When Christmas Comes...

When Christmas comes it seems that we try harder to be nice

And give a little more without counting its sacrifice

We think of ways to cheer those who are down on life or love

And sing Joy to the World as if its message was enough

When Christmas comes our hearts are drawn to a kind, simpler way

As on the projector of thought, soft childhood scenes replay

And we, for just a little while, are young as fancy frees

In worlds of cookie-cutter stars and bells and Christmas trees

Christmas, it seems stirs in us something unlike other things

Maybe it is the snow that falls like feathered angel-wings

Or kitchens warm with scents of gingerbread and cinnamon

Or visions of arms open wide to welcome home loved ones

 Maybe it is the starlight strung like midnight chandeliers

Or maybe it’s the charm of bygone days that time endears

Maybe it is the love in the glad tidings of great joy

That heaven lent to earth in a wee Christ-child baby boy

When Christmas comes we think of others more and less of self

As everybody tries to be somebody’s Christmas elf

And for a little while the sorrows of this world are borne

Upon the hope and joy and peace of that first Christmas morn

© Janet Martin

Retrospect and Prospect

Moments pass through us; years applaud

Where gods like scattered ashes vie

To vex this shell of flesh and blood

Determined to live and to die

Change is a constant changeless truth

Nothing immune to farewell’s schemes

Intent on draining days and youth

While refurbishing Time with dreams

How often we look back, agape

At the deftness of day-to-day

And run our thought across the shape

Of another year brushed away

…and then we look ahead, but none

Can see beyond the Now and Here

Where soon the breadth of It is gone

Though Now can never disappear

Here faith and fear, both unrestrained

Vexes and vouches walk and talk

Of footwork not as straight and trained

As the steady march of the clock

…where moments move through us, breath-shod

Future eclipsed with each exhale

In this transport from sod to God

To that which none can mete or scale

© Janet Martin

Part of Miracles in the Making

 And whatever you do, 

whether in word or deed, 

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Col.3:17

When we, though it may seem so small

Give God our best, whate’er it be

Then He will use for miracles

Love’s offspring of humility

We cannot see the fullness of

 Action and word to fellowman

There is no small kindness in love

Or the potential of its span

Thus we, because we will not know

The full extent of Aftermath

Should prize the grace whereby we go

And travel well its ordained path

For every one of us is part

Of something bigger than we see

It is the measure of the heart

That fathers what response will be

Then we, though we may seem so small

And our offerings, pitiful

Will be, if we surrender all

Part of love’s mighty miracle

© Janet Martin

One of Rob and Emily’s best friends just had their first child, a little girl Evalyn, born with Down’s Syndrome and other health challenges but God, through many little prayers is doing astonishing things…here are words from Evalyn’s parents …will you pray too?

 "Evalyn is a champ, she is blowing us away with the leaps and bounds she is taking! I am so overwhelmed with the power of prayer and how God is completely answering the countless prayers so many are praying. I fully believe and trust that God is always good and would be answering prayers in His sovereign way even if things were not going well, but I REJOICE in seeing Him choose to answer these prayers the way we are hoping! This morning she was taken off her oxygen tube for a 24 hour trial, so far she's doing GREAT and doesn't need it! Even as I write this I'm so overwhelmed by this, considering we were prepared for her to have some major issues with oxygen levels and her under-developed lung. Jesus totally healed her lung enough so we could hold her when she was born and is continuing to heal her SO much faster than anyone could have imagined! I know this is a direct answer to so many of your prayers, THANK YOU!!
Tomorrow is a big day, we're meeting with several specialists to do a variety of assessments and hopefully get a better game plan for the next several weeks. The main thing we are hoping to determine is the condition of her heart and if she will require any interventions to repair any defects. The next main focus is feeding. She's fed solely through a feeding tube but is beginning to practice latching and sucking in hopes to eventually breastfeed. There's been some minor issues with reflux so the team is working to get her first able to take a regular full feed without throwing up. We'll get more information about this process and the plan moving forward tomorrow.
I can't fully express how much everyone's support and encouragement has meant, it's so incredible! Little Evalyn is so loved, her life is already such a blessing!"

 

p.s. Much slower internet and much increased daycare has contributed to decreased poetry and blog-posts...
Everything is but a season:)...except love!

Snow-song

 I was going to add a few more pics but our internet, after being down for a day is still extremely slow,

so maybe later if it starts to work better...

The rush of river-song is dulled

Land's remnant green is gone

The color-world of autumn culled

And earth with heavens one

The limb that languished, barren-brown

Is swaddled in soft snow

The thicket thick with winter’s down

As all the earth below

The rough wind rolls across the heath

And tolls a muffled bell

Fallow farmland snug-sound beneath

Starred sheath that stilly fell

The pendulum of light to dark

Seems to hasten its ply

Where hand of Season’s Matriarch

 Strums nature’s lullaby

..and tucks its ruckus out of sight

Where ghost-like footsteps fade

Into a world of white on white

That winter’s Artist made

© Janet Martin

December Snow Day...

Earth is a pillow, plush-quilted, snow-hushed

Time is a tide, fancy-free and un-rushed

The world is lost, tossed to fathoms of white

Dreamers don slippers and fireside’s rite

Windows frame wonderlands, snow-wonder-full

Books become barges without push and pull

Joy is a slow, sweet second-cup rebirth

Home like a foretaste of heaven on earth

Hang up your apron and blue-collar chase

Dance to the music of tea-kettle grace

Wish on a world full of jasmine-swirled stars

Winter un-stoppered from top-shelf-tipped jars

Earth is a pillow and day is a bed

Fit for the dreamer of toil-woven thread

Time is a lover with let’s-stay-home touch

Dreamers drink poetry, laughter and such

What is so fair as a snow-bound reprieve?

Summer waits where seedling fathers the sheave

Put on the kettle and log on the hearth

December snow-days are heaven on earth

© Janet Martin

This poem(I wrote it this morning before the day happened) is sort of a fantasy of what I thought today might be like...it wasn't ;-)
Trucker-hubby has no choice but to battle the elements...so no day-dreaming here,
but a lot of praying, for him and all the others out there who have no choice; milk-truck drivers, courier services, health-workers etc.

I'm about to have my first cup of tea...for supper.