Monday, January 2, 2017

Years From Now



Happy 2nd day of 2017!

Ah, years from now we’ll speak of how these were the days of such and such
And marvel at the changeless ways time changes everything we touch
And years from now we’ll look back and revisit what we not yet know
Where we are ever at the mercy of God’s love and season-flow

Dusk’s benediction soon will fold the hold of this new day to rest
Where it seems we are always at the beck and call of east to west
Goodnight, goodnight, good morning, oh, and off we go to work and school
While morning slips to noon and noon to twilight’s pink and purple pool

Our guesswork often falls far short of what God has in mind for us
Where faith and fear are rivals warring while we pray or fret and fuss
And, years from now when we speak of days lived and loved and always lost
We will, like those before us learn the difference twixt price and cost

…where years from now God still will BE, hope’s confidante and confidence
and all who trust in Him will still find peace and death’s deliverance
For, years from now, in spite of what we talk about, doubtless is this;
The God from the beginning will still be the faithful God that IS

The one thing we can depend on is He beyond time’s number chart
Greater than anything we fathom yet Keeper of human heart
Then, though we cannot know what, years from now will fill yon When
One thing we do; the God that was and is will be the same, amen

© Janet Martin

 They will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
    and they will be discarded. 
 But you remain the same,
    and your years will never end.

Psalm 102:26-27 

 Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:17



Sunday, January 1, 2017

A Blessed Continuance...an ABC Poem






A new year waits
Behind us, barred gates; before us open doors
Change comes through courage purposed-prayed
Do it!
Embrace time’s mores
Farewell to old, hello to new
God’s grace grants second chance
Here-now is like an avenue
Inviting us to dance
Jaded and cast, is the year past
Kiss it good-bye and then
Look to the love of God; He gives
Mercy for dreams again
Night turns to morning while we drowse
Our track-record, though grim
Persuades hope’s nature to arouse
Quixotic lands within  
Reminding us how God imbues
Surrendered sighs with joy
Time’s tried benevolence renews
Until’ with faith; ahoy
Vesper and daybreak ebbs and flows
With rose and thorny cares
X-cellent is He that bestows
Yes and no to our prayers
Zeal refurbishes gray with gold as the New Year succeeds the Old

© Janet Martin

Hello 2017!

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Time's Thing Called Years...a repost

 A Re-post today...busy times. A new one tomorrow maybe?:)
Wishing all of you a blessed New Year!
Her garb is sheer where hindsight’s aptitude
Can better tell the wherefore of her stance
The apple of her eye is the romance
Of Rembrandts' rendered to past’s solitude
And what we did or didn’t do, joy-grief
A tug-of-war within the human breast
As the old year dons her eternal rest
And we hail the unknown to hone Belief
Where the threshold of morrow soon will spill
A canvas pure as God to earthy will

Thought’s time-engrafted reach is far too small
Though we, with fumbling talk try to explain
What mortal knowledge cannot full-attain
…to understand the Giver of it all
Who reigns beyond the tick and tock of clocks
And what we deem as old or new but grace
Unchanging and unfailing; human race
Grapples with strings and moment-soldered locks
Where consequence is the certain capstone
Of everything that ever we have done

With scathing ignorance we hit ‘repeat’
In spite of good intention how we fall
Thus grace alone is our utter all
As old and new mingle; a bittersweet
Vintage of retrospect; then love is blind
And kinder than it was when we were young
And surer of the words upon our tongue
Before the new grew older and the mind
Became a landscape riddled with smile-tears
Accumulated in Time’s thing called Years
© Janet Martin

Friday, December 30, 2016

Thursday Thoughts, Friday Jots...





As long as life remains
So too does grace of God
And opportunity to change
Those things we know we should

***
The ups and downs of love and life
Beneath our second glance
Turns into thought’s landscape shaped by
Response to circumstance

***
The way we are, for better-worse
Is never so complete
That we do not have reason to
Improve somehow, my sweet

 ***
If we do not know how to pray
Or wish we better could
We need to take the time to pray
As often as we should 

***
No matter how much
Life’s future lessens
It never runs out of
Trusting lessons

***
Priority, priority,
Beneath your voice I move
And often prove unconsciously
The God or gods I love

 ***

Look back at your mistakes
To learn from them, and then
Wiser and humbler move on and
Do not look back again

***

We cannot blame our feet alone
For the wrong way we went
The mind lays out the stepping-stone
That moves the foot’s intent

***

The mind will never muster what it takes to master it
The heart, desperately wicked and deceitful steers the Whole
…and we would all be shipwrecked on a rocky shore or reef
Save for the heart that repents and asks God to take control

 ***

The words we write or say are little more than tripe or noise
Unless deed jibes with that which the mouth easily employs

 ***
Together we can weather more than we thought possible
But first we must make sure that we agree which way to pull

 ***
Do not despair;
For we have prayer
A life-line up to God
Then pray that we
Pray faithfully
With more than just a nod

***
The old year
Like a feather loosed
Wafts out of our reach
Too late to learn
The lessons that
It intended to teach

The New Year
Like a singing bird
Perches on Mercy’s limb
The lessons we
Failed to full-learn
Are hidden in its wing

© Janet Martin



Hills






They sweep up from the depths of earth to touch the girth of heaven’s scrim
They leap tree-clad to strum the deep of endless blue with black-leaf limb
They lure us from the common-place to grace our thought and gaze with awe
They teach us about hope and faith and train us to reach toward God

Hills wear blue frills of chicory and trim the ridge with balsam prose
They depict love and life’s breathtaking sun-and-shadow highs and lows
They cradle in their crook and curve, wonders of quiet majesty
And as we climb, we witness worlds unfurled in panoramic spree

I love hills; they wear seasons well and who can tell what sights they veil
They rise to meet the skies where eyes their distant summits scale
But we will never see, unless we try, how worth the climb it is
And if we choose to stay put in the lowland, oh, how much we miss

© Janet Martin

I had a craving to climb a hill this morning.
Since we live on top of a hill

 I had to climb down to get to the up;-))
It's sort of hard to tell, when sky and earth are exactly the same shade, where the hill starts and stops!

Came across this chuckle in a book I was browsing through...