Almost Midnight

The hour is threadbare now and still

The moon a wraith o’er timbered hill

And where not very long ago

Dusk scrawled blue shadows on the snow

Now everything is dark and deep

Where all but waifs and poets sleep

…and what was new this very day

Seals in time’s grave its gold and gray

The air is rife with quietness

Almost midnight; that winsome tress

Where today pauses; sweet and strange

While clocks perform a swift exchange

...as today turns to Yesterday

And Tomorrow is now Today

The old refurbished, fresh and keen

Morning's slate waits, unmarked and clean

The clock strikes twelve, no grand applause

As all that is slips to what was

© Janet Martin

Fairest of Them All or She Suffers

  

Image Source

My friend’s mom comes out of her accident practically unscathed!!

Thank-you God!

My sister-in-law has suffered for 20 years since the accident where she was broad-sided by an impaired driver and her survival was called a miracle, and why is it harder for me to say ‘thank-you God’ now through 'why-why-why' tears of misunderstanding?

Why is it so hard to accept answers so different from our desires?

Because we can’t see the finished picture!

Karen’s latest trial, Bell’s Palsy.

She suffers long and not by choice

But does not raise an angry voice

To question God, wail or lament

While we behold love’s testament

She suffers, those around her see

The beauty of humility

Fairest of them all, this saint

Wears suff'ring's crown without complaint

She suffers, through her hurt God spills

His strength where weakness yields its will

While we implore with thought and prayer

'The Lord to help her cross to bear'

© Janet Martin

As I watch her all of my life-complaints ever, seem pathetic...

Please, if you would join our prayers for Dave, Karen and family? 

We Writers

We writers write and bear alike the suffering of it
To breathe in ink those things we think while others simply sit
Without the quest of un-penned best, besot by phrase or form
Or restless heart where hope imparts a sweet and soundless storm

We writers scan the lowing span of new or ancient crypt  
Craving the rush of thoughts that brush, not in pigment but script
The carefree soul saunters and strolls, his thought easy to bear 
While writer's thirst, both blessed and cursed by noon's word-laden air

We writers know the high and low unleashed across a page
How want and will perplex the quill and midnight is a stage
To anywhere a pen may dare to revel in the vaunt
Of oceans stirred within a word; of musing's endless taunt

We writer's dream and nothing seems to be what it appears
Who knew the color blue could move a writer's smile to tears?
And who are we that poetry breathed by a blithesome breeze
Can smite our hand by its command and draw us to our knees?

We writers share the glorious care of searching heaven's face
Where we beseech and humbly reach to touch its hem of grace
Then, here and there the writer's prayer though unarticulate
Enjoys the thrill of words that spill in torrents through thought's gate

Janet Martin

John Greenwood shared an article his sister Joanne wrote and which I think many of us relate to. Read it here at Raining Iguanas

The Verge of Something New...

 These 'angel-clouds' caught my eye this morning!

Out past this sweep of what has been

Of morning, noon and night

The verge of something new begins

In wisps of pink and white

…and though we pour our coffee

Just like many mornings cast

And though we know with our eyes closed

That yesterday is past

And though time’s sequence is the same

Since that first day began

And everything that it may claim

Is common unto man

Of need and greed; sickness and health

Of Ageless Truth and lies

Of double-minded fickleness

And silence of the wise

Of scattered seeds and harvest-time

Of humbleness and pride

Of life’s four-season paradigm

And want unsatisfied

Of crumbs beneath the table

Where the wealthy break their bread

Of doing what we’re able

Ere the evening sky is red

And knowing morning, noon and night

Like waves from heaven’s sea

Must gratify the appetite

Of what is yet to be

And though the morning breaks each morn

Across earth’s slumb’ring shore

The verge of something new is born

...Today; like none before

© Janet Martin

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(())