Of Everyday Moments

 Time of itself is a momentous affair...

In every-day moments Life becomes what it is

Its patriarch, the clock

Is a bully of sorts; no hit-or-miss

Tick-tock, tick-tock…

In everyday moments we shape who we are

Mute Want-whispers walk

Across skin stretched then shriveled in

Tick-tock, tock-tock

Time of itself is a momentous affair

While we boast, barter and balk

Every-day moments silver the air

Tick-tock, tick-tock…

Beneath the noise of come-and-go

Silence employs its stock

…everyday moments overflow

Tick-tock, tick-tock…

...the child outgrows both clothes and nests

Too soon; it comes as a shock

How a common Maestro engraves its tune

Tick-tock, tick-tock

…and hearts rearrange their hope-chests because

In a clock’s half-breath talk

Everyday moments of What Is fill What Was

Tick-tock, tick-tock

© Janet Martin

Lord, teach us how to make the most

Of every-day moments

Of Wish and Imagination

 Do you ever find that Time is a celebration of wish and imagination? 

Summer is far too small a world to ever be quite appeased;

it's a little like putting down a book in its best part 

and never returning to finish it...
It's like being wonderfully, perfectly...teased

Anticipation is mostly wishes

And imagination

Sometimes we are victims of

Fact and infatuation

The buttercups we never twirled

Between our idle fingers

Are gone; like summer’s sun-sweet world

Save for the frond that lingers

Truth has ways of telling it

That one can hardly handle

And everything we touch a bit

Like flickers of a candle

Somehow, while we love one thing more

A wise wind rearranges

The Very Thing we quite adored

Before we wore its changes

And suddenly on one dark night

When clock-rivers run faster

We realize this spartan plight

Is quite a fight to master

And even with the centuries

That tiny tick-tocks suture

No one has found the answer-key

To open up the future

I guess ‘tis best we do not know

The morrow’s explanation

Anticipation fills us with

Wish and imagination

© Janet Martin

Wonderful to Me...

Wonderful to me

The dawn that lights the lea

Ignites what soon will be

Before we seek our rest

Wonderful to me

Love persists faithfully

Where our humility

Is pitiful at best

Wonderful, oh God

The bounty of earth’s sod

Where oft we trip and trod

Across its treasure trove

Without a word of praise

Until life’s testing ways

Returns us to that place

To wonder at your love

Wonderful to me

For oh, how can it be

That immortality

Awaits beyond this gasp

For in the flesh, a soul

In brokenness, the Whole

In life’s journey; a Goal

That wonder cannot grasp

Wonderful, I weep

This sin and sorrow sweep

Is not too dark or deep

To keep You from our call

And with Your Staff and rod

You comfort us, oh God

I cannot quell with thought

The wonder of it all

© Janet Martin

“I like the word ‘wonderful’ ”, said Victoria. “It describes itself; full of wonder”

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  Ps.139:14

one more verse because today we remember...vividly!! 9/11

Wonderful to me
The darkness that must be
Is but part of a sea
Before the Great Divide
When Love will conquer hate
And open wide the Gate
To God. Amen. We wait
Where Hope and Faith abide

For Struggling Authors...

The morning is to our feet

Like a fresh un-scribbled sheet

What untold possibility

Is poised above its waking lea

…where we, so spill and error prone

Are like a quill; we write upon

This page; how swift our touch disturbs

That vault of adjectives and verbs

…as moments drip their chartered air

Like ink drops from a pen somewhere

The hour grins, a verse begins

Time’s parchment suffers sundry sins

…from struggling authors; blood-sweat-tears

Composes script of yester-years

For all that we cannot erase

Remains forever etched in place

…and yet, a patient Teacher knows

The anguish of life’s highs and lows

Thus granting us in every dawn

…a brand new page to write thereon

© Janet Martin

In the middle of Time's storms of bad news and fear if we listen we can hear Him testify in each new day,

"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Matt. 14:27

Of Gifts and Givers...

 Working at some canning this evening, listening to the rain and thinking...

 

Imagine receiving a gift, turning it over in your hands, marveling and exclaiming at its loveliness but never turning to acknowledge or thank the giver. Imagine if we gave a gift and the recipient dashed off after snatching it out of our hands without a backward glance or smile or thank-you…

He fills the dawn with daylight

He fills the night with rest

He fills the seed with what we need

Before we make request

He refills while we empty

He spills; we take and eat

He wills; and we go forth, He fills

The hills with meadow-sweet   

He tilts the fount of blessing

To shower us with grace

We drink and often never think

About a Giver’s face

He opens wide His storehouse

And fills the earth with plants

Fruit tumbles to our humble reach

In spite of ignorance

How gross our utter wanting

How base our needy ways

To take yet never bow our heads

Or lift to God our praise

© Janet Martin

I know I shared this song a little while ago but it bears a repeat...