Summer's Swansong

 Did you realize that in one week from today Autumn begins?!

...and that we are already halfway through September?!

I sure am glad we still have 168 hrs. of summer left!

Still, there's a tug in the heart tonight as I pause to admire the harvest moon...

Across the air comes stealing

Twilight’s velvet sigh

Like a blue sea swallowing

Everything but sky

Summer sings her swan-song

Cricket-tiralee

Harvest-moon and autumn-soon

Strums the dusky lea

Tears are farewell’s souvenir

We hold, though we know

That after the dance, my dear

Comes the letting go

Without sound of falling

Without close of door

Twilight hears the Calling, oh,

Of time’s troubadour

…until trees are lost, love

Fold on fold the day

Joins the phantom host of

Fathoms sealed away

Life and death are ever

One half-breath apart

Seems I feel its sever-tug

Somewhere in my heart

© Janet Martin

With Nothing Left To Marvel At...

 Each day is like a road we have never traveled, full of unexpected dips and turns...above page from the book Anne of Windy Poplars

If God took all the guesswork out of who-what-where-when- why

If faith-hope-love told all, tell me, what then would keen the sigh

If we had all the answers what would still thrill and enthrall

If learning held no quest and we were gods and knew it all

No one would pray, no one would seek or serve, our bloated gaze

Would soon lose interest in life and all its sundry ways

Because no un-expectation would startle our intent

If God took all the guesswork out of living’s wonderment

Be glad, not sad because we cannot see what lies ahead

It is the ‘wonder’ of life’s call that keens our daily stead

…not what we know, but what we seek and what we hope to find

Where need for trust weighs heavy on the gaze of heart and mind

If God took all the guesswork out of wish and dream and pray

Then soon we would be weary of the prattle of the day

Where nothing waits to stir us with God-lent discovery

How dum-de-dum and ho-hum-hum this lifeless life would be

© Janet Martin

 We live by faith...

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Heb.11:1-3

Of Threads and Thoroughfares

Yon Place of hope and grace refills the dark with ether gold

The Driving Force of Time’s discourse sustains its vapor hold

As heaven’s doors of Second Chance unveil earth’s shores again

Where walls of circumstance cannot His mercy-tide restrain

This way of Hasting-to is strewn with blooms among the rocks

Its days are new and hewn from naught but gentle ticks and tocks

Do not despair, like darkness overcome with dawn, life’s care

Is never greater than the One who lavishes the air

For our delight God lets us glimpse His wonder on the sky

See how the vale of night grows pale then slips into a sigh

Where morning’s virgin Masterpiece is unrolled like a scroll

And hung upon Time’s ceiling over halls of common goal

The fragile thread that separates the living from the dead

And holds eternity at bay is gold and pink and red

We do not cling to it; God cups us in His kind embrace

Before the breath that severs us forever from His grace

© Janet Martin

Grace is the thread with which God weaves Time
In Heaven there will be no need for grace
...in Hell no use.
Today is the day of salvation
Today is the day we choose!

 

(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)
2 Cor.6:2

The Key to Good Reading and Writing...

One cannot live
on reading and writing alone

To make these relevant
a lot of real life
needs to be done...

 ...so the stack on my night-stand keeps growing:)

We need to be

Shoved,

Loved

Hurt,

Hugged

Needed,

Snubbed,

Weary-to-the bone

Sometimes together
Sometimes alone

We need to get dirty

Again and again

Put on something pretty

And be undressed with pain

We need to be praised

And stumble-humbled

We need to stand tall

Like a wall

And crumble

Pause

Because

If we don’t we’ll miss

The quiet kiss

Of Time

We need to let go

Of fear

To climb

We need to hold on,

Fall apart

Feel the reel of

A broken heart

Then when we read

And write we can feel

The heart and soul

Of ink-appeal

© Janet Martin

September and Other Such-ness

It runs its sun and shadow touch across our eyes and sighs and such

An undulating orchestra composing scales of ooh-and awe

Where we pause, middle-step, to leer at songs ‘neath nature’s balladeer

A musicale of mauve and gold to replay when the night is cold

It splashes color far and wide and paints a sprawling countryside

Of rural route and wind-song lute and hull soft-winnowed of its fruit

It fills the canvas of the sky with azure deeps and cloud-shaped sigh

A watercolor masterpiece to showcase in fond reveries

It tolls a golden evening bell and rolls across a golden fell

And keens the break of day with gold as heart-vaults far exceed their hold

It purples grapes and weaves mist-capes and grieves over bronzed summer-scapes

A marksman with a target sure, that no talisman can secure

© Janet Martin