The Suffering of Innocence

 

The gaping wounds of sorrow stun to silence our complaint

As hate’s hideous horrors bleed upon the innocent

Oh God, you see our anguish and behold the tears that fall

You know this pain; for Innocence once suffered above all

How hard it is to understand the aftermath of hate

Yet Love will conquer; evil cannot enter Heaven’s gate

Be near, I pray, instill Your peace where demons cannot go

Remind us Lord, of Calvary and how you love us so

Gethsemane once bore your prayers; and oh, you prayed for us

Knowing the road that You must bear would lead You to the cross

Lord, help us to stand valiant against the enemy

Succor, comfort and be our strength until we live with Thee

© Janet Martin

I was frustrated because my garden tiller quit and won't start, then I came inside and heard the news of this

   

 ...and this

'We have One who knows and cares 

He hears the words in wordless prayers!'

Like a Little Porch

 ...working in the garden beneath a perfect sky in perfect temperatures with perfect...oops perfectly imperfect kids;)  makes one perfectly happy...mom.

Beneath love’s azure eye

Where cotton-ferries waft

In uncharted infinity

To ports afar, aloft

…sprawls earth; a meager dot

Where on its mutual slope

Gathers upon its mourning plot

We, journey-men of hope

Here bloom and blood-drops mesh

Here people laugh and weep

Here we suffer sorrows of flesh

Toward love’s azure deep

Here glimpses keen our thirst

For what we cannot see

Earth’s dot is like a little porch

Hinged to eternity

© Janet Martin

There Is Something 'bout a Garden...

There is something ‘bout a garden

Quite unlike its kindred ‘folk’

For a garden is a paradise

In spite of all its work

It listens while we pluck and pull

And prune and stake and weed

Nature unfolds its ‘wonderful’

From nothing but a seed

God’s rain and sun caresses

Each seedling like a prayer

And how its laughter blesses

Each one who pauses there

…not by its grand perfection

But by its impetus

A sweet and strange reflection

Of God’s kind patience with us

We cannot hurry flowers

Nor can we rush the root

That needs its ordained hours

Before we see its fruit

And while we wait we wander

Among its reaching green

To play and pray and ponder

Life’s miracles unseen

And somewhere in the measure

Of tilling, toiling-test

The bud unfolds its pleasure

And puts our doubts to rest

Yes, there’s something ‘bout a garden

Quite unlike all other earth

Where bare feet pitter-patter

On God's footpaths to re-birth

© Janet Martin

I have a feeling after a week away, we are going to return to a sunflower-jungle;) I decided to leave the ‘volunteer plants’ after some of the potatoes didn’t come up…if the soil isn’t working for produce plant Pleasure!

Beneath sun-flower coppice zinnias beam!

Incomprehensible All

(What wakes the bird to break night's polished deep with song?) He was singing up a storm until I got my camera out then he needed a breather:), oh, well I caught a few notes of 'joy unmeasured and fully of glory'!

What wakes the bird to break

Night’s polished deep with song

What stirs the depths above the lake

To fill its dark with dawn?

What urges green to gold?

Or probes each pulsing bud

Its rush, intangible, yet bold

Draws gardens from the mud

Ah, what rolls like a sea

Within the human breast?

Where apathy and sympathy

And joy and sorrow wrest

What stills the heart at last

Yet fills the new born wail

With breath of life; what binds us fast

Through suffering’s stormy gale?

What makes me miss you so

Yet comforts as I weep?

What keens the longing in our souls

To draw us from our sleep?

What refurbishes hope?

Or shatters twilight’s sky

To fall in petals on a slope

Where only clouds pass by

…or silvers dawn with dew

Or lavishes the lea

or kisses me with thoughts of you

Pray tell, what can it be?

What is this awesome force

No scientist can prove

Yet spawns the Want to seek its Source?

I think it must be love

© Janet Martin

 

  

We are Blessed...with Today

…and here we are, recipients of heaven-glimpses, oh

Gentle, the morning melts the dark like springtime melts the snow

The hour spreads and ripples, its circumference exhales

To tint with periwinkle pasture-lane in star-like veils

These glimpses hush our pleading for the clattering of things

And somehow what we’re needing spills to earth from seraph-wings

Behind the gray of rainy day, we know an ocean waits

Its ether hold will pour like gold through heaven’s broken gates

Today is quite unlike its predecessors, none before

Has ever worn its garment or passed through Time’s two-fold door

And when it disappears, then, only then will this day be

A button on the uniform of bridled history

Here we are; tomorrow is a foreign fantasy

But ah, today implores from us the best that we can be

To touch kind heaven-glimpses with the wonder of a child

To let our fingers linger where the love of God runs wild

What good are our long faces with our bellies full of bread?

Unfold those fists; God’s graces are not drum-rolls for the dead

Where dread and worry tramples beneath ever-seeking feet

Love’s delicate examples of God-gifted meadow-sweet

Here we are, but only for a little while then we

Like Time, but with a soul will fade into eternity

Our remnant like the seeds that fall where barren blossoms die

Come, now the hour pleads from God, ah, how will we reply?

© Janet Martin

...my first reply will be with cloth and broom, then we'll see;)