Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A Brown-Before-Christmas Where Wishers Want White...



No one can force the Hand that moves the weather...

The landscape rolls like a rusty, tin can
Out to the pout of a stone-cold, gray sky
Tree-lines like derelicts sketched on its span
Stand at attention in somber reply

Brawny the breeze that was buxom in June
Wishing for whispers that sparkle and glow
Wind-minstrels wander, wonder; heave a tune
While heaven’s levee grows heavy with snow

Earth is a thatch-roof shielding the repose
Of seedling slumber in summer-land’s source
Guarding the bedside of tomorrow’s rose
Waiting for that which nobody can force

Night fizzles, falls like a flattened balloon
Beneath the drizzle of dark-dawning day
People board Possibility’s platoon
On a mud-colored tide they sail away

While the landscape rolls like rusty tin cans
Out to that hole in the wall past the trees
Where old Man Winter is grinning with plans
That we know exist and yet nobody sees

© Janet Martin

We find it hard to grumble when we remember two years ago...vast power outages due to the worst ice-storm we had in years!

Our power was out from Sat. eve. until Tues. evening (Christmas Eve) Some were without power for almost a week.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Christmas is More...





Christmas is more
Than holly or
The right kind of weather
Christmas is a
Jolly time
Well-spent
Together

Christmas is more
Than fruitcake
Or cookies we bake
It is a storehouse
Sparkling with
Fond memories
We make

Christmas is more
Than a wreath
Or decorated trees
Or what waits beneath
Beribboned and wrapped
Oh, Christmas is
More than these


…Christmas is the
Peace of holding
God’s gift,
His precious Son
In our hearts and then sharing
His love
With everyone

Janet~ 

My friend took this photo when she was leaving, after picking up her boys. 
We are finishing up icing some sugar-cookies.
(here's to fond memories we make)

I took one of Melissa and Victoria after we finished...

Monday, December 21, 2015

Come and Worship





Greater than religion
Greater than the law
Greater than enormity
Of our human flaw
Greater than oppression
Great than all fame
Is the love and grace of God
Glory to His name

© Janet Martin

To You and The Art That Waits Within...or, Holy Joy





Beautiful you,
Born, not to do
What he or she has done
But what still waits
Beneath the gates
Of thought and skin and bone

The canvas of
Life’s live-laugh-love
Unfolds…inhale, exhale
Where poetry
Is like a sea
Out-poured from mortal grail

Our tools of trade
Are ready made 
To meld with the employ
Of fingertips,
Eyes, ears and lips
Ah, this is holy joy

…to pour in art
The human heart
With worship unrestrained
And thus to be
The you or me
That loving God ordained


© Janet Martin

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Declaration of God's Glory...


How like a God of glory to remind us who He is
Upon a canvas none can reach to touch and thus defile...
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
 Ps.19:1
 

The colors of the sky hung o’er the holy march of hours
Appeases, teases restless eyes; we gaze awestruck at art
Of day-to-day and night-to-night like a garden of flow’rs
Rousing with age-old splendor renewed wonder to the heart

If threaded bit by bit upon a string its shades would stun
The master jewelers of this world, for who can snare in stone
Saffron, chartreuse, slate, blush rose or garnet and gold of dawn
The ebony of midnight and the sapphire of high noon

God tips the grail of mist-kissed veil, of pewter raindrop jars
Beneath the heath of heaven we fumble with day-to-days
While night-to-night we marvel at a meadowland of stars
After the wester sky soft-dies and tenders twilight’s blaze

How like a God of glory to remind us who He is
Upon a canvas none can reach to touch and thus defile
But as a Grandly symbol of His boundless tenderness
He spills the colors of his love into a sky-wide smile

© Janet Martin