Time To Take The Time

When care of love the life of laughter dims

And presses weary sighs between our lips

When cup of heartache drains our song and brims

With sorrow-hues and mournful fellowships

When will and want are not enough to heal

Or seal the strife that troubles season-sands

Then it is time to take the time to kneel

And tell it to the One who understands

When hope is like a howling hunger-storm

And need a labyrinth, deep, undeterred

That runs in raging rivers through a form

Of skin and bone with groan too raw for word

When try-again flounders and fails to fill

The hollow where we cannot stem the tide

Where doubt and fear and pride unleash their ill

And we seek One in whom we can confide

...then it is time to take the time to bow

Before the Hands and Feet that once wore nails

He suffered every grief earth could allow

And renders peace and love that never fails

In spite of what we face, His grace sustains

With tender mercy He covets our cry

Oh, praise the name of Jesus, He remains

Kind, faithful fellowship for you and I

© Janet Martin

Yet...

You cannot understand

Because you have not been here

Yet

Thus, I cannot share with you all

That I would

If I could

But if Time tarries

And you marry

Then you will come to know

What now you cannot understand

Because you are single, young...er

And I am married, old...ish

©...your mum

aka Janet Martin

We share a lot of laughs, my girls and I,

but every now and then I must laugh alone

because they cannot understand...

yet.
(Although Emily (married 21/2 yrs.) is beginning to understand)

Such was the case when I read this poem on YDP today...

Will Of Its Own

Sometimes no matter how I plead and press and beg, unheard

The pen is like a stubborn streak that will not spill a word

But then at other times then pen is like a gaping grin

And nothing in the world can hold its flood of poems in

© Janet Martin

Moment-mission

Contemplating moments today...

a day of moments too cold for May, 

but still its flowers brave the air! 

They never ask what I prefer

They just seem to be there

And then when I’m not looking

They toss flowers to the air

They never ask permission

Their mission potent and quick

While I grapple with what

Cannot be measured with a stick

The good, the bad, the ugly

All the ‘please-do’, ‘don’t-you-dare’

But then when I’m not looking

They fling flowers to the air

They move without much motion

Like an ocean made of mist

To brush time’s scraggly branches and

Then leave them flower-kissed

© Janet Martin

The Loveliness of Ink...

above lines from the book The Wind That Shakes the Barley by James Barke

one poem... or four

Come, take thy pen and press to page the loveliness of ink

And spill upon its open stage some poetry to drink

The dust of days soon settles on Bygone’s grave-stilted loam

But ah, the law of pen to page is ageless in a poem

***

If I must choose twixt thee and the perusal of a pen

Methinks I might, against my will, be torn twixt ink and men

For flesh is but a flicker on the quicker side of This

A poem like a love that never dies while Time exists

***

Come, take between thy trembling fingers loveliness to be

And spell with ink-fraught quivers thy undying legacy

Then when thou passest from this little riddle-riddled glance

The lover of thy poetry will weep and laugh and dance

***

The grave is but the haven for people that are no more

Soon what we touch will scatter like stars on a far-off shore

Save for the loveliness of ink that seals upon a page

A poem for someone to drink in some far yonder age

© Janet Martin