Morning Prayer

Lord, help me do the best I can

Each task you ask of me

Nor let me pine for things not mine,

Help me live thankfully

So when this little day is done

In spun eons to drift

I will not mourn these moments shorn

From morning’s newborn gift

Lord, grant me faith-hope-love, ah, love

Your peace within my soul

And remind me, whate’er may be

That You are in control

Make my thought more of others, Lord

So together we bear

The burdens of life’s laugh-weep-love

Secure within Your care

© Janet Martin

Dear Autumn, Be Gentle With Mothers

Others cannot see the colors

Where years have seared priceless art

Nor do they know of the autumn

Of a middle-aged mother’s heart

Beneath her skin seasons linger

Where children slipped from Her care

Caught between summer and winter

She learns new reasons for prayer

These are no common arrangements

Scattered like leaves on lost yards

Meekly she bears the estrangements

That comes with changing of Guards

Longing is a two-edged saber

Gratefulness cushions its thrust

Without it middle-aged mothers

Would not have wherewithal to trust

Dear autumn, be gentle with mothers

She senses a chill in your stare

Help her to shoulder the colors

Leading to snow-silvered hair

© Janet Martin

A World of Common Ways

'So Long Ago' and 'Right Now' share a world of common ways

Morning is grafted like an offshoot to Past’s weathered bough

Bud bursts, bears fruit; we brim with hymns of thanksgiving and praise

While tromping over shriveled remnants of hulled moment-snow

Even after these many years much appears to amaze

Ah, we are often stripped of speech as we stand still and gape

Across the sweep of Mercy’s Keep keened seasons spill their trays

Earth swallows up its crumbs where thrums of new summer take shape

The ways of grace are tattooed on earth’s minute spurt of dust

God keeps His word; and we are stirred to awe and Holy fear

The sun shines and the rain falls; all that we can do is trust

In spite of what we see and what They say… God is still here

Thus, Long Ago and Right Now are bound by what matters most

Not boast of stuff, but Love lavished as freely now as then

For God so loves the world today as He did at The First

…and thus He waits to seal Time’s gates with His final Amen

© Janet Martin

 A few shots from my rural, local Thanksgiving drive/bike.

Morning Madrigal

The trees are sketched against the stretching sky in raven ink

We wake and stretch and do not know what this new 'Go' betides

Before we touch our feet down on time’s runway we should think

About the One who knows; then pray to He whose love abides

The landscape meets the skyline; we can never reach that place

Where earth and heaven meld into a mystic blue and mauve

Onward, upward, we stumble on time’s steppingstones of grace

Across crag and quagmire shod with God’s unfailing love

The leaf of autumn lingers for a little then it falls

The dust of daydreams teaches us what words can never spell

Soul-surges of surrender shape time’s tender madrigals

Where man and land have much in common; God’s love fills its shell

The birth and death of morn-noon-night begets Bygone’s attire

We should give earnest heed to deeds; they never fully dim

This little slip of season-silk that weaves Time will expire

Where God’s kind love and mercy tunes the Tide that leads to Him

© Janet Martin 

It's a beaut of a morning here! 

Enjoy its bouquet of colored leaves garnished with sun...

For Players in the Game of Baseball or Life

Matt enjoyed a never-forget-it-as-long-as-I-live night at the Sky-dome to watch the Blue-jays try to sweep the series against the Texas Rangers.

He said there was a consistent eager hum of excitement in the crowd,

but when Donaldson slid across the home-plate clinching the extra-innings win the place erupted into a beyond-words noise-level of celebration! 

Sometimes in life's

Swing and miss, 

slip, trip and sprawl

Fumble a pop-fly, 

or 

get hit by a ball

...sometimes in life's 

extra innings 

before loss

Or new-season beginnings

after 

a bat-toss 

...sometimes in life's 

hurt and dirt

Had a bad day

Bases-loaded 

grounder

then a double play

Sometimes in life's game of

Hope, hit, 

work hard, 

fall

We meet with moments 

that make it

Worth it all

© Janet Martin

September fears have turned to October cheers!