Of Time and Truth

We learn too much too late; Truth can’t pretend

It stands unaltered in Time’s heaving lake

Immutable, though we bicker and break

The rules only to find out in the end

What our forefathers suffered, just as we

To learn with jaws dropped low and knowledge spent

Because, though headstrong stubbornness was bent

Somehow determined to change history

We cannot change what cannot be annulled

To ignore Truth simply leaves senses dulled

So then, what hope is there of change at all

Or any good to come from the disgrace

Of fumbling, stumbling, stubborn human race?

Are pleasantries a hoax of syllable?

Will the naysayer armed with ‘right’ and ‘wrong’

And foreboding froth spewing from austere lips

Be champion, counting on fingertips

His shallow prize of self-righteous aplomb?

Nay, Truth is not small-talk but mercy’s gift

An anchor in a sea where notions drift

God, rich in love and grace does not digress

Though Time rushes like water over stone

Diluting what our forefathers made known

No hour fazes I AM's holiness

Where puffed up vanity blinds us and greed

Distracts us from The Great Accountant’s charge

Still Truth will guide each humble, bumbling barge

For nothing here can change what love decreed

And though we learn so late what we know, still

The Truth will set us free to do God’s will

© Janet Martin

Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away. Matt 24:35

Beyond the Star...

Beyond the star dawn draws ajar

A gate in soundless sweep  

From Heaven’s hold a fount of gold

Spills daylight to the deep

A beckoning of reckoning

Stirs in the human breast

Imploring ‘come’, for none can run

From Time’s untiring test

The morn unchains what still remains

Of all that must yet be

From babbling reams the Unknown streams

In coursing mystery

Its cutting rhyme a pantomime

Of future, present, past

Cascading where we turn to stare

At shadows it has cast

This stalwart surge of sunbeam-splurge

Gleaming on polished sky

Soon fades to banks where fallen ranks

Of soldered moments lie

The worship of our chosen love

Will save us or condemn

Beyond the star dawn draws ajar

Time’s gate to ‘try again’

Thought can unveil a dungeon-jail

Where fear’s ruthless parade

Screams satan-lies, drenching our sighs

With rash mistakes we’ve made

But God unveils what never fails

His tender-loving care

Beyond the star He draws ajar

The proof that He is there

© Janet Martin   

Sometimes discouragement weighs hard

and tries to keep us down

but we must run with diligence

to win the victor's crown

...
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matt.28: 19-20

Mother's Monday Morning Madrigal

 ...off to Monday's G-races:)...and mountain-mercies.

The undone smiles in laundry-piles and sinks refurbished with their due

The morning spills to gilded rills in hope’s refurnished gold and blue

The give and take of living breaks the will of Want-and-Wishing woe

The hour thirsts for its new’ firsts’ of holding on and letting go

The ether reels from whence time steals forget-me-not and daffodil

Replenishes earth’s hungry tress with flower-trees on wind-teased hill

As Bleeding Heart falls to the art of portraits painted with the Past

While in our hand Time’s virgin sand is trickling swiftly through our clasp

The silver fields to which gold yields its giggling gasp of innocence

Beckons to her within the spur of Duty’s tireless insistence

The unchained clock with tick and tock will brush to naught its bronze-frond bliss

While She must learn to love and yearn for aught but love’s lingering kiss

…found in the smiles of laundry piles and sinks refurbished with their due

While morning swells in flower-bells and chimes in climes of gold and blue

The give and take of living wakes within her heart a paradise

Where hours thirst for love-worn ‘firsts’ and hope reborn in Monday-eyes

© Janet Martin

The June of Life...

The green embrace of leaf-spun lace

Refurbishes with song, June’s air

The amethyst of morning kissed

In mist, stirs in our hearts a prayer

The ancient crypt where today slipped

From us to it with calloused ease

Expands its room to claim the bloom

Of dew and dark-lashed memories

The years we strung while hours wrung

From tattling tongues life’s innocence

Banters dauntless on Time-tuned tress

Betraying churlish self-defence

Where moment-gold melts in our hold

Like high-noon from her azure throne

Or woodland glades before the shades

Of autumn raids its maiden-crown

The bravado of letting go

While clinging to our sanity

Becomes a fight of dark and light

And sorrow-sweetened agony

Once more the tent of June is bent

With the intent of peonies

Time’s noose feels looser in the ruse

Of summer’s honey-scented breeze

The rod of God tenderly shod

With mercy, spurs us to Time’s path

Of stalwart smiles and second miles

Where clover curves its quickened swathe

And grace becomes the total sum

Of every boast we dare to tout

We limp beneath love’s thorn-worn wreath

We cannot bear to live without

© Janet Martin

'Morning sounds like a water-fall outside my window', remarked Victoria as she paused to listen to the sparkle of new-born walnut-tree leaves,

 ...or maybe its the plush rush of breeze teasing peony-blushing bushes.

Ah, Day Slip Softly Over Me

Ah day, slip softly over me

In cloth of home-spun filigree

Then, drench my senses with your smile

And bar my thought from longing’s guile

This cup I hold, oh, kindly fill

And let the gold of moments spill

Between life’s memory-pages where

Love’s echo long will linger there

Ah, weave with your ethereal thread

Assurances greater than dread

And let me gratefully appraise

Time in its firm, insistent ways

Ah, day slip softly over me

A simple, June-some melody

Ere shadows reach then fade into

Dusk’s meadow of starlight on blue

…and as I pause to recollect

Those things that none can resurrect

I pray, oh let me keep a part

Of you forever in my heart

© Janet Martin

Birthday Thoughts...

I could repeat that well-worn phrase of how time flies and slips too fast

From days; or I could stand and pine for phantom shadows it has cast

Or I can pause and count the awesome gifts God grants in countless ways

Instead of silent sorrowing for what Past seals within its haze

I could persist in being kissed by wishing for what cannot be

Or I can celebrate the love of God in glad humility

For happiness is not a trait of physical accomplishment

But a learned ‘in whatever state I am therewith to be content’

I could lament for years long-spent, or covet what cannot be mine

Or I can learn, Time’s no return is unrelenting in design

And I can choose to live, laugh, love and ever make of it, the best

For none can tell when grief’s farewell will usher in our final rest

© Janet Martin 

Celebrating 48 years of Jesus' love!