Downton Abbey-hearts

PAD challenge day 17: write a pop-culture poem

Tea sipped from fine china will not take us there

Yet we curl up in England from our easy chairs

With servants, gowns and hats though liberation

Sneers now at stiffness of such tradition

We become Mary, Anna, Cora,  Lady Grantham

Because somewhere within us we understand them

We are not familiar with much of the ado

But ah, we know a Miss O’Brien or two

And the snobbery of royalty still thrives

Lust, love, greed, grief; these are life

And we, blue jean princesses could well wear their names

Because human emotion is ever the same

 

So we sip our tea, love our ‘Bransons’ and ‘Bates’

Call our castles home, search for soul-mates

For we are all Crawleys; rich, poor, in-between

Tested with love and loss on living’s green

Centuries pass; old fashions seem strange

Yet, those things of the heart never really change

© Janet Martin

Epiphany

In that one moment

Every cruelty,

Slight and jab

Climaxed,

Erupting

In blind,

Supreme

Hatred

…and she knew in that one moments every evil

in its darkest, violent sin-cursed potential...o-o-o-h!

In that one moment

She knew

Every 

kindness,

Grace and 

Mercy

Breathed,

Is a gift

Of God’s

Forgiveness 

and

Supreme   

Love

© Janet Martin

 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
Matt. 6:14

God Sent His Son...

   

Broken, pleading, hope lay bleeding

On earth’s battleground, undone

Who can heal man's utter needing?

Only One; God sent His Son

Mortal treasure could not measure

To absolve our guilty groan

Blood of ram inept tradition

Until this; God sent His Son

Law condemns sinful behavior

We are sinful; everyone

Is there for our doom a Savior?

Who, my Lord? God sent His Son

Hate and hunger lunged to slaughter

Goodness, Mercy, Love undone

From the cross pours Living Water

To redeem; God sent His Son

Broken, bleeding, Jesus pleading

Father, forgive what they’ve done

For they do not know; I’m leading

Them to You; God sent his Son

© Janet Martin

 When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves. And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One."…Luke 23: 33-35

Eventide Elegy

There are far better things ahead than anything we can leave behind. C.S.Lewis

Found the above quote at Words on Wheels. Check out Deb's beautiful and inspirational notes cards.

PAD challenge day 16: write an elegy

Love cups joy but cannot clench

Blessing-beauty; Moments wrench

Now to Then and When to Now

As our love-cups overflow

Darling, once upon a climb

We were ignorant of Time

How this thoroughfare of clocks

Gathers moments behind locks

…how love cups life’s moment-gong

Fading now in vesper-song

Pitter-patter… passion, prayer

Spills and fills our here-to-there

Darling, let’s dance soft and slow

Swift, how swift these Time-gems flow

Phantom eighth-notes gilded glide

Echoing on eventide

Hold me dear, too soon dusk-dirge

Overtakes dawn’s virgin splurge

Cup-‘o-love songs gently ride  

Breezes on the eventide

© Janet Martin

Hark, Hark, What is that Sound?

Hark, hark, what is that sound

That rends the atmosphere

As elements are shuddering

…ah yes, it is God’s tear

Hark, hark, what is that sob

Immersing Time’s embrace

In moment-metered pantomime

…ah yes, it is God’s grace

Hark, hark, what fills the realms

Twixt hell and heav’n above

With hope’s immortal canticle

…ah yes, it is God’s love

© Janet Martin

Stained-glass Elegy

 PAD challenge Day 16: write an elegy

They sit like stained-glass spectacles

Tucked in rural burgs and vales

Steeple-postcards; red, brown, gray

Where fore-fathers came to pray

As Amazing Grace rang strong

Before progress stole its song

Here Miss Betty sang off-key

Baby bounced on mother’s knee

Johnny scribbled on the pew

Mary blushed and peeked at Lou

Daddies paused from six-day test

Sabbath was a day of rest

Once upon a simpler Time

Sunday morning bore the chime

Of the tolling steeple-bell

…’Come to church or go to hell’  

Now when Sunday rolls around

Silence is its only sound

 

Here they sit; each village square

Has a little church somewhere

Mr. Brown still mows the lawn

Pausing to reflect upon

Friends and neighbors lying where

No one comes to pray a prayer

...and those doors that never locked

Never open; is God shocked

As He sees His house of prayer

Empty; hallmarks of despair

Like a grave among the graves

Echoing 'come, Jesus saves'

 

© Janet Martin 

If you come to visit St.Jacobs Ontario, Canada you will hear these bells every day at noon.They play for 10-15 minutes. I love how the guy mowing the lawn stops as soon as he realizes the bells are playing...

  

love, love this song by Craig Morgan...

Then, In the Dusk of Being...

Then, there it is, where just an hour or maybe two before

Daylight drew pictures on earth’s shadow-dappled living-floor

While we too, with each touch and trip and here and there a fall

Draw pictures we will hang with tender care upon a wall

Then in the dusk of Being we will pause a little too

To watch the blue grow deeper on Time’s weathered avenue

We’ll hear upon the night-wind fond farewells to reminisce

And gather much like flowers faded fragments to thought-kiss

The hours that have stolen precious afternoons afar

Will suddenly be resurrected ‘neath the evening star

As in the dusk of Being we allow ourselves to dance

The doggerel befitting those who’ve suffered Time’s romance

The heart is like a levee holding memories in place

Where aftermath of daylight keens its generous embrace

And though day-shadows disappear into night-ebony

It cannot brush away the beauty of a memory

Where in the dusk of Being we walk slower than before

To touch with tender gratitude Time’s shadow-dappled floor

© Janet Martin

Don Williams; I would like to see you again~

Mid-April Snow

Last night I sensed a brooding  restlessness in the gathering of daylight...this morning I knew why!

It bullies in without invitation

No celebration or rousing rah-rah

Even the robin declares his frustration

Vexed at a landscape reluctant to thaw

Dear old man winter, you’ve worn out your welcome

Take your white troops to the far side of earth

There they are waiting to greet you with bells on

Here we are weary of ice-feather mirth

Hearts are half-crazy for violet and daisy

Our bodies starved for gold kiss of the sun

April is famous for showers, not flurries

Take your vile humor, oh winter and run

We dream of grandstands upon hillside meadow

Where we will lie on dusk’s blue-shadow grid

Somehow white beauty outside every window

No longer moves me the way it once did

Baritone banter of half-spring surrender

Tosses bud-tresses eager to bestow

Green gilded glory of first-blossom splendor

Where you have decked her with mid-April snow

© Janet Martin

Went out for a walk/run tonight; it was painfully cold and insultingly beautiful;)