Of Swatch of Sod and Sweep of Sky

We splash across earth’s waking green

Past-present-future caught between

A swatch of sod and sweep of sky

Its palette pleasant to the eye

In constant marvel, life and death

Are juxtaposed in every breath

And soon where blooming bud was lent

The limb is gnarled and heavy-bent

Time’s draught of moments takes its toll

Where we are all piece of a whole

Greater than thought or touch and taste

Ere dust to dust retrieves its waste

Freedom; life’s greatest blessedness

Nor for greed’s wanton lawlessness

But as we grasp its worth we see

A sacred, elemental key

…Responsibility and Rule

Not for the faint of heart or fool

We yearn with clear and earnest eyes

To satisfy Time’s moment-prize

With more than dust of darling dreams

Or wanderlust-betaken schemes

For surely life is more than breath

To lead us to eternal death

We splash across earth’s waking green

Toward a Line, sure yet Unseen

Of tick-tock trampling underfoot

The miles transporting us to It

Time’s sweep of sky and swatch of sod

Life’s little highway back to God

© Janet Martin

I am reading through Peter Marshall’s sermons, dumbfounded by their simplicity and depth and timeless relevance…It is little wonder that the loss of his voice and verve were deeply mourned. Here, a small excerpt...

Then, When We Sleep to Wake...

Then, when we sleep to wake and when we wake never to sleep

When the Unknown is gone and no more tears remain to weep

Then we shall understand that which we sought to know before

As Time yields to the Absolute of God’s forevermore

Then, when Hope is exchanged for Home and Home is hope fulfilled

When we have heard that final ‘Come’ as Death’s dark sea is stilled

Then, when the Mystery of soul and spirit are revealed

How worth it all is every grief as every grief is healed

Then, when at last faith becomes sight, sight absolves mortal strife

As death becomes a stepping-stone to everlasting life

And Time’s defenseless shadow fades into Love’s dauntless deep

Then, when we sleep to wake and when we wake never to sleep

© Janet Martin

Because, at the end of it all Reality abides; the sole/soul reason for conception, birth, death to life. We should live every day and seek to remember to never forget...Time is perishable and then we must all put on the Imperishable...

Ah, Thee Who Sends The Rain...

 I'm certain we would all be choosing no rain right now but even as I write this thunder rolls across the deep

and we trust the Lord our way to keep...(yes, the farmers and gardeners and everybody! yes, those in the drought-stricken southwest too)

Ah, Thee who sends the rain

And lowers twilight’s veil

Then at the dawn draws it again

We know Thou wilt not fail

Ah, Thee who tends the air

And sees each private grief

Surely you hear our wordless prayer

When vexed by unbelief

Ah, Thee who discerns thought

And intent of the heart

Still, still you thrill earth’s season-rill

With Thy majestic art

And though Thou knowest we

Fear suffering over sin

Still we arouse Thy sympathy

And Mercy’s beckoning

Ah, Thee who holds the thread

Where flesh and soul divide

Instill faith greater than death’s dread

As Hope is satisfied

© Janet Martin

Contemplating Happiness

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I cannot keep you happy for long

Nor you me

Love, is more than have and hold

This disappoints, you see

For happiness must be three-fold

First God, then you and I

Else we are merely capable

Of expectation’s lie

Darling, how long we live is trite

But we should ask, ‘how well?’

Time’s kaleidoscope of morn to night

Tolls a most awesome bell

We cannot hear but somewhere

Parting lurks, oh may it be

That where two separate at last

Never, oh, never three

Time’s eons throb with love’s allowance

Of laughter and tears

Seasons sob with the advancing

To where Time disappears

Happiness in all its glory

Taunts our wants and woes

Until Heaven fulfills glimpses

Earth's three-fold love bestows

© Janet Martin

Just Like An Afternoon

   

She told me she would read while we walked to make time pass quickly...and the way home seem shorter...

 ...she didn't know that if  I could I would hold on with both hands and dig my feet in to slow down the afternoon and stretch out the miles but its no use; in the tug-of-war with Time, Time always wins! Next year Victoria will be gone with the youth group on Victoria Day weekend, so we wanted to make it a special Mom and Victoria 'last time'. We did:)

Time takes no holiday

How soon an afternoon

Slips into gowns of evening gray

Like May slips into June

The banter of an hour

Distracts us from the truth

Its laughter like a new-born flower

Or prettiness of youth

The purple hyacinth

Blooms wild on yonder slope

Where we explored spring’s labyrinth

Windswept and drenched with hope

Where, but for poetry

No wisp of it remains

Perfection but a fantasy

Of thought-echoed refrains

…where once three girls dashed free

On childhood’s lilac-breeze

Before they disappeared, where dreams

Beckon new memories

Just like an afternoon

Sun-kissed in middle-May

Always the evening comes too soon

And hurries it away

© Janet Martin

Bards of May

How merrily the bards of May

Spill sweetness to earth’s calloused gray

Now shouts the rising sun to earth

Of longing quelled, of glad re-birth

And hearts, mantled with bleak despair

Embrace May-song like answered prayer

How graciously the bards of May

Ease somber filament away

Oh, bonny bliss of green and blue

Of purple kiss and golden hue

We gaze with beggarly delight

On orchard haze of pink and white

How free and fair season’s bequeath

This thing of air; we lie beneath

The lacy arch of wreath-plumed bark

Where noon sprawls high, its gilded arc

A pleasant, poetic disguise

Where Time slips past our half-closed eyes

…as merrily the bards of May

Tease trees and meadow-lands to play

The tune we crave in winter’s grief

Of sighing grass and lilting leaf

Where soon mid-May reality

Is naught but bits of poetry

© Janet Martin

While We Were Waiting...

I would have waited, he told me

Running fingers through Fifty with sighs

Waited for what? I ask him

And he laughs as he replies

…Getting old

‘I turn eighty today’, the woman smiles

As he asks her what life has taught

She says ‘as I look back

Asking what would I change? I realize

A lot’

We cannot deter Time’s one-way

Its ever-forward flight

Bestows new pages of Today

Ah pray, what will we write?

© Janet Martin

Hubby and his co-worker, both 50-ish, met a lady out for breakfast and celebrating her 80^th birthday. She told them she was lying in bed the night before and she asked herself, as she looked back, what she would change if she could in her life, and she realized, a lot!

Jim’s co-worker laughed as he told me this and then said he would have waited to grow old if he had known it would happen so soon!

Wouldn’t we all?!

Beyond Fondest Expectation

Beyond fondest expectation

As we ponder, pray and plead

Though God gives no explanation

He provides our deepest need

Beyond visual discernment

As His wherefore we besot

God prepares, cares for His children

In ways mightier than thought

Beyond vaguest understanding

Though we fall again, again

God abides; love never-ending

Lavishes the sons of men

© Janet Martin