Giving Thanks

In Canada it is Thanksgiving Weekend!

Above is a glimpse of 'fruit of thankfulness'.

Whole family is home today for Thanksgiving Dinner

(at least they are until one leaves for post-season Bluejay's baseball game, but that's for a different post;-)

...so much to be thankful for!

May our thanks be raised to much more than thin air

But to the Lord of all

  Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.  

 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. 

 Ps.95:2-3

For stages set with living’s ‘Yet’

And pages writ with Past

For smiles and tears that rile the years

Where soon their boon is cast

For bread to win and mouths to feed

For gardens gilt with full-grown seed

For God, who satisfies our need

We worship and give thanks

For untamed hours that unchain flow’rs

For bowers bent with fruit

For autumn field culled of its yield

For orchard’s ample loot

For earth-havens of home, sweet home

Where mothers call and children come

For love-laugh-labor’s humble sum

We worship You, O Lord

For hands to fold, for arms to hold

For sky-scapes that amaze

For quiet awe as nature’s law

Seals seasons from our gaze

For grace that grants a second chance

For lips to kiss and feet to dance

For soul and body sustenance

God, hear our songs of praise

For Faith’s reward, we thank You, Lord

Though trial seems unjust

We rest-assured for You secured

The Hope whereby we trust

We thank You for this Crux of joy

That nothing on earth can destroy

…for twilight’s lull and dawn’s ahoy

And your mercy to us

© Janet Martin

Yours Truly, God

Dawn's silver mantle on yon vale

Beneath blush bands begins to pale

Its slow fade unveils field and street

And highways on time’s common beat

It sets the stage of this day’s war

Where wage of dream and duty spar

October’s land begets a brush

That authors grand applause from us

For while we sleep its colors spread

Gold-scarlet-russet-bronze and red

Through wooded slope and hooded morn

A color wonderland is born

Earth is inset with lakes and streams

And brooklets tucked in mossy seams

Autumnal mirth excites their vim

Where leaf-shaped medals learn to swim

And we linger longer on banks

To chase our wonderment with thanks

God grants glimpses of paradise

Nature teases man’s hungry eyes

We gape and shape vague stuttered praise

To He who equips time with days

And days with ways that leave us awed

With masterpieces made by God

© Janet Martin

Autumnal Odyssey

Dawn’s golden gilt exhales its sigh

Before it wilts in noon-blue sky

Our dust of trust soon silt of thought

Is spilt to dusk’s supernal plot

Twilight tolls its neon farewell

Hello cannot escape its knell

Hulled Haunting swells, succumbs to sleep

Like dells flaunting bloom-bells knee-deep

Life’s lot of thought and care and prayer

Is caught up on soft wafts of air

Where not one jot escapes the gaze

Of He who allots autumn’s ways

The wick of tree and lea is lit

Like flickers on a candlestick

Where tick and tock of hill and sky

Quickens the advent of goodbye

© Janet Martin

Me, oh my,

 Morning's blue sky

full of day

fades fast!

G'night~

The Impact of 'This'

 I quote this verse often 'cause it's a good one...

'This' is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Ps.118:24

Soon dawn’s peach gauze will fall away

Then it will be a new today

And how we choose to use This bit

Will be the lifelong sum of it

Its hollow sky is full of hours

Its moments die like petal-show’rs

Ah, soon the bloom and leaf of spring

Lies beneath autumn’s folded wing

Harvest hymn and heart-lullabies

Gather within our human sighs

Wind-song whimpers long, languidly

Where summer’s green sheen used to be

Our comfort zones are full of ‘ifs’

Dawn’s virgin tones, a gracious gift

Its battle-ground before us laid

In This new day the Lord has made

God, forgive us when we forget

The fragility of life’s ‘yet’

And let us ever keep in mind

How soft each ‘This’ is left behind

© Janet Martin

All In A Day's 'Play'

What are wrinkles?  he asks searching my face for an answer with his toy detective-glass

While his baby sister deposits her cucumber slice down the front of my shirt

And I struggle to find words and cucumber

What is steam? he questions as I ask him to 'close the fridge because the steam means we are losing

cold air', so he does and the steam disappears, and I never knew how hard it was to describe in 3 year old smallness, words I never give a second thought and he really wants to know, what is steam?

What is this bird’s name?  he wonders and when I say Bluebird he wants to know its ‘real’ name because anyone can see it’s a bluebird and he knows I’ve never told him that the other birds are red bird, yellow bird, brown bird etc…

Jacket, diaper, drink and shoes

Picnic basket, peek-a-boo

Books and trucks and dollies too

Blocks and missing socks

Help me, push me, hold me, tug

Please and fank-you, look, a bug!

Nighty-night and wakey-hug

Worlds unrushed by clocks

Inside, outside, upside down

Pat-a-cake, and sing a song

Garden-helper, happy-brown

Dreamer-dappled yard

Fairy tales and pirate ships

Messes, crumbs and sticky drips

Laughter tickling hearts and lips

Innocence unmarred

Learn to listen, learn to share

I can't find my teddy-bear

Sing and jump and run, no care

But one, is it lunch? 

Lie beneath the sky so blue

Pick a flower-bunch or two

'I love you', 'I love you too'

 ...fresh tugged carrot-crunch

God is great, KD is good

Thank God for our yummy food

Tummy full and diaper too

Piggy games with toes

Crayon colors, count the jars

Nursery rhymes and dinky cars

Pick up toys and play-doh stars

Kiss that crinkled nose

Trip around the world, oh my

On a magic quilt we fly

Rock-a-bye and hush, don’t cry

Wings the while away

Wipe and tuck, zip, button, tie

Bubbles bobbing to the sky

Apple snack and why, why, why

All in a day’s ‘play’

© Janet Martin

 Well, we're off to do some more 'playing';-)

Picnics and mittens, he is learning, has its challenges:)