Of Gold-gilded Gift

The pines along the street are glazed in gold

Goodness beyond our grasp extends its grace

Where Time draws one more morning from its hold

A gracious gift of God to human race

The majesty of moments scales the deep

Toward a pinnacle we cannot see

Dawn pries the skies luring us from our sleep

To touch a highway veiled in mystery

…and here we place steps we cannot re-trace

Save in a sudden, sweet and tender thought

God, teach us how to use Your gift of grace

In humble gratitude the way we ought

© Janet Martin

Have wonderful, worshipful Sunday!

Today we are celebrating my nephew's 15th birthday.

Ink-scapes

Can ink preserve with twist and curve these hours slipping fast?

And can a pen restore again pressed pictures of the past?

We cannot quell the tick-tock swell surging from here to there

Though we may yearn for the return of days that seemed so fair

With ink we grasp and clasp the gasp that shapes Time’s centuries

As echoes waft from thought to jot to ink-shaped memories

Can ink retain the soul-sweet strain of Saturdays in March?

Before the air lowers its stair from midnight’s ether arch

To fold its art into the heart where now we scan the deep

Seeking to save from yester-grave a rare remnant to keep

And can a quill with want and will and bits of poetry

Secure in word a moment stirred by ink-shaped memory?

…of muffin-morn and hope re-born in ordinary things

Of mint-tea noon and dusk full moon and wealth too plain for kings

Of scolding, holding, duty’s beauty filling to the brim

Our little cup that we hold up in gratitude to Him

Can ink preserve with twist and curve love’s tender agony?

And can a quill its essence spill in ink-shaped memory

© Janet Martin

This day is turning into a memory way too fast!

 We have a tradition at our house: Saturday muffins...

Today’s Muffins; Banana-Cranberry and Chipit.

3 bananas mashed

1 egg

¾ cup brown sugar

1/3 cup oil or melted butter

1 tbsp strong coffee

Mix and add

11/2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt (I always skip the salt)

½ cup chocolate chips

½ cup dried cranberries

Bake at 350 approx. 15 min.

Of Veiled Masterpieces

‘Tis futile to rebel to colors dripping from God’s brush,

For who of us can tell the what, the wherefore or the why

Of He who paints the hurling gale or frosted morning hush?

His mercy falls in moment-drops and dwarf’s time’s minute sky

The colors on God’s brush are drawn from wellsprings filled with love

The tempering of mankind’s will and want may mystify

Our scope of understanding, but the Artist from above

Is not remiss; but longs man’s heart of hearts to satisfy

…and though we moan and groan beneath the colors of His will

and mark Time’s measure with its ticking clock and turning page

This Artist speaks in fathoms far beyond the visual

The fathoms of His grace exceeds the confines of thought’s cage

The colors dripping from God’s brush are not mere happenstance

But carefully He chooses shades of pardon’s purposed plan

And while we see in moments He sees past our circumstance

...His finished work a masterpiece within the heart of man

© Janet Martin

My very first impulse was to sigh a bit when I saw a fresh froth of snow this morning, but we are not the choosers of God’s colors.
What a mess that would be!

…on the bright side, my hubby just mentioned that its been a long time since he has had something he can so faithfully complain about!

For a Singer Gone Too Soon

George Donaldson, we will miss you. Our thoughts and prayers are with your family, band and loved ones!

…and we can’t help but cry in mourning

As we listen to you now

Realizing you were taken

In the middle of The Show

Gone too soon from this world's bowers

Hearts held by your music break

But the One who holds life’s hours

He does not make one mistake

You have heard That Higher Calling

From a place beyond the skies

Love is never ready, darling

For the bond that Death unties

Though you leave us music’s token

While you sing a grander tune

Here our hearts are sad and broken

For a Singer gone too soon

© Janet Martin

Loved and missed by many! Hugs, tears and prayers(())

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 !'