Like a Kiss

From scaffolding of age-to-age

God hangs the dawn, a virgin page

In spite of Yester’s sullied stage

His mercy knows no holds

But lavishes our discontent

With hope in all His glory lent

Where Time’s appointed sacrament

Fills broken bowls with gold

Morning’s celestial paradise

Draws Wonder’s unstoppered ‘oh mys’

A pure and perfect common prize

That none deserves, and yet

God, because of immortal love

Would all of earth and heaven move

With nail-pierced Hands so He could prove

What we dare not forget

Then, like a kiss on Time’s lament

He ravishes its firmament

With mercy’s tireless testament

Morning, a glory train

From grace’s fathomless abyss

God forms a cup of willingness

And pours a glimpse of who He is

That sky cannot contain

© Janet Martin

Primed With Possibility

Forget the Past but not enough

To neglect lessons learned from it

The Future, poised upon its cast

Is nothing yet, but dreamer’s ‘if’

Not what we’ve done with what we had

Not maybe-maybe-this-or-that

But what we do with what we have

This is where all of life is at

Not what we wish we would have done

Or what we say that we will do

Before and After hinge upon

The Now, that wafts twixt blue-to-blue

Ah, monumental moment-mien

That tugs the rising-setting sun

Where we are always in between

What we will do and what we've done

© Janet Martin

What will we do with the Now we hold?

Everything depends on this! 

...this 'primed-with-possibility-Present!

...and what is 'This'? 

This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Ps.118:24

While Finding Our Place... Part Two

History gathers into place

Moments meted through our embrace

Like tick-tock offerings of grace

Where years and breath-spheres interlace

…with a Shepherd’s fierce tenderness

He watches us, His faithfulness

Like Morning Light; a kind caress

Where hope and comfort coalesce

…to tune earth’s hills and boulevards

With melodies from natures bards

Like an art gallery, earth’s yards

Showcase Time’s four-season postcards

…and we, with more than luck can trust

The Hand that lavishes the dust

Like kings, wealthy with wanderlust

We dare to miff toil’s lesser must

…to stroll the knoll and troll the air

For pleasantries to ease our care

Like leaf-shaped answers to our prayer

Where laughter clashes with despair

…for it is such a fragile thread

That bears the living from the dead

Like troops on gossamer, we tread

Where no one can rush on ahead

…then return to tell with hushed breath

About Heaven and hell, the truth

Like a prophet, while all the earth  

Hangs in the Belfry Tow’r of Death

…where we are passengers bound for

Eternity; life’s little war

Like a Harbinger where a Door

Opens into Forevermore

…and therefore we cannot afford

To live-laugh-love without the Lord

Like Solomon, pray we all would

Ask God for wisdom through His word

© Janet Martin

October mornings are like heaven-splashes...

While Finding Our Place...Part One

‘Neath morning-tide’s adaptive skies

Summer, in pauper-tatters lies

Like scattered rags of human sighs

Where Dream and Doing lives and dies

…while Liberty, that Awesome Test

Derives surrender and conquest

Like seasons in the human breast

Where lupine zeniths yield to rest

…and all along the corridor

Of yet-to-come and days-of-yore

Like leaves strewn on an unkempt shore

Where Aftermath and Motive war

…the core of Offspring weeps and groans

Reaping from carcasses and bones

Like scavengers, the undertones

Where summer fell among the stones

…and all our climbing ways succeed

In proving elemental need

Like flower that returns to seed

Where ox and baron plant and plead

And somewhere in between the sweep

Of Unknown and Past’s primal sleep

Like avatars akin to sheep

Where we plunge through days, mercy-deep

…part of an age-old pageantry

Twixt what-once-was to what-must-be

Like waves succumbing to the sea

We take our place in history

© Janet Martin

Moment-ous Masterpiece

While sitting in the Dr.'s office with my mother-in-law this morning, 

I was blown away by the culmination of moments 

creating a room filled with kind-tempered, compassionate Masterpieces of Beauty.(a lot of them likely 80+ yrs. in the making:)

Distracted and deceived

By appearance we

Are apt to overlook

Masterpiece-stories tucked beneath

The bark of a book

Persuaded by emotion

Sometimes perhaps we

Forget the read-worthiness

Of an old

Gnarled tree

Time dispenses moments

A loyal, benevolent thief

Rendering beauty far deeper

Than the lilting

Span of leaf

Distracted and deceived

By appearance of

Moments accumulated

We are apt to overlook 

Masterpieces Time created

© Janet Martin

Masterpieces take Time.

OctPoWriMo day 23: a drop in the ocean
 or how the accumulation of many 'Smalls' creates something Big.