Trying to Make Peace With The Ways of Time and A Blessing For the New School Year

...and just like that; another summer in the books! 

The fast-forward of summer days are spilled

Like sunbeams on a leaf they glance then flit

Into that far-off place where time is stilled

While hearts make room to wear the ache of it

Daunting Unknown waits behind ev’ry door

We are not brave, save by the grace of God

For He alone can hear the heart implore

While all the while seasons fall prey to sod

We make peace with the hand of change and then

Before we scarce have learned its foreign drill

The hand of change changes its ways again

To jar the heart and vex our human will

And we would be intimidated, oft

By the relentlessness of tick and tock

As it deceives with kisses hunger-soft

Then leaves its laughter on the leaf-strewn walk

The brunt of years startles us with good-byes

Its August afternoon, castles of sand

Caught in the quick of summer-skies and sighs

As waves erase its traces from Time’s hand

Loss would be our lonely boast, but oh

Upon the bittersweet of Bygone’s isle

A fresh-faced cast of memories ebb-flow

To tease the face of time into a smile

© Janet Martin

The bus came early, before any of us were expecting it so the first back-to-school-morning had no time for sentimentality or voiced first-day-of-grade-nine-anxiety-attacks. I heard Matt giving Victoria some do and don’t advice just before the frantic ‘oh no! the bus!!’ scene…so, needless to say, no pictures; except one I couldn't resist of the neighbors across the road waiting for their bus on this rainy morning.

A Blessing For the New School Year

Lord, bless and keep them as they go

Hold them within Your care

Let laughter make their faces glow

As You instill our prayer

And let their way be blessed with friends

Help them be a friend too

For past mistakes, Lord, make amends

And help them start brand-new

Be with each teacher; make words wise

And kind and valuable

To these so young, their ears and eyes

So impressionable

Give them minds of discernment, Lord

As they learn what they can

Then, bless with happiness, each child

And young woman and man

© Janet Martin

In Praise of Work...Happy Labor Day

 

Work makes us weary

Oh, but work makes us wise

And fits in the fingers

Of most any size

Work is a blessing

Though sometimes it feels

Like survival’s albatross

Biting our heels

Work is a wonder-full

Wonderful thing

Work makes time worthwhile

And work makes time sing

Work builds a nation

Out of wilderness-stubble

Work is the laughter

In life’s minor trouble

Work is the hub

Of earth’s wheel that God turns

Pity the one

Who its provision spurns

Work is a cure

Idleness, a curse

No matter its title

Work gives a man worth

Pray to God daily
That we do not shirk
The beautiful, beautiful
Blessing of work

© Janet Martin

Happy Labor Day 

If you have a job

Thank God for it! 

Have you ever asked a small child to help you? 

Have you noticed how happy and important it makes them feel? 

We are not so much different, are we?:)

My heart aches and breaks for the millions who would give anything and everything just to get up in the morning and go to work!

Work gives us something that a holiday never will!
A holiday is special, only if we have work to return to.

Crank this tune up to celebrate work!!

Rejoicing in the Birth of Today

Oh, beauty of a newborn day

The old is folded, done away

We rise to see the east beget

What none have soiled or mangled yet

Ah, holy ground, virgin the sweep

Of moments hailing from yon deep

Offspring of heaven’s womb, gold-gray

In beauty of a newborn day

Oh, Duty, surely we are blessed

To bear the scepter of life’s best

Where God graces time’s common tray

With beauty of a newborn day

…and all that He requires then

Is that we try and try again

For yester’s old is done away

In the beauty of newborn day

Where God saw fit to extend thus

Time’s Little Bit to all of us

Dare we then, to forget to pray

And thank Him for this newborn day?

© Janet Martin

This newborn day is shaping up to be a scorcher! I better go out to the garden before it gets too hot. I'm hoping its duties include doing  sweet corn if its ready because tomorrow my help goes back to school!

Happy Labor Day to all!
Aren't you humbly glad we have work to labor at...
...to enjoy its sense of worth?!

September's Living-room

Today we are easy to please

September's lease forgives and stuns

Fathoms of life-discrepancies

With a dew-dipped puddle of sun

Flower gardens flaunt front row seats

Where Cricket-minstrels serenade

The minute-hand as it competes

With sweet September, heaven-made

September's door is wide open 

September's floor is petal-strewn

September's window is unframed

September is time's afternoon

Today we ask for nothing more

Than this chicory and sedge hold

...The pathos of what lies in store

Is cradled in a sea of gold

We revel 'neath blue-beveled tide

Baroness in a beggar’s room

Satisfied to be satisfied

By September’s derelict bloom

© Janet Martin

What Do You Hold?

What do you hold within your hold

New day that breaks through dark with gold

And grants another second chance

To we, the partners in time’s dance

What do you veil where night grows pale

And gathers its gray from earth’s dale

Pink sedums blush, the blue brook laughs

Mercy signs flower-autographs

What do carry in your hand

To vex our plans with the unplanned

What spills from heaven to earth’s sod?

Ah yes, but this, the love of God

© Janet Martin