...And This Is Why We Celebrate

How futile all this would be...

 ...without this!

After the wrapping falls away

And today becomes yesterday

The gifts-glitz-merriment would prove

So good-for-nothing without love

How futile this festivity

How vain celebration would be

How empty everything we know

But for Love’s kindness long ago

God filled a manger bed with it

And painted a cross red with it

Where no one recognized it then

God’s gift of love to His children

Ah, hallelujah, God is great

He is the love we celebrate

He is hope’s living proof; behold

The love that never will grow old

Though ages come and go, still He

Abides; Faithful supremacy

So, let us haste to Bethlehem

To see this Child and worship Him

…after the wrapping falls away

And today becomes yesterday

Rejoice; God gave His Son to prove

The greatest gift of all is Love

…and this is why we celebrate

Not for plum pudding, presents, cake

But because of God’s Love to us

In that first Christmas gift; Jesus

© Janet Martin

...because we are never too old or too young to be reminded
I am gifting this poem in print copy to each of my children
and in cyber copy to all of you!
God bless.

Wishing to all of you a day of joy and wonder

Not because of crumpled paper plunder

But because of Love 

Merry Christmas

Like Sonnets Dripping From the Sky

Sometimes upon the bluesy blur

Of day bending with twilight’s sigh

It seems I hear a sort of whisper

Dripping from the deep'ning sky

Window-scapes fade to nothingness

And so time’s new day disappears

Into Bygone's big emptiness

Of Now spun into after-years

And I am torn; love-worn, the art

Of hunger and fulfillment vie

To touch the part that stirs the heart

With sonnets slipping from the sky

© Janet Martin

Fair Lady Dawn

 Since I have youngsters arriving early on most mornings I don't always get all the poems out of my system so here's a morning poem to sparkle your afternoon:)

She really was something of a wonder this morning...that fair lady, Dawn

 

She trips along a boulevard

Untouched by human race

Then lays her halo on each yard

God’s signature of grace

From far-off clime time’s blush bells peal

Curtailing seas of night

Refurbishing earth's color-wheel

Sir Dusk snuffed from our sight

…then, where the air was deep and black

She brushes it away

And smooths its darksome curtain back

To woo us with Today

Time's newest love beams, bright and pure

Unsullied, as of yet

By we of resolution's lure

...and masters of regret

Soft, silently she disappears

As deftly as she came

The Matriarch of yester-years

Fair Lady Dawn, her name

© Janet Martin

Of-From God...

 A stunning start to time's newest love...

Let's celebrate...not just because it's Christmas but because its Love of-from God to us!

It lights the wick that lights the quick

Of living’s highs and lows

Sometimes it is a thorny prick

Sometimes it is a rose

It turns the other cheek; a meek

-and-mildness; always right

Quick to forgive and slow to speak

Those words that wound or slight

It drives us to our knees with pleas

Yet reaches for the sky

And through patient humility

It teaches us to fly

It bore the birth of lowly earth

And death upon a cross

It pours in us life’s holy worth

…a sacred albatross

It helps, it hopes, it spills hard ‘asks’

A flask of smiles and tears

That makes glorious, homely tasks

And second-mile veneers

It is not always realized

Or recognized as such

This hard-soft-wounding-healing-prized

Oft misunderstood touch

It wears the name of Jesus, oh,

Demons quake, saints applaud

It bears the sweetest claim we know

It is love; of-from God

© Janet Martin

I Thought I Knew Love...

In the middle of life's messy muddle, there it was! a bit of heaven as three beaming boy-faces watched Janet pull the paper from their gift to her.

'It's pretty special' one of them hinted as she first went to place the wrapped gift under the tree and then she knew she couldn't wait 'til Christmas!

It's been a long time since I've added a rolling-pin to my collection.

Yesterday I received a very special addition.

Thank-you from the bottom of my heart:)

I thought I knew love

And reached to pluck its rose

But found, to my dismay, a thorn

Beneath its pretty pose

I thought I knew love

And donned my dancing shoes

But found the ball-room was a road

Of second-third mile dues

I thought I knew love

Then, much to my surprise

It kissed me in the middle of

Life's muddled paradise

© Janet Martin