A Bitter Bargain If...

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. 

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
 Matt.26:41

Make this body willing

Where the Spirit moves

Faith and love fulfilling that

Which flesh disapproves

Not by mortal merit

Not for mortal laud

But by and for the Spirit

That is sent from God

Such a short-term vessel

This transport of skin

Harboring eternity

In The Soul within

  

What a bitter bargain

To appease the flesh

And ignore the One whereby

We gain righteousness

Thus Lord, make us willing

For though flesh is weak

Still its cry to listen and

Hear Thy Spirit speak

© Janet Martin

A New Day Climbs Time's Tresses...

Past scraggly troubadours etched black against a beaming scrim

A new day climbs time’s tresses as God blesses man once more

Through star-strung gates dark dissipates; ten million beacons dim

Where hymns of hope and wonder without reservation pour

How tall the sky, how small am I beneath its mighty blue

And what a multitude of holy blunder, human race

For Man is not a lost cause on some whim-tossed avenue

No, no; for us God fills, refills and spills love's jars of grace

Eons cannot contain the rubric of His faithful care

Again, again time’s wellspring with new measure thrills the skies

Forbid that we forget the One who tunes this cup of air

And never deviates from Passion’s blood-bought enterprise

A new day climb’s time’s tresses; the beauty of duty hails

Ah, what is man that we are privy to delights so fair

That we should drink the loveliness of earth from heaven’s grail

And touch the hem of mercy through the transport of a prayer

© Janet Martin

Have you stood beneath today’s Mighty Blue and thanked God for it?

A 'Lest We Forget' Poem

 ^... then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),

2 Kings 8:39

PAD Challenge Day 6: Write a 'you're being watched' poem. 

We may feel invisible

In life’s grand scheme

A speck in a sea of skin

But oh, we are not

Someone sees our thought

And knows who we are within

We may feel quite small

In time’s century-sprawl

A tickle of dust on its tongue

But oh, we are loved

By the Maker of us

Whether newborn, old or young

We may feel quite hid

‘neath the lid of the sky

But oh, it is not true

A Father of Love

Watches from above

And sees everything we do

He knows when we hurt

He knows when we’re glad

He knows what we think doesn’t show

And every day

Come whatever may

It is by His grace we go

© Janet Martin

Given Time...

  

That riot of russet-bronze-red is stripped

The wind, a rogue; rowdy, steel finger-tipped

Those honeyed afternoons we stirred and sipped

Like tea, have drained their sunny, sylvan seas

From windowed walls we watch Fall’s tears run wild

They roar across the corpse of summer’s child

No more a lady-love, soft-gloved and mild

But like a train that thunders through palled trees

These skeletons that once crooned lullabies

And blurred life's lazy day with sleepy sighs

Stand rigid beneath brooding, frigid skies

Like naked minstrels waiting for their cue

The banter of a buxom, blue-eyed breeze

The baton that birthed bonny melodies

Have turned to frosted farewell eulogies

We empathize; we feel Time’s swindling too

It growls and howls in every crease and crack

A hungry predator primed for attack

We draw the knitted shawl across our backs

For we have learned that what must come will pass

And given Time the swindler will restore

To hulls culled by its hand, hope’s repertoire

And all the earth will laugh with leaves once more

Our cups refilled with mint and sassafras

© Janet Martin 

After the storm roared through a sudden lull ensued...

We are left to pick up the pieces, mostly branches though

I pulled the trampoline out of the apple tree...

and the neighbor's coverall is stripped!

A Word to World Leaders

PAD Challenge Day 6: Write a 'you're being watched' poem. 

You watch my mood,

Jolly, subdued

My rushed or soft,unhurried touch

You read my eyes

My smiles and sighs

The tone of my replies and such

You crave my time

Above all else

You prefer words like ‘with’ and ‘we’

You love to laugh

And imitate

The things you see or hear from me

I wouldn’t trade

For any Thing

This Very Best that I have had

With you; tomorrow’s

Women, men

Shaped by world-leaders; mom and dad

© Janet Martin

...first mom and dad  then grandmas and grandpas, teachers, babysitters and all the other members

of a village it takes to raise a child...