In Honor of Today...

It does no good to try to bear

Tomorrow’s weight of waiting care

Better to heed today’s demand

And focus on the need at hand

The fear of what may yet unfold

Can blind us to the gold we hold

We were not born to try to bear

Tomorrow’s morn of unformed care

The illusion of morrow’s ‘if’

Is never how we picture it

And who of us is strong enough

To balance more than today’s ‘stuff’?

Too much, tomorrow’s such and such

Is always out of reach; time’s touch

For all its fancied come-what-may

Will never yield more than Today

Then help us, Lord, to keep in mind

The transience of each daily grind

And remind us to trust in You

For strength to honor today’s due

© Janet Martin

Songs of hope for the day we are in!

Without Compromise...

Fear seeks to destroy us

With life’s Great Unknown

But it cannot move this;

God upon his throne

Hate, confused and hungry

Fights a losing chase

Love, composed and humble

Triumphs with its grace

Bitterness can break us

With its binding pain

Forgiveness can make us

Free and glad again

Anger and resentment

Chills us with dark spite

Kindness and contentment

Fills us with God’s Light

Disappointment, trouble

Seems, must have its day

But without these, people

Would forget to pray

Fear alarms, distresses

But it fades away

In the arms of Promise

God, our Hope and Stay

He is peace and pardon

Without compromise

Truth's established Guardian

In a world of lies

© Janet Martin

"The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; 

He will be with you. 

He will not fail you or forsake you. 

Do not fear or be dismayed." 

Deut.31:8

Beating the Odds

PAD Challenge day 27: For today’s prompt, write a falling apart poem. 

(My challenge this month is keeping up with its poetic challenges:) 

Let’s fall apart together

The weather is November gray

And none of us can tether

The hand that will have its way

Time is a master of moments

Author of fugitive art

Let’s beat its odd estrangements

And fall apart, heart to heart

We have two choices, darling

Musing on lost yesterdays

Or dancing with arms open

To the music that still plays

© Janet Martin

The Flux That Forms the Crux...

Someday I will look back and they will too,

to hours spent at Janet's house...

My one wish is that they will take with them something that will help to shape them into who they hope to be...

How blithe the light that breathes times flight to what remains to be

How lithe the flux that forms the crux of our legacy

The orbit of a year grows thin, slips through our skin with ease

Both chancellor and rogue, its vim succumbs to memories

The motions we go through are not trite piffle; they become

The person we will be remembered for at life’s full sum

Time’s touch and taste affair from here to There, an awesome Thing

Where moments become far, far more than echoes on the wind

Look, within reach grace splays beneath us Opportunity

So what of grand faux pas, today is rife with What Will Be

Where What Will Be soon takes its place among surrendered peers

The highs and lows of love and life the thorn and rose of Years

Come, let us leave behind the things we grieve but cannot change

For soon too soon, this boon we cleave, eventide will estrange

Time’s Doorway to for-nevermore gapes; Now is taking shape

Becoming even as we breathe a glint in Past’s landscape

Before we come to warm our thoughts ablaze with yesterdays

Perhaps we should remember what Time’s dying ember splays

…this spark that warms the dark is like the tinder that becomes

The flux that forms the crux of life when it is said and done

© Janet Martin

The Pluses and Pitfalls of a 'Taped' World

Today's PAD Challenge: write a tape poem...any kind of tape.

 Blowing the dust from some oldies this morning:)

SO much entertainment, attraction, distraction...
The 'instant' world seems to be eating up much too much time.

There’s too little I understand about too much, it seems

Technology keeps coming up with new ways to astound

God, when designing us knew we would thrive on hopes and dreams

Still, He did not create us to be plugged to constant sound

From vinyl to eight-track to cassette tape, Cd, smart-phones

(Far-gone the days of eight-mile-tape stuck in our stereos)

The world is pocket-sized; Beatles, Elvis and Rolling Stones

Sing for distracted fans bombarded with six-second shows

There is too little I understand about much, I admit

But sometimes I feel sorry for today’s bright girls and boys

The good of something always potent with the ill of it

The brain never designed to be plugged in to so much noise

© Janet Martin