As We Slow Down our Thought...

The noise has died away as daylight seeks its rest

The child forsakes his play, the bird returns to nest

As we slow down our thought where light is almost gone

Drawing the shade on one more day closer to That Last One

Silence becomes a hum save for the distant bark

Of dog baying at the full moon; or stragglers in the park

Reluctant to return behind closed doors to sleep

Knowing how soon the morning urges darkness to the deep

Duty is set aside; its toil must wait til dawn

The intimacy of ‘good-night’ beckons in every yawn

And yet, within the tug of slumber we resist

To fully taste the fading fringe of farewell’s purple mist

…where we laid bare our dreams and scattered laughter, tears

Now twilight folds into its ream the filament of years

The child is fast asleep, the little birdie too

We turn to see the slow release of deeper, deeper blue

Thought is a microscope where sound does not distract

The hush of night like Holy Ground vulnerable in black

But Hope is not deterred by colors of the air

How mightily the soul is stirred as we fill thought with prayer

© Janet Martin

This Day of Days

This Day of Days spills sparkle to our step

And laughter to our lips, song to the soul

At longest last the winds of winter sleep

And kiss of kinder port succors earth’s bowl

Where glaze of ice-white induced suffering

The maiden with ten-thousand shades of green

Extends her baton and touches earth's heart-strings

Transforming barren tree to regal queen

My, my, this Day of days is like a hymn

Of Christmas falling down in middle-May

As we gather around the blooming limb

To sing the carols of this gladsome day

…and we forgive Time for its harsher climes

Knowing full-well it keens a purer thrill

As brooding blast relents to zephyr rhymes

And firesides their fantasies fulfill

This Day of days is heaven’s gift to earth

Like laughter after sorrow’s vale of tears

Nature extols its mercy of rebirth

Banishing winter to Past’s belvederes

© Janet Martin

Visiting Brenda who reminds us constantly that It's a Beautiful Life, sparked a song through a quote she posted by E.B. White

"There is another sort of day that needs celebrating in song — the day of days when spring at last holds up her face to be kissed, deliberate and unabashed." ~ E.B. White

Thought Reaches Through the Waking-ness of Morn...

Thought reaches through the waking-ness of morn

How is it; from the dark a day is born

And from the day a night in soft descent

Soon tucks the earth beneath obsidian tent

Before the morn is re-born and the air

Is filled with untouched things and hope and prayer

Now it is spring and we are glad to dream

Though middle-age is caught somewhere between

The dash of youth and that more genteel pause

Where thought tends to retrace a time that was

…though we admit to be caught by surprise

At how blithely a little season flies

Upon the tree each bud unfolds its due

In flower-gardens brushed on azure blue

Before the fullness of green leaf applauds

The happiness of summer hours shod

With eager haste, for what; we cannot know

The lad beside me tugs my hand to ‘go’

Kind urgency of tick-tock taps its lay

The dole of Duty keeps our fears at bay

For evidence of grace ignites the sky

Where fretwork fields of ‘almost summer’ sigh

As tree-limbs flaunt lacy extravagance

We grasp the coat-tails of new day to dance

Thought reaches through the waking-ness of morn

How is it; from the dark a day is born

And from the day a night in soft descent

Soon tucks the earth beneath obsidian tent

Before the morn is re-born; now the air

Is filled with Majesty and hope and prayer

© Janet Martin

The Intent of the Sky

He is nobody's friend

Moiling from west to east

A glowering and fearsome  fiend

...seething, merciless beast

We watch this dragon crawl

Across the lowered sky

Praying and hoping, one and all

That it will just pass by

For no one can defy

Or threaten with demands

The intent of the stormy sky

is in the Maker's hands

Janet~

side-note; no, it isn't tomorrow;) I needed to adjust the time setting in my camera.

Some anxious moments as the temps drop...a tornado warning was issued tonight but it is gray and raining now and according to the news none have touched down so far.
...at the bird feeder it was business as usual!

  

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:26

after Sasha's comment I decided to post one more pic. Yes, this feeder is safe from squirrels but not entirely safe! and I don't know what to do to keep the neighbor's farm-cat away. Nothing deters him for long!! Mostly I throw water at him but he shakes it off and returns...and he can jump high enough to nab one!

Like Parting Friends...

Like parting friends, soft we let go

The rush of Time is bittersweet

As it touches the poet’s song

In cadences of ‘no repeat’

We toast its triumph, weep its loss

And carry on, no refuge lies

In some forgotten interlude

Where we can pause past’s transfixed prize

The cottage hearth where children played

Will soon be silent, save for cheers

Of ticking clock and echoed days

Lost somewhere in Time’s sweeping years

How tenderly we touch the air

For this we know, its moment-mien

Claims little girls with golden curls

And little boys of carefree grin

A visceral, intrinsic zeal

Interweaves every season-smile

Futile to quietly appeal

To ticking clocks to pause a while

Thus we linger, perhaps to taste

A moment longer Time’s delight

Before it succumbs to the haste

Of centuries sealed from our sight

Like parting friends we tarry ere

Farewell satisfies its demands

Darling, methinks I feel you where

A sea of echoes sweeps Time’s sands

© Janet Martin

John Clare wrote some of my most-beloved poetry...here is a beautiful stanza from his poem December...

...and many a thing, a minute's sport
Left broken on the sanded floor
When we would leave our play and court
Our parents' promises for more
Tho' manhood bids such raptures die
And throws such toys aside in vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye
And count past pleasures o'er again...

Thought-streams

Perpetual discourse, this stream

Rushes in want, worry and dream

Accusation and worship surge

Filling mute fathoms with their splurge

Dawn, noon, wakeful middle-night

We bear the potence of their plight

Word touches word and shapes a thought

Faith, fear, hate, love and longing caught

Within its vortex endlessly

This torrent rushes to a sea

Where none can ever truly find

These oceans carried in the mind

…save for the thought that wears a noise

To tell of living’s grief and joys

Yearning, learning and wanderlust

Echoes in hollows filled with trust

Incessant urge from mystic deep

Word follows word until we sleep

© Janet Martin

Ever wish you could just turn them off...like in the middle of the night when they crowd away sleep?

What are your first 'thought-words' when you awake?
We ought to give careful thought to what we think...

Pray we have a constructive, healthy thought-stream...the pulse of everything else we do!

For Promises of More

Wisdom crieth without the gates; Her voice a wailing wraith

How long will we refuse Her for a knowledge void of trust

Complacency of fools entices us from founded faith

As we exchange Her gifted gain to grovel in the dust

And want replaces wisdom; greed, a god of vanity

Cannot begin to fathom Her unsoiled intimacy

How easily faith falters craving fortune formed of sight

How rather we prefer the facts than waiting, wondering

Without the proof of answers that we understand as right

While ever yet we pray and plead, the silence thundering

With what ifs, why and wherefores that are not clearly revealed

As true love of obedience requires Self repealed

Old customs fall away beneath Time’s frantic, forward urge

The New boasts bigger, better than those ancient things we learned

Its music of progression as past-present-future merge

Accepting the Unthinkable which our forefathers spurned

But what God promised long ago He promises now, still

And Faith even as mustard seed can move a mighty hill

Wisdom cries in the streets; the noise of vain self-righteousness

Would drown Her, yet the Lord by wisdom founded all the earth

And He is ever greater than Time’s faint covetousness

Patient, He tends the cradle where knowledge waits to give birth

To Her which gives life not to flesh and blood, but to the soul

Immaculate perception where fear’s futile legions roll

© Janet Martin

Reading in the first few chapters of Proverbs this morning...and struggling with my mustard-seed faith.

In the book a Man called Peter, Catherine Marshall, the author writes after stunning proof of God's faithfulness when looking back over a trial in their life...

'One of the excuses we offer for our lack of faith is the old cliche ' God helps those who help themselves'. Rather, God helps those who trust Him to solve their problems.'

I Didn't Say 'I Miss You'

 (after 'the speech';) 

Emily is working tonight, but she just sent me hugs via FB...and then sometimes I just plain miss 'those days' while still being completely happy for her in every way!!

I didn’t say ‘I miss you’

For the sky was lovely blue

like young love gleaming in your eyes

the way young love will do

...and oh, I wouldn’t change it

Those things Time steals away

Yet in the self-same half-breath

How I miss ‘those yesterdays’

© Janet Martin aka Mom

p.s. today we looked at an apartment in Toronto for our second daughter who is moving there in the fall to go to school...more 'missing you' pages waiting to be cherished.