Thursday Thoughts on Accountability

Life’s escapade of moments runs like rain-song to a sea

And in each little drop is spun Accountability

***

Touch is not mere movement

flung into eternal Space

Nor words a free-fall from the tongue

that seem to matter not

Accountability is sure,

as God’s mercy and grace

The wise man weighs this truth

within the measure of his thought

***

Soon, soon this little day is spent

One string threads history

To prove that ever it was lent;

Accountability

***

To think we eat, laugh, love and drink

Without a Higher Call

Is to indulge like mindless beast

In God’s Plan of it all

***

‘Tis not for fortune, fame or fun

That we seek a reward

But knowing when this life is done

We stand before the Lord

***

The aftermath of every deed

Will fall in Time’s garden, a seed

The sower should think carefully

As these seeds sprout; what will they be?

***

One foot then the other, we stumble, we fall

But someday we’ll gather the worth of it all

***

Days devour moments brushing them to history

And what we put into them is all there will ever be

But in the seamless rendering of its perpetual flow

We should give God the glory, for ‘tis by His grace we go

***

Moments pass, forgotten soon

God, stir our memory

To regard as we fill their swoon,

Accountability

***

Pity the one

Who cares not a whit

When this life is done

What happens with it

***

Pity the one

Who lives recklessly

Ignorant of

Accountability

***

We cannot change what remains true

We give account for what we do

***

The love of God is kind and good

And though often misunderstood

He watches like Daddy, His own

Each promise like a steppingstone

Leading, not to a brutal rod

But into faithful arms of God

© Janet Martin

Rebelling a Little...in mind only

The poetry of rain-song twists the air into a sigh

Where rush of eighteen-wheelers and mute moments hurry by

We cannot halt the rubric of Time’s customary mien

Of twilight over afternoon or tick-tock tambourine

Over archaic skylines dawn to midnight disappears

Face it my darling, we can never be immune to years

Subtle-soft, the hand of time strums laugh-lines where the curve

Of youth and ignorance rendered its innocence and verve

…and we could sprawl like children with our feet upon a cloud

But accruement of knowledge, love, has made us stiff and proud

And so, sedately we impose upon rain-riddled deep

A paragraph of proper prose before we go to sleep

But if we were carefree, my love, then you and I would go

And wander out among the stars like urchins through the snow

…firm attribute of middle-age exploits its faculty

We pause for one more second glance into night’s poetry

© Janet Martin

Something about the rush of an eighteen-wheeler rumbling by in the dark rain sparked...something...while I was drinking my middle-aged tea and headed for a middle-aged bedtime to read a middle-aged book;)

Mercy-message

 PAD challenge day 3: Write a message poem

There is a message none should dare to shun

Of sacred absolution spilled in red

This mercy-message is for everyone

As on behalf of us the Author pled

There is a message no one should ignore

Lest Death should come and seal redemption’s gate

This mercy-message opens Heaven’s door

Or bars it to the one who trusts in fate

There is a message written, not in ink

But in the blood of One, Jesus, God’s Son

And all who will believe and trust in it

Will not perish when this small life is done

There is a message that never grows old

‘Love of God’ on centuries engraved

A mercy-message told and then re-told

For it is by His grace that we are saved

© Janet Martin

Message From a Poem to its Reader

 Pad Challenge day 3: Write a message poem

A poem takes some time to taste

Do not skim hurriedly   

Across my skin, lest in your haste

You miss the heart of me

For poetry is layered fruit

A passion-purpose prayer

Of message oft misunderstood

Like thought-seeds spit to air

This soul-blood fruit of fold on fold

Reveals, not at first glance

The bittersweet of gray and gold

Scavenged from word-romance

   

So, let it linger on your lips

This kiss of consonants

Is more than page twixt fingertips

Or Muse deliverance

It is the bread from beggar-bards

The salt siphoned from tears

The nucleus of poet-hearts

Exposed to eyes and ears

...and do you hear beyond the breeze

That word alone will spell?

Ah, do you crave intricacies

That poets never tell?

...and do you hunger for the splurge

Not of infantile drink,

But from a raw and ruthless merge

Of poetry and ink?

  

Or do you choose to dash across

This type-print that you see?

My love, to you alone the loss

Of missing poetry

 

 

© Janet Martin

Of Farewells Never Spoken...a message to the Past

 Pad Challenge day 3: Write a message poem

Somehow we brave the silence where farewells were never told

Time’s silver strings a labyrinth of dreaming and despair

Moments mete minute messages; night-ness and morning gold

We fill its rooms with vanity and memory and prayer

Oh, I have strained to touch you but Time’s hours intervene

The busyness of Bygone is a double-edg-ed grief

Where laws of hope and heartache poise twixt ‘will be’ and ‘has been’

In moment-meted mercy of desire and relief

A sea of echoes rushes through the hollowness of want

Futile to fret and hunger for a ripple in its grasp

Life’s hierarchy of happiness is not within the taunt

Of farewells never spoken, but in moments that we clasp

The girth of Past expands, yet we are ever far apart

For slipping through our fingers is Time’s tender moment-string

Those farewells never spoken shape the treasures of the heart

Thus we lift up each moment-cup to drink its offering

© Janet Martin

A Message to Old Man Winter

PAD Challenge Day 3: For today’s prompt, write a message poem.

Long we have scanned your sovereignty

Of nature-offerings

And preyed over thermometers

In hope of warmer things

Often you smiled and we were sure

You would say something nice

Before you raked your fingers through

Steel vaults of snow and ice

…but now you scribble on the air

A kinder melody

And we have seen you linger where

The blossom stirs the tree

…and we have sensed within your grit

A hint of letting go

As if you too are tired of it;

These signatures of snow

Your message is a slow strip-tease

On fields layered knee-deep

Our pulses quicken as you ease

Dark furrow from your keep

We linger longer and freely

Beneath your sun-kissed scrawl

Ah, maybe you are not really

An old brute after all

© Janet Martin

 

Of Will and Can and Must

We lay down our work-worn tools

Of ‘will’ and ‘can’ and ‘must’

Twilight cascades onyx pools

Over tents of dust

Thought, the scoundrel that he is

Boldly rakes its deep

Ethereal parenthesis

Twixt toiling and sleep

Quiet quickens with the dirge

Where night-shadows lay

Overhead the silent surge

Of dark moments splay

Deep within us thought alone

Bears the settlement

Of what 'will', 'can', 'must' have done

Where this day is spent

Morning meanders in air

Beyond nocturne shore

Lowering to thresholds where

This day will be no more

‘Will’ and ‘can’ and ‘must’ return

Weighting mortal touch

By their test we love and learn

Lessons of life and such

© Janet Martin

Who pushes you through the day; Will, Can or Must?

 

Like a Tree...

To you

I am like a tree

My limbs are all you see

You do not see the roots, the core

Or love’s leaf-tears scattered on the floor

And oh, you

Do not hear

Life’s summer-song echoing of years

Nor do you see the sapling at my knee

Reaching, ever reaching for youth’s cupped eternity

And you

Do not know

How swift a tree can grow

All you see is rain and sun and snow

As days to weeks to seasons flow

No, to you

I am like a tree

My limbs are the only thing you see

…and I am content to hold you in my seasoned arms

For soon enough you must learn to weather your own storms

© Janet Martin