Of Paths and Purpose

 

May this our hunger be

As earth-wrought paths we trod

Not wealth or health or luxury

But this; the love of God

May this our purpose be

As plains and hills we plod

Not fame or fortune’s vanity

But this; to live for God

May this our vision fill

Time's sprint twixt sky and sod

Leads not to dust-ash pinnacles

But is the road to God

May this our solace be

…not of vain, carnal fraud

But fully trusting, knowing we

Will soon be home with God

© Janet Martin

 But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded."  

2 Chron. 15:7

November-Gray December

 Our November was more like December; white

Now December has been for the most part, November gray…

The fog lies long and lower than the treeline by the fence

It lolls upon the sullen lawn in moody dissonance

The far side of the yard is veiled like nature’s mourning bride

Home is a charcoal button on a mist-cloaked countryside

Sight cannot satisfy its wanderlust; where is the sky?

Is it still blue above this mute and morbid lullaby?

Where middle-day is drowsy in silk-muffled filigree;

Time’s gossamer appointments mantled in a weightless sea

Soulful and sorrow-like it sweeps in soundless magnitude

The pastureland is swaddled in a stance meek and subdued

Dusk overtakes the afternoon at three o-clock or four

Earth is a muffled moment-drop on heaven’s ocean floor

© Janet Martin

If The Looking-glass Revealed The Truth...

Oh, if the looking-glass would show us as we truly are

Then we would blush and rush to hide beneath night’s deepest bar

And we would cry aloud, not proud, knowing our need of grace

From Heaven’s One one who gave His Son to save this wretched race

…and we would see Calvary’s tree and those thieves at His side

Would not be nameless but would look a lot like you and I

And if the looking-glass revealed what skin veils like a sheet

Then we would fall upon our knees and kiss Love’s nail-scarred feet

...and our boast would ever be the Love of Jesus Christ

Bethlehem’s Babe who came to be a Lamb of sacrifice

Once and for all; oh, is there any that can out-love He

Who laid His hands beneath the nails and died for you and me?

Yes, if the looking-glass would show us how we really are

Then we would bow and worship mercy’s bright and Morning Star

And if the looking glass revealed more than flesh-face and hand

Then we would love, knowing without God’s grace ah, who would stand?

© Janet Martin

 

 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared. Ps. 130:3-4

May He, Jesus be the One we worship this Christmas season,

May joy not the be the tree, presents or any other reason

But may it be, as we behold Jesus the Christ-child King

An over-flowing gladness the makes heaven's joy-bells ring...

 

  

From This Where Moments Wrest...

Now lays He to the banks of earth

A Thing that none has known

And now we marvel at the birth

Of new hope from God’s throne 

Unfolding like a butterfly

Time's new-born beauty beams

Through the cocoon of midnight sky

It breaks in glory-streams 

 

The beck and call of yesterday

No one can return to

But oh, upon earth’s shoreline splays

A gift from God, brand new

See how He spreads across the sky

From raven deep, dawn’s gold

A morsel of thought’s by-and by

Now trembles in our hold

And all that we can ever plead

From This, where moments wrest

Is to pray God his love to lead

And then give Him our best

© Janet Martin

 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints,
    and give thanks to his holy name. 

 For his anger is but for a moment,
    and his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may tarry for the night,
    but joy comes with the morning.

Ps.30:4-5

The Way Time Flows

  

(this cute video is quite profound)

Emily and I were talking tonight about how we wish we could keep more memories, some simply fade too fast. So we live in the now, let go of its moment and hold on to its memories until some of those too, fade in life's stream...

Nothing now but memories

That’s the way time flows

Through our fingertips with ease

Falls its fading rose

Lilt of laughter, Kiss good-bye

Itty-bitty tear

Flowing to thought’s sweetheart-sky

…memories, my dear

Once upon a blue bygone

Yester-year was now

There we laid its moments down

In time’s forward flow

Where the pictures that we threw

Soft into its tide

Paint a portrait-avenue

Somewhere deep inside

I can touch you now, my dear

Though long we have lost

Afternoons of yester-year

That loosely we tossed

Without thought into a stream

Rushing to repose

Sometimes life seems but a dream

That’s the way time flows

© Janet Martin

A Fast-freeze Free-fall... to The meaning of it All

What is this thing that steals across the day

With ether slightness none can comprehend

Yet tips the scales of youth to middle age

And grip us with beginnings naught can end?

It rushes where the blush of dreams applaud

But none can feel the torrent of its might

…and in the quelling of its appetite

It melts the veil that wafts twixt man and God

No scalpel can its medium dissect

Nor one speck of spent quantum resurrect

The wink of them turns hours into years

 And flowers into fragments on the brook

As through our clasp its essence disappears

Refurbished with the very thing it took

It fills dawn’s cup with dusk and dusk with dawn

It rends the heart but not the air life breathes

Its all-encompassing free-fall bequeaths

A silent storm of season-succored seas

In half-breath breadth it freezes centuries

What is this thing that leads, not to the end

But to the Great Beginning of it all?

It lilts in microscopic dividend

To that last eon unfathomable

…ten-thousand skies a drop within its girth

What is this thing that stuns imagery

 And whisper-washes ages from the earth

In tiny tick-tock metered symmetry

Ah, momentum of moments; soft you fall

Leading us to the Meaning of it all

© Janet Martin