All the While the Hours Smile...

…and all the while the hours smile

Filling the day with cricket lay

The dust that long harbored our trust

Is wild and sweet with wheat and hay

The morning dark forsook the lark

He heralds fairer climes somewhere

We drink the ink of bronze and pink

Splayed on the brink of Here to There

August befriends musk-misty blends

Awareness keened upon its sheen

Where happiness puts on a dress

Of gold and blush  and chartreuse-green

The pond beyond lush bracken- frond

Is filled with noise of carefree boys

Life’s startling truth, so kind to youth

Disguised in summer-setting joys

As all the while the hours smile

And blooms beguile the eye with art

Before the leaf-lorn silence mourns

August, in tempests of the heart

© Janet Martin

Dancing in the Dark

These lines that weave our thought designs

Throb with unwritten poetry

Where kindled spark in unpenned dark

Rouses restless intimacy

The sun climbs high in honeyed sky

How swift dusk’s shadow-citadel

Rises, then shrinks, its phantom ink

Fades in the footfalls of farewell

And we, with pens poised eagerly

Confess we cannot capture this

The aura of longing and love

Entwined like vines on silver mist

Where thought designs ten-thousand lines

Aching to cleave form from the air

And we admit the angst of it

Is sometimes more than we can bear

Yet we attempt, not yet exempt

From laws of Duty and Desire

To spill from quill thoughts burning will

Where kindled spark becomes a fire

© Janet Martin

The love/hate relationship of writing…

Oft word teases thought

yet never quite appeases.

Prelude to Summer's Swansong

The lamplight circle is full of flowers

But oh, I know its glow

Will soon relinquish summer’s hours

To leaf-tempests, then snow

The heart of a dreamer is full of summer

But oh, something tells me

A swansong waits to fill a stage

Where summer used to be

The night tiptoes in where daylight is laughing

But oh, he comes so soon

While we are busy autographing

Postcard-afternoons

Come, my darling, let’s dance ere the curtain

Falls and this season is past

I’m not a prophet, but I am quite certain

Nothing this good can last

© Janet Martin

We are having such a beautiful 'Goldilocks' summer...not too cold and not too hot...just right!

Since the boys I babysit are on a week of vacation it was a good time to tackle lots of jobs! Yesterday while working in the garden I noticed this sunflower among its deeper-hued peers. We are enjoying it as a center-piece...

The 'Re's of Reading God's Word

When we read the Word of God we are

Refreshed,

Renewed,

Reminded,

Rebuked,

Rewarded,

Reassured,

Refined,

Replenished,

Reinforced,

Restored,

Rest-assured

…remembering as we

Repented and believed, we

Received the gift of

Redemption and we

Rejoice

© Janet Martin

More Than a Circuit of Sunsets...

Day rises

Then sets

With its triumph,

Regrets

Where fear and faith contend

Night falls

Away

And Time begets

Another day, my friend

God gives

And takes

Heart sings

And aches

Pride breaks the golden rule

But God

Who loves

Us so

Abides

His grace forgives this fool

Man’s mortal

Thread

Of heart

And head

As we shed blood and tears

Fills

The embrace

Of One

Whose grace

Is greater than our years

The roof

Of sky

Amazes

Eyes

Where we, fixed on earth’s sod

Should not

Forget

Time’s transient

Thread

Is held in hands of God

© Janet Martin

 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace…Eph. 1:5-7