Rhapsody of Renewal

If we learn how to love the best

The premises of each new day

If we learn to live Thankfulness

By what we do, rather than say

If we learn how to leave behind

The ties that bind us to regret

Then we will find sweet peace of mind

…God is not finished with us yet

If we learn to live fully Now

Then we will know happiness, dear

Not fettered to ifs, what and how

Of tomorrow’s sorrows and fear

If we, with humble hearts and hands

Give, big or small, all that we can

And no matter what love demands

Treat as equal, each fellow-man

If we learn how to see ourselves

Not through the lens of shame and blame

But as God sees each one of us

Precious and oh, so loved by Him

Then, when we see the joy of this;

Unfailing love for all our faults

What rapture instills us with bliss

As human heart man’s God exalts

© Janet Martin

 Sing for joy in the LORD, O you righteous ones; 

Praise is becoming to the upright.

Ps.33:1

The Art Of Heart Ache

The heart, incapable of holding all we wish it could

Must learn to hold on to the gold and surrender the rest

Time’s tender New is rife with life-appointments, ill and good

The silver silk of laughter and the umber ilk of test

We cannot always pick and choose the hues that Love allows

…only response; Past soon ensconces all but consequence

The heart, veiled by the skin of us oft bears the brunt of blows

Where God alone bestows the art of heart-and-soul-defense

We never quite outgrow the hurt of love misunderstood

But sometimes love must humble us and teach us to forgive

The heart, incapable of holding all we wish it could

Must also learn how to let go so we may fully live

The ways of love and life unravel beyond our control

Their common confrontations make us who we choose to be

Oh God, how quick the smart of darts can pierce their naked goal

The heart must learn the art of aching with humility

© Janet Martin

Gladdest Certainty

Hark, chimes of gladdest Certainty

Toll through Time’s groan of care

Yet ages, like a rolling sea

Cannot man's Hope despair

The power of an hour takes

And gives in sleek alloy

The flower of its bower breaks

In both sorrow and joy

While hope unadulterated

In ageless Pureness beams

The dark cannot overtake it

Or mute what grace esteems

Where chimes of gladdest Certainty

Calms fear’s calamity

God WAS, IS and WILL EVER BE

The love that sets us free

© Janet Martin

 This is love: not that we loved God, 

but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:10

Sometimes, (esp. this week in the aftermath of the American election, the fever thereof having trickled over the border into Canada) when hateful things are said, I’m inclined to believe it is not hate but fear that drives awful words from the tongue.

Tell me, please, after all the Remembering ceremonies of yesterday, how can we bear to nurture anything but love?

Time is short.

We need each other.

Every one of us.

November

 PAD Challenge day 12:for today’s prompt, pick a month (any month), make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Stark and dark, its still-life poses

Like a thorn bush stripped of roses

Like a painting, bitter-sweet

Summer trampled ‘neath time’s feet

Lithesome youth from green tree shaken

Timeless truth, never mistaken

Nature, stripped down to its bones

Clings to tempered monotones

Sings a lonesome lullaby

In dead leaves cartwheeling by

© Janet Martin

Show-stopper

While making supper...

 The world outside the window disappears

November blue deepens its hue

Until earth slips away

It drapes a shroud of lowered cloud

Across the dying day

The barrenness of stricken tress

The poet’s heart endears

The sallow hill and hollow rill

Are swallowed up in years

And where the world by noon unfurled

A superlative view

Dusk steals the show, soft, subtle, slow

With blue on blue on blue

© Janet Martin