Saturday, May 7, 2016

Mother To Mother





We don’t count
Or talk about
Sacrifices that we make
Knowing not long before
Someone
Made them 
For our sake

We don’t dwell on Heart-hollows
Where days
Fill with life's fuss
Reminding us
Of someone else
Who kindly
Lived for us

We wear with humble reverence
The word
Our mothers wore
While learning
The full meaning
Of the name
She bravely bore

© Janet Martin


This Mad Embrace...





This steal-our-breath where life and death are juxtaposed, aligned
Rewards us and dismays us with its gifts cruel and kind
These four-season arrangements that estrange yet coalesce
While hours wring earth’s flowers with both hurt and happiness

This tie that binds while loosening with holy ticks and tocks
The gossamer tether of holding hands and watching clocks
Where running to and fro, clasping and letting go becomes
A collection of destinies that keens senses and numbs

…with nothing more than kisses where daylight dismisses stars
And dawn’s new spawn of wishes draws upon our heart of hearts
Delight and discontentment while this flight of left-foot-right
Drains more than sunset skylines in its raving appetite

This reading books and wading brooks and meeting looks and smiles
This birthday cake and blue lake-ache, this heartbreak that beguiles
Us to another come-what-may splayed gold upon the east
While we with trembling boldness tread the hemline of its feast

This being-doing-seeing-trusting-ruing what is not
This Thing that sings and weeps, vexes and perplexes man’s thought
This beg-and borrow, common sorrow cup that overflows
With laughter of a baby and Perfection of a rose

This place of grace that hinges us in space to God’s full care
And traces Hope where we would grope in uttermost despair
This minuscule allotment of salvation’s joy and strife
Is The Appointment before Evermore that we call life

© Janet Martin


We've enjoyed a week of  dawn's sun-gold skylines after what felt like an endless routine of gray...
here's to another and wishing you every-kind-of-Wonderful-Saturday.

 ...don't you love Spring's when-every-leaf-is-a-flower stage?!

Friday, May 6, 2016

A Mother Is Forever




She cups within Her bearing
Life’s loveliest of charms
Birthed in the gentle caring
Of babies in her arms

She learns sacred thanksgiving
Love’s stunning bittersweet
Taught in the course of living
By children at her feet

Her prayers could fill an ocean
A deep, unscripted cry
That God will watch her children
As they learn how to fly

She grafts to precious laughter
A trove of tender tears
Knowing how soon the After
Seals childhood’s precious years

Therefore, she serves with honor
Her call to Motherhood
A crown God placed upon her
And uttered, ‘it is good’

This hardest undertaking
Of discipline and grace
Rewards her when her children

She knows heartstrings won’t sever
Wherever they may be
A mother is forever
Her love, eternity

© Janet Martin

She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her;

Prov.31:27-28

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Mom-stuff





We don’t need much, really
A hug to heal heartaches
And to feel forgiveness
When we make mistakes

We don’t want much, really
But oh, we do confess
We often hunger dearly
For our children’s happiness

We don't need big presents
But this one thing we do
Every now and then we need
To hear 'Mom, I love you'

© Janet Martin

Until Heaven

I do all this for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable.…
1 Cor. 9:24



Life’s flesh-and-blood appointments can near-drain the spirit dry
Its day-to-day anointing of God’s grace is filled with ‘why?’
Yet God (so rich in mercy) needs no reason to explain
But implores us to trust Him until Heaven makes it plain

No, not for naught but for this; God, who made us, makes a way
Though doubt and fear may seek to commandeer our day-to-day
Our God is greater than the greatest test to mortal might
And He pleads that we trust Him until Heaven becomes sight

No eye has seen nor ear has heard the wonder that waits where
He waits to gather close to Him those who know Him through prayer
But then, when faith becomes our Sight, His answer will amaze
Thus God implores we trust Him until Heaven fills our gaze

© Janet Martin

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the Prize when we focus not on love's Who but its Whys…