What We See

 "I have always maintained that if you look closely enough you can see the wind; the dim-hardly-made-out, fine debris fleeing high in the air". Stewart Edward White

Then fling away, oh blinding scales

 And let me see what sight unveils

For I would like to learn to see

The 'what is right in front of me'

Ah, see time’s colors; how they splay

While shaping miracles from clay

Dare I to pass without a glance

Where a wide world of wonders dance?

Forbid it that I serve a lord

Bent on dull dollars for reward

Then forgetting to truly see

The 'what is right in front of me'

Gift-wrapped beauty in rich supply

Waits, waits to awe the Seeing Eye

Nature, a painter with no brush

Does not wait long, nor does she rush

For no stage, page, platform or screen

Offers to us such relished scene

As that long second look we take

Across dusk’s fading, jaded brake

Thus, here and now, house, field or street

God gives to all a front row seat

Oh, then let us never forget

That what we see is what we get

© Janet Martin

My August

Oh, I am in love with you

Downcast eyes of dusty blue

Bloom-filled fist and apron too

Dear August

Musky-dusk and dew-drenched morn

Hazy noon and peach-sweet warm

Breezes bent with scent of corn

In August

Cricket-choir mezzanine

Thoroughfare of gold and green

Sun-flow’r etched on azure sheen

Of August

Tender tug-of-war romance

Debonair Don Juan, you dance

I, a puppet in your hands

My August

I will trail you to your brink

On a hem-line stippled-pink

Where your sleepy brooklets wink

Through August 

For I am in love with you

Kindling sighs of deeper hue

Where your eyes droop, bluer blue

My August

© Janet Martin

A Writer's Charge...

We write; our appetite incurred

By endurance of written word

How great the charge that fills the pen

To spill in messages to men

A tiny twist of ink can be

An artist’s immortality

And we who dare to glean from air

To phrase thought’s poetry and prayer

Answer to One like magnate's must

The wealth of words, a sacred trust

Its fortitude and reach exceeds

The jingle-jangle of coin-seeds

For who knows? Far, far down time’s way

This little line we write today

May touch or rearrange a thought

Simply by words today we jot

Oh hand, beware, that holds a pen

We give account to more than men

© Janet Martin

Someone introduced me to Frank Dempster Sherman yesterday. Thank-you!

Joy-search

She sought for joy to find its cup

And even as the earth woke up

She glimpsed it in the far abyss

That broke night’s fetter with a kiss

But then the laughter of the day

Seized morning’s troubadour away

Where joy turned down the hurried path

Of daily care where children laugh

…and mother’s hold and scold, repeat

And farmers glean their gold in wheat

Near by the pond the dreamer dreams

Close to the pulse of joy, it seems

While ever eager moments chase

This summer day to its last place

Joy spills in frills from flowerpots

On window-sills and garden-plots

 And over streets while Wall Street yearns

Coveting joy and its returns

But cannot find its hidden seed

Among the clamoring of greed

 Yet on a bubble etched in blue

While children cheered, ah, there she knew

Joy is no fragile, rainbow sphere

Brief bliss before betrayal’s tear

  

For lo, amidst life’s brokenness

Joy still refills our happiness  

She found it then, her search subdued

Joy is a heart of gratitude

 © Janet Martin 

 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him. Ps. 28:7

Need's Abundant Lining

Lord, this load of love we bear

Paves life’s road with tears and prayer

Faith believes yet cannot see

When the end of hope will be

Need is not a curse; its pleas

Draw us humbly to our knees

God forbid our spirit craves

Ease as we become self-slaves

Greed is shallow; need a sky

Of occasion to rely

Not upon some self-schemed fraud

But with our whole, on God

© Janet Martin

 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Phil. 4:19

...your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Matt. 6:8

Sometimes I wish we'd get past this 'struggle and scrape' stage, my hard-working hubby sighed last night. 
'at first glance' I replied, 'I sure wish so too, and yet it is this 'struggle-and-scrape' that brings me to my knees over and over; a realization of our dependance on Him...