Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Morning Medley






Morning splays its invitation
Mercy lays its daily feast
Like a lavish celebration
On the tables of the east

Morning spills a virgin freeway
To earth’s ills and hilly clime
Like a melody of mercy
To the fellow-mates of time

Newness overcomes the ages
Blueness blushes, gold and rose
Like a scepter filled with promise
Mercy wills hope for man’s woes

Morning wafts from lofts of heaven
Softly to earth’s hard-knock hurt
Like a present freely given
To peasant-princes of dirt
 



© Janet Martin

Ah, what a precious thought. No matter our status we are rich!
Our Father who is rich in mercy lavishes us with His love and grace.

Eph.2:4-10
But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, 
demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Of Kindred Must




While many come to truck-tractor-pulls for noise and fumes,

my sister-in-law and I agreed we mostly come with our hubbies to watch people, 
and as we did it struck me how I hardly saw anyone alone, all with whoever they came with or met there!

Let’s not pretend we’re brave
‘cause oh, we know we’re not
Ability and what we have
Is but by grace of God

The facade that we wore
When we were younger then
Has thinned into the truth of yore
We all are ‘one of them’

Darling, pretense is vain
And the first-fruit of pride
Why won’t we just be honest then...
We have nothing to hide

For we all make mistakes
We all have much to learn
And none of us has what it takes
To walk this way alone

Let’s not pretend we’re brave
How sad to be a fraud
Because ‘we’ are all that we have
This, by the grace of God

Then, let's be the best 'we'
This is our greatest Must
A helping, loving family
Of common, kindred dust

© Janet Martin

Who Am I? Just a Girl... Answering the question at Dverse today



 
Dipping my toes into the Dverse pool...

Today's prompt: I am who I am but tomorrow, who know?

For today’s Quadrille (a poem of 44 words: no more, no less – not including the title), create a self-portrait.  Perhaps it will be a snapshot of you in some moment of time. Or a taste of your tastes. Or a glimpse into the conglomeration of you — are we perhaps the ultimate nesting doll? Many of us post photos or images with our poems so in this instance, it could be a recent photo; a photo taken in your sepia days; a picture of something you cherish that in essence tells us who you are; an abstract drawing or a flower or animal or color that you ascribe to yourself. Try to make the image complementary to your words.
So, think about it for awhile. Who are you? No one word to include in this prompt….just asking you to create some type of self portrait that you’re comfortable sharing. Let your words be your palette and make broad or fine brush strokes as you wish. You’re the artist here!

Here is a taste of my tastes...



Just a girl who loves to think
Addicted to ink
Night-owl and
Early riser
Troubadour

Merchant of moments
Awed by God
Rhymer of reason and season-song
Tea-drinker, only if there is no coffee
In love with life and the Author of it
Never bored


This Much Ado



Today is hubby's Mom's 85th birthday! 
She has been a widow for almost 42 years. This past year she has bid farewell to many longtime friends, her circle of soulmates dwindling in life's twilight years.
Happy, Happy Birthday, Mother!
Over the years whenever we ask her what she would like for her birthday, Christmas, etc.
 her reply has been the same,
"Just come to visit"


 When I was a little girl my mother gave me a small motto that I kept on my dresser for years. the motto has disappeared but the words on it are etched permanently in my memory,
Only one life
It will soon be past
Only what's done
for Christ will last

Be very careful, then, how you live; not as unwise but as wise, 
Eph.5:15

This gift God gives
Of day to day
Is filled with
Opportunity
This life we live
Of do-and-say
Is shaping our
Legacy

This common rite
Of morn to night
Unveils the noise
Of much ado
It hails a fight
Of wrong and right
And sorrow-joys
We journey through

Do not despair
This thoroughfare
Of holding close
Then letting go
Is like a stair
From here to There
…and what There is
None fully knows

Not to but through
The seeming grave
That holds the bones
Which hold the soul
This much ado
Is like a wave
That dissolves on
Death’s sacred shoal

© Janet Martin

Three things in common all have we...
First life, 
Then death,
Then eternity




Each day is like a flower
That spills from bud to bloom
Before it fades and falls away
Into Yesterday's tomb 



Who knows how far or near we are
To There, an awesome awe-full Gate
Today is Time enough to care
and prepare, ere it is too late