Thursday Thoughts on Thanks-living

Life is a highway to our track-record.

No transaction is over-looked!

***

Sometimes we get so distracted by having

We miss the gift of giving

***

The have-and-hold of moment-gold

Behooves us to invest each day

Not in jeweled fronds or stocks and bonds

Nor what we keep but give away

***

The biggest part of Forgive is the give.

***

Give and forget

Do not keep score

Lest we neglect

What we’re here for

***

Blessed is he who gives

Without keeping score

For he has found the secret

On how to live with more

***

Sometimes the best thing we can give

Is a listening ear

***

When we give a word of kindness

We give a child a dream

***

If ‘it is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35)

Why do we find this promise so hard to believe?

***

Blessed is the one who shows

By love the proof of what he knows

***

I have never known a flower that did not give…

***

Tired? Quagmired? 

Uninspired and blahhed?

Get a good night’s sleep,

Then kneel,

And give the rest to God

Happy Thursday:)

Janet~

October...

 October teaches us to let go

To linger longer and savor slow

October dresses down what May dressed up

A flower is a tear and a leaf is a cup

October back-roads beckon because

They lead through pictures of what once was

October turns in early and rises late

It twists tired tendrils through the pasture gate

October decorates earth like a banquet hall

No bluff is too big and no leaf is too small

 

October kindles hills like love kindles the heart

Breath-stealing beauty in God-rendered art

October opens new doors and closes others

It tugs on heart-strings twixt daughters and mothers

October, dis-rober of sun-dappled sighs

Its air all a-flutter with birch butterflies

© Janet Martin

When You're a SOYP Writer

Sometimes it’s the trees or the slant of the breeze

Or the shape of a shadow’s fall

It might be the moon or the baritone tune

Of rain on a late-autumn wall

Or, sometimes the fire is lit by a spire

Etched hard on the soft-dying day

Perhaps it’s the mist on a morn purple-kissed

Whispering nighttime away

It might your grin or that dint in your chin

The mutual touching of eyes

I’ve felt its spark when the room was full dark

Save for the brush of your sighs

It broods in the blue of dusk’s musk-avenue  

It leaps from the quick-fall of youth

Or sometimes the smile of an innocent child

Slams us with unblemished truth

Sometimes we are stirred by the slur of a word

Teasing and twisting the air

In shovels of dirt you revel; in hurt

You slide down night’s arabesque stair

Sometimes you wait on the old garden gate

Sometimes you roar like a fighter

That’s just how it is; poised on imminent bliss

When you’re an SOYP writer

© Janet Martin

They say there are two kinds of writers; the organize/plan mind or the seat of your pants kind.

I tend to be the latter,

but it doesn’t matter

‘cause it’s nice to exist

poised on imminent bliss!

I Stopped by the Garden Today

I stopped by the garden today

Her summer-chatter spent

Save for a tattered, scattered fray

To prove she came and went

I stopped by the walnut tree

Her lacy crooning swoon

Weeps in bronze leaf-note rhapsody

Beneath October’s noon

In spite of greedy clocks, I stopped

To sail the leaf-lorn sea

Before another season locks

Its vault and keeps the key

I stopped where the flowers fell

I stopped where hours flew

I stopped beside the blue bloom-bell

To hear its knell, adieu 

Yes, I stopped by the garden today

There wasn’t much to do

But wonder at Time’s tender way

And plant a tear or two

© Janet Martin

Mercy-Passage

If you’ve tasted His grace, if you’ve adored His face, if you’ve felt His embrace  then you can’t help but find yourself living in a giving place. 
Ann Voskamp

New morning pours through ancient doors

God’s grace kindles Hope’s way

The Giver of agape love

Implores through gift of Day

...and all we have and all we brave

Upon this reach of sod

Of broken bread and moment-thread

Are mercy-gifts from God

Hope’s paradise is not a prize

Obtained by flesh and blood

Time’s offering is the off-spring

Of mercy-granted flood

…then grant that we may ever see

Beyond our own touch-quest

Lest we pretend at love and then

Miss out on mercy’s Best

© Janet Martin