred experience

Simple word cannot grasp

As we teach them to fly

While we cradle and clasp

...I close my eyes now

Straining to recall

The curve of your face

When you were so small

  But all those thought pictures

I sealed in my heart

Have somehow grown blurry

In love’s ceaseless art

I trace Time's air hungrily

For it is a foe

Pulling you from me

Yet, I’ll never let go

For holding is not

A mere, physical grip

I'll hold you forever

As from my arms you slip

The call of life

Is unlike any other

It tugs tender off-spring

From arms of a mother

And this is the way

  Love surely must be

For we cannot stay

On our mother’s knee

Yes, when they tell us it’s over

Childbirth’s groaning and pain

We are about to discover

It never will be again

For travail is an inhale

  Exhale hug and kiss

  Bestowing a life-long

  Bitter-sweet bliss

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on Faith Versus Fear

Hearts and shoulders on their own are not enough to bear

However strong, the weight of woe and want and worldly care

Though we may try eventually we come to realize

That it is not enough to trust in things beheld with eyes

Where is that place where midst unrest the brawling billows cease?

And where in spite of grievous tests of life, can we find peace?

The God of old is with us still; His mercy full and free

And He desires our trust in spite of what we see

Time’s Unknown fans across the dark, light of another day

Upon its moments we embark to come whatever may

The weight of what we cannot see would drive us to despair

But for God’s hope and peace as we surrender fear to prayer

© Janet Martin

Full surrender overcomes fear.

Faith is more than just a feeling; it is Mercy’s inner healing.

Faith without prayer is like wings without air…

Can we fly? We do not know until we trust God and let go…

Faith is for the faint of heart…

Fear robs us of strength that faith gives.

Fear is dread; its throne, earth’s sod

Faith is a thread to the throne of God

Fear strives to deceive what faith helps us believe…

Faith has nothing to offer… but peace.

Faith in anything other than God…is not faith.

Warning; trust the temporal, prepare to be disappointed.

Fear is a sad substitute for faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for,

The evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

…and no man can guarantee anything

In an hour that has not yet been!

Fears frets.

Faith frees.


 A Living Hope
…In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,…

They Dream of Life in the City

 if I were a painter the walls would be covered with sea, land and sky-scapes...paintings in her art center; people and places! both her work or work she has collected.

   ...posters in her room

 

I dream of wide open spaces

Meadow-lands out to the sky

They dream of city-places

And ‘everything close by’

I dream of still summer daybreak

Save for the lilting of lark

They dream of high-rise landscapes

And nights that are never dark

I dream of season-tickets

Privy to nature’s treats

While they dream of shows and vendors

Foreign to rural streets

I dream of life in the country

They call it ‘middle of nowhere’

So they dream of life in the city

And highways to everywhere

© Janet Martin

Victoria just came home from spending a night and day with her friend in the city...she told me it's 'the best and close to everything !'

Baseball Bygones...

Hot sun presses

On blonde braided

Determination

Push up glasses,

Lift bat,

Concentrate,

Swing!

She becomes familiar with

Much of baseball’s lingo

…strike three,

Out on first,

Caught stealing

But never once this;

Home run

© Janet Martin

Recently I told hubby that I still wish, just once, I could have hit a home run.

If ever you have watched your child play a sport do not miss Daniel Romo’s poem at YDP

Thought and its Offspring

Thought, no matter how willing

Has never accomplished a thing

It takes the effort of hands and feet

Thought’s fruition to bring

So we ought all to feel needed

Whether we are seen or not

For nothing was ever accomplished

That first did not begin with thought

 

Sometimes thought takes higher purpose

Where no other fete can compare

As we lift in earnest silence

Thought shaped into prayer

© Janet Martin

This morning prayer continues for those in Russia and Ukraine.

the first line of this poem was born as I woke and realized that thought, no matter how willing, cannot turn off an alarm-clock:)

Off-road Afternoon

We followed that off-road of dandelion freckled sod

Right out toward the ledge of blue and green twixt earth and God

Where free, forgotten apple trees scattered pink-petal mirth

To dapple emerald petticoats in pure abandoned mirth

And lilac plumes from gardens lost tossed perfume to the breeze

In beauty bold, unhampered by the bloom of centuries

We walked where willow awning whispered noonday lullabies

…where sun-soft sigh was spawning daisy-dreams and butterflies

And where brook-song meandered we followed its glossy glee

Through meadowland and coppice, beguiled by its melody

Camber of grassland ‘gainst the hue of heaven’s sanguine smile

Drew us onto the knee of nature’s nurturing a while

And here we watched the afternoon stroll into twilight’s trance

Beneath the curve of quarter-moon daylight and darkness dance

Until dusk's solemn postlude splays star-froth on onyx deeps

And we must go back to the flow that works and plays and sleeps

But long we will remember dandelion freckled sod

And that off-road we wandered to the very heart of God

© Janet Martin

When the Birds Come Flying Home...

 

When the birds come flying home

To drench waking day with song

Oh, sweet then, we’ll grasp the robe

Of springtime ravishing the globe

I would like a front-row seat

Where the air is bird-song sweet

Woodlot pealing with pure hymn

From the songster on its limb

Jaunty robin, cooing dove

Trill of lark from lilac grove

Finch and swallow, flicker, jay

Singing winter woes away

Eager waiting scans mute air

Listening for answered prayer

For we know that spring has sprung

When the birds come flying home

© Janet Martin

Today I thought I saw a robin but it turned out to be a grackle;  first signs of spring! I hear tell of robin-sightings, but not here…yet.

Image Source unknown