Heart-string Tempests

Something on yonder berm tugs at something inside of me

And draws me to the verge of what I cannot fully see

Darling, it seems before we have a chance to fully taste

The moment in our hands it is extracted and replaced

The tempest on a heart-string blurs fathoms of faith and fear

Where ‘hello, love’ and parting intertwine and commandeer

Look, look, the shell of new farewells is dawning on the east

And oh, I dare not linger for Time is a hungry beast

But still I must for soon the dust of it drifts on the west

A sun and shadow vortex never needing time to rest

Darling, a sacred citadel of hold and letting go

Erects itself within my heart in tempests, searing, slow

Sometimes I barely bear this thing surging o’er yonder hill

For innocence must soon learn recompense; life’s good and ill

Are never very far apart; the heart will testify

How readily its laughter spawns oceans within the eye

Meanwhile, the smile that fathers tears ever so willingly

Strengthens the tempest in my heart soft-softly killing me

© Janet Martin

Mother

Mother, oh, is there any other word on earth so dear?

Than she who gives her Best of life to those within her care

Mother, the name of her rouses within the heart love’s tear

For she who holds her children in her arms and in her prayer

Mother, we never will outgrow her love for it is such

No matter whether young or old, her voice is never far

Her hands that held and nurtured, hold and nurture still, her touch

A thing of prayer no matter where her darling children are

Mother, the beauty of her none can ever improve on

Her hands work-worn, her face a love-lined picture of God’s grace

“Mother, I (we) pray today a blessing heaven-sent upon

You, for nobody on this earth can ever take your place

© Janet Martin

Praying esp. for ‘the littles’ who mourn the loss of mother…

More Mother's Day poems here and here and here.

We Call It Spring

"I love this shade of green against this shade of blue", sighed Victoria, tilting her head to taste this thing that we call spring... 

All misty-eyed the morning woke

And breathed on bonded bud that broke

To gild the limb with hymns of green

Where once stricken stillness had been

Before the glad awakening

Of earth’s re-birth that we call spring

All whisper-soft and warm the air

Drew from the crypt of storm, a prayer

Where earth becomes a Living Room

And every hill, a Thing of Bloom

And every tree a kind of king

Crowned with a jubilee called Spring

Then humankind, once dull and blue

Becomes a little gladder too

For where the air was clad with cold

It beams and streams in reams of gold

And Living is A Lovely Thing

Kissed with the bliss that we call spring

© Janet Martin

Could you pray for Karen, suddenly bed-ridden once again in this most wonderful weather?! Dave is still undergoing appointments without diagnosis, but he is feeling a lot better! thank-you all who pray/prayed!

The Invincible Invisible

To block advancement man builds barricades

Wire and weapons, threats dark with despair

But each invention so carefully laid

Cannot dissuade the advance of a prayer

Hope’s first-resort wings from lips, hearts and minds

Over vast mountains, through dark midnight air

Across the ocean through enemy lines

No one can stop the advance of a prayer

Unbelief, cold in attire of boast

Bold in the hold of gold’s fraudulent claim

Cannot withhold from the heart’s uttermost

Prayer, as love utters compassion by name

Wanderer, warrior, pauper or king

Comrade, stranger, anyone, anywhere

Can be touched by this most wonderful Thing

For none can thwart the advance of a prayer

No one can run from it, no one can hide

Prayer can slip through the most heart-hardened place

Nothing can usurp the tears of God's Bride

For nothing exceeds the power of His grace

© Janet Martin

Sometimes we question God because we do not understand His ways, but this He said...

 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts". Isa.55:9

On Wanting What We Have...

And suddenly I want for naught

But that which has been granted me

Perhaps a little garden-plot

And toil to soil my hands and feet

A little dish to fill and serve

A stream to sit and dream at will

A string perhaps to fish the verve

Of silver strung beneath the hill

A giggling boy or girl to soothe

And smooth the wrinkles on my brow

Where care would surely be a ruth-

Less tyrant; all I want is Now

A little song to sing, a prayer

To pray and fortify my hope

A spoon that spills in sun-kissed air

A stroll on daisy-dappled slope

I want the things I do not have

My ‘do-not-haves’ the odyssey

Whereby I learn to brave the crave-

-ing of wishes that cannot be

And suddenly I do not grieve

Those leaves I pined for yesterday

Reminded it is God who gives

And also God who takes away

© Janet Martin

Does this happen to you? When you see someone lose that which we tend to take for-granted every day, suddenly Do you not ever-so-simply want only what you have?!

Tis No Small Thing...

Tis no small thing to stand upon the brink of pink-birthed Day

And touch our feet to sod and heart to God where Unknowns splay

Tis no small thing to drink with eyes, extensions of His grace

And realize the awesomeness of Time’s intricate space

Tis no small thing to grip the handle of mortality

Poised inconceivable, on fathoms of eternity

Where touch and trust and taste prove without words who is our God

Tis no small thing, this travelling across Time’s bitty sod

Tis no small thing to humbly bend the knee and bow the head

Acknowledging the hand that breaks our loaf of Daily Bread

Sensing Something much bigger than the tides that ebb and flow

Tis no small thing to drink the dripping cup of Here and Now

Enter His gates with thanksgiving; enter His courts with praise

Tis no small thing; this ephemeral string of numbered days

The Here that we encounter but a vapor-winnowing

Bear well the air of ‘Ere Farewell’ where There is no small thing

© Janet Martin