Awakening the Awe

Sometimes the repetitiveness of life attempts to dull the Awe...on this rainy day I need to dig a little deeper and remember from Whence it came.

Awaken in me, Lord

A song of honest praise

It seems the busyness of life

Seeks to consume my gaze

And where Your fullness ought

To satisfy my ‘Have’

Love’s loneliness vexes my thought

Where futile fancies rave

Dawn’s beveled beacons blush

With new-born beckoning

Yet, swift dusk-sultry, swan-songs hush

Day-tide’s sure reckoning

And I cry, my, oh my

Love’s song is bittersweet

Soft-subtly the by and by

Spills echoes at our feet

Philosophy of books

Cannot fully explain

Love’s tug-of-warring paradox  

Of pleasing, grieving pain

Lord, waken in me then

A hymn of soul-sweet praise

We are but fumbling, stumbling men

Dependent on your grace

© Janet Martin

The best we can do is praise the One who gifts to us each day of grace…

Though life challenges our response, we would do well to seek his face

Life’s journey is a learn-ed thing, not through our triumphs but our slips

Lord, keep my thoughts, remembering to keep your praises on my lips…

Where All Else Disappears...

 (Silence and sea-song... stirs thought.)

When thought sets sail on an ocean of years

None but our mind’s eye can see

Oh, how the echo of life reappears

In ethereal sympathy

We do not dare to be patron too long

To what Time cannot restore

Yet in thought's rise-and-fall bittersweet song

Love-lessons softly implore

Having and holding, ephemeral shell

Debonair, double-edged kiss

Intrinsic orbit of greeting-farewell

Startles our notions of bliss

Seasons unravel, one-way ebb and flow

Of profitless ballyhoo

Save for Love's promise sealed long, long ago

Thus Hope abides strong and true

 

Hope beckons, not from chambers of the past

But beams unwaveringly

Where we are caught twixt Time’s long shadow cast

And what is waiting to be

This is the Life-line to which thought adheres

For all we cannot undo

Hope streams stead-fast where all else disappears

Into thought’s ocean of blue

© Janet Martin

 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Heb.11:1

...and July

  

  

  

  

  

  

When Time is a daydream-dew-drenched lullaby

When the air has a ‘come to me, come to me’ sigh

When earth unfolds fabric of wild-flower quilt

When breezes are ballads of leisurely lilt

When we make allowance to lie in the shade

Beneath sprawling limb-tents and leaf-serenade

When what we don’t know doesn’t matter so much

Soothed by the kisses of sun, sand and such

When bare feet go dancing and dirt is a throne

When Duty alleviates its monotone

When gardens are getaway-spas for the soul

Midst rainbow reunion of perennial

When we traverse from earth’s footstool, heaven’s sky

We know its vacation-time and July

© Janet Martin

Of Expanses...

We touch the tip of pen to page

What word will spill its jot?

Gleaned from a strange and silent stage

In the expanse of thought

Earth’s country-side is summer-sweet

It lures the roving eye

Out to an edge we cannot reach

At the expanse of sky

…and all the while our glances gulp

at priceless works of art

to pin where nothing can annul

Expanses of the heart

How swift a season seeps into

That bastioned by-and-by

It tints with russet, gold and blue

Expanses of a sigh

The rooming-house of all our dates

Whether staid or sublime

Soon joins the hour that dissipates

In the expanse of Time

Darling, a day-dream’s luxury

Is better shared somehow

Let’s make a brand-new memory

In this expanse of Now

© Janet Martin

Saturday again, already?!

 Almost half-way through July?! Didn’t we just celebrate Canada Day?

Let’s get out there and make the most of what we have…moments!

A few of yesterday's moments shaped to memories... (I should know better than to say, 'okay, now please look normal!'

Almost Nothing

Majestic in nature, miniscule in size

Ethereal stature we simply surmise

Essence of eons, invisible jot

Elusive chalice where living is wrought

Wee wink of wonderment, gargantuan gasp

Half-breath allotment that no one can clasp

Intangible, all-consuming chrysalis

Warrior’s weapon and motherhood’s kiss

You fill the ages like drops fill a sea

Weeping in fathoms of fancied filigree

Almost your nothingness dares me to laugh

You sign my forehead with your autograph

Over and over your phantom parade

Silvers sun-sparkles; flicker-escapade

Dreamer’s cornucopia, miser’s lament

Everything, almost nothing…ah, little moment

© Janet Martin