Of Summer Almost Spent...

 I felt a sudden, strange kinship to these bowed blooms...

The art of summer almost spent

Teases the heart with discontent 

For in its vent of green and gold

We sense anew what none can hold

…and often pause, soft torn between

The laws of hope and what has been

Past’s dynasty of dormant years

Like empires built on sweat and tears

The salt of it still stings the tongue

…we didn’t feel, when we were young

How suave love’s raw bravado seals

Life’s Brigadoon to yester-reels

Or how the touch of thought can stir

Remembrances of him or her

Before the roar of stilly night

Or slip of day drew them from sight

The blue sky wears fretwork of green

…soon autumn’s red and gold will wean

The tree of easy lilt and sigh

To silhouettes of days gone by

The art of summer almost spent

Becomes a burnished testament

Of laughter-laden echoes strewn

Like husks on a lost afternoon

© Janet Martin

Wishing you a Saturday full of wonder in unexpected places:)

In The Case of Too Much Awe...Or Sympathy

Stunning moon-rise but its thrill was dimmed by what the lens picked up by shifting a few inches, through a gap in the trees...a major dairy-barn fire at a farm down the road...

This fire has been raging for a few hours now.

 Fire-fighters work at protecting near-by house and shed!

I hope everyone is okay!

Sometimes words fail

Too much awe

Too much 

Sympathy

Then what we say

 Is between us and God

As He hears the hearts

Of you and me

Janet~

Update: 

Allow Me, Said The Morning...

Allow me, said the morning as she gently took my hand

Today, because no one has been here is a foreign land

And I, fresh from the touch of God cannot contain my joy

Where hope’s cup runneth over with new moments to employ

Ah, let me introduce you (before shadows intercede

And dusk becomes the fellow that draws shut what dawn decreed)

To this anointing readied, not by mortal mien, but God

And how its grant is steadied by far more than shores of sod

Hark to the melody that tumbles from heaven to earth

Where dark is never deeper than ‘ahoy’ of new day’s birth

See, how the worth of what we do is more than gold or fame

But all about the love whereby we tender our claim

Surely goodness and mercy reigns, not fear and hate and doubt

From hill and hollow, rill and plain weather-veined legions shout

Earth rings with praise to He whose grace succours the eastern brim

Allow me, said the morning, to join you and worship Him

© Janet Martin

Another last-day-of-the-work-week hails! 

What do you plan to do before this last-Friday-before-Fall is folded forever?

After I bake a carrot cake for Dad’s 75th birthday celebration tomorrow night 

I hope to work outside this whole sunny, summer day long!

Wishing you a wonder-full whatever-this-day brings! 

p.s. Don't forget to walk in the moonlight tonight. It promises to be a BIG one(moon, that is:)!

Much To Learn

 We are all scholars because...

Until the will of us is not so stubborn and me-wrought

Until the fear of God is greater than the fear of thought

Until the letting go surrenders woeful want for need

Until we learn to love the way that Jesus first decreed

We still have much to learn

Until the More we hunger for exceeds mere touch and taste

Until the battle that we fight is not for blood-shed waste

Until we fully recognize the size of tick and tock

And how its Ultimatum minimizes skies and clocks

We still have much to learn

Until we do not need to understand God’s what or why

Until we realize the best that we can do is try

Until the heart is thrilled with meditation on God’s word

And mouths don’t shout or spout with doubt and anger undeterred

We still have much to learn

We still have much to learn, but God so rich in mercy cares

He does not turn against us as we repent-repeat prayers

But lavishes our penitence with a new day of grace

And like a mother hen longs to fold us in His embrace

While we have much to learn

© Janet Martin

 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,

 how often I have longed to gather your children together, 

as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, 

and you were not willing.

Matt.23:37

Flower-Bower

Time like a flower-shaped season

Fathers our wanderlust

Earth, like a flower-draped coffin

Garners its ashes and dust

Spring, like a flower-bud opens

Summer unveils its full bloom

Autumn unravels its omen

Winter bedizens its tomb

Life is a flower, the hour

Winnows petals from each stem

None can usurp the Great Power

That gleans the remnant of them

Time like a flower-shaped season

Fathers our hunger and trust

Earth, like a flower-draped coffin

Garners its ashes and dust

© Janet Martin

The World Rings With Poetry

What lovely things each new day brings

To stir a sing-song in the heart

Bud full of bloom, dell full of plume

Earth’s living-room full of God-art

A cup of tea, sky-poetry

A melody of breeze in trees,

A holly-hock, a jolly walk

Through clock-tick-tock-soon-memories

What happiness is waiting, yes,

The best and worst of us must look

For Time’s hooray is on display

Each day just like a picture-book

With turn of page we learn, we age

The sage silvers along the banks

Where once we chased with eager haste

What now we taste with fervent thanks

What grace allows each wondrous Now

The orchard bows with harvest-hymns

The woodland sheds its green for reds

In weathered beds, goldenrod brims

Where old and new and gold and blue

Unfold, for you and me to see

What lovely things each new day brings

…the whole world rings with poetry

© Janet Martin

 O LORD, how manifold are thy works! 

in wisdom hast thou made them all: 

the earth is full of thy riches.

 Ps. 104:24