An Extra-ordinary Invitation

Come; let’s play hooky, you and I

Bypass distracting to-do lists

For a true blue umbrella sky

Where a grand miracle untwists

Come; let’s be truant while our chores

Must wait until another day

Because October’s out-of-doors

Is begging everyone to play

Come; let’s treat our memories

To a slow, autumn afternoon

Drip-dripping from the golden trees

Like honey from a giant spoon

Come let’s be tourists in our yards

Stroll and marvel at Autumn's spree

Where Nature hangs king-size postcards

From every cloud and every tree

Janet Martin

 Wishing you a postcard-perfect Friday!

Beneath Time's Weeping Tree We Pass

My friend Monica turns 50 today! hop over to Prince Snow's Farm to read her thoughts and wish her a blessed one, will you? Of course, birthdays and esp. a half-century one has us contemplating time and its ultimatums!

Beneath Time’s weeping tree we pass

And like the leaf of bud-to-bloom

Soon every splendor decks the grass

That decks earth’s clasp of womb and tomb

Behold, how swift the hours sift

Ah, Past is not an ancient page

But the extension of a gift

That startles youth and middle-age

…where life is a brief, awesome leap

Regardless of its numbered years

When weighed against death’s endless sleep

Man’s stuttered measure disappears

This moment-metered Here to There

Beneath Time’s season-weeping tree

Is but the gasp where we prepare

To meet God and eternity

Therefore we should give utmost heed

Earth’s belfry bleeds with tick and tock

Unfurling fleet footpaths that lead

Beyond the pleading of the clock

Beneath Time’s weeping tree we pass

Wise is the sojourner who trusts

Beyond this wish-span’s vapor glass

In He who metes its dust-to-dust

Hope is the crux of live-laugh-love

Hope is the treasure of the soul

Beneath Time’s weeping tree we move

Toward its everlasting goal

© Janet Martin

Mercy's Bequeathal

No matter how many we’ve soiled and stained

With love and its mistakes

No matter how little we have attained

When tide of twilight breaks

No matter how hard the fall or rise

Scarred with our ‘oops-es’ and ‘oh-mys’

God, in his tender-hearted way

Forgives the Past with a new day

No matter what lies behind, before

And all that it yet holds

Is like a gently-gaping door

To what future unfolds

No matter the fumble-stumble pain

God grants a ‘get-up-try-again’

Where Mercy has the final say

And answers with a brand new day

…then by the grace of He who grants

This prize on eastern skies

Before the evening shadow slants

Toward this ward's demise

Pray we with humble best attend

Mercy’s bequest of man’s best friend

Where yester-chase has passed away

And in its place, a brand new day

© Janet Martin

 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

Ps.25:6-7 

October's Rose

A week or two ago all the trees beamed like brightly colored blooms begging to be picked. Now the early bloomers are scraggly and bare...

Sorrow-joy, life's rose-thorn branches

Cups love's loss-longing alloy

No bold breath fully entrenches

Nor can quite fully destroy

Russet-gold-green-scarlet tatters

Sift past Autumn’s half-shut eyes

Nature’s kaleidoscope shatters  

Rearranging paradise

Umber monotone, the wind moans

Where the gauntlet of a sigh

Wafts, soft in the stricken framework

Like a ghost that cannot fly

Darling, after I have loved you

There are none I quite love so

Still, love is not jail or warden

You are free to come… and go

Inhale, exhale, my, how flowers

Falter in each breath of sky

Where the element of hours

Steals toward jilted July

© Janet Martin

Time's Treasure Hunt

Time’s road won’t always go the way

We wish that it would turn

But in each twist-and-half-kissed splay

We find something to learn

Time’s hill won’t bow to our design

While on and up we plod

But in its hope-faith-trust incline

We find the hand of God

Time’s valleys may not disappear

Where winds howl and annoy

But in the hardship of its tear

We find the heart of joy

Time’s highway runs through gray and gold

Each mile soon left behind

Where, in each twist-turn-have-hold fold

Today is all we'll find

© Janet Martin

While we shook and picked apples...

...we listened to the Jays world-series dreams take a major nose-dive!!!

(we strung a l-o-o-o-n-g cord out to plug in the radio;)

Kevin Pillar has wowed the crowd with spectacular plays but here he says it for all of us:)

image source

...but that doesn't mean we won't be here cheering him/them on today. 

Go Toronto Blue Jays!!!