Sunday, March 16, 2014

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.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

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!


Friday, March 14, 2014

For a Singer Gone Too Soon

\"George



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

Thursday, March 13, 2014

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,…


Wednesday, March 12, 2014

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 !'