Monday, January 2, 2017

Twenty-Seventeen






Timid, I taste The Number
Ah, what a stranger, This
That drew us from our slumber
With morning’s routine kiss

Time does not seem to notice
Undeterred, though we sigh
And grapple with the digits
Which never tell a lie

…but chart with staid enforcement
The discourse of a year
That gathers to annulment
Each treasured smile and tear

Sometimes I think Time cruel
Sometimes I think it kind
Time just ignores the duel
Played out twixt heart and mind

More bent it seems on numbers
Charting with tick and tock
Each season that soon slumbers
Where none but echoes walk

© Janet Martin

I couldn't revel in sentimentality yesterday morning because we had to get to church on time;-) 
Allowing myself a little dip into the where-does-the-time-go pool before I can taste this number without it jolting my senses every time I hear it!!

The only number this squirrel seems to care about is the number of nuts in his pantry:)
I've been noticing a network of tunnels under the snow and this morning I found out why!
They look exactly like this video from youtube

Love-Driven...





What wonder-fullest purpose
Bestows night’s dark with day
And satisfies the ages
With more than moment-fray

What divine-driven wooing
Augments morn’s common ‘up’
And metes from mortal doing
More than the mind can cup

What heaven-happy reason
What earth-imperfect laud
If, in and out of season
We live to love our God

What wonder-fullest purpose
Would then anoint each touch 
If all we do is because
We love God oh, so much

© Janet Martin

Our Sunday-morning-New Year message challenged us to ponder what drives us from our beds each morning…Is it
I owe, I owe, so off to work I go,
I have to,
I should, must, for me-he-her
Or is it more than that?!
What if we were compelled each day to live fully because of our love for Christ?!

See full message here

A Bitty Hope-For-The-New Year Ditty





Despair can snare us in its noose
And disappointment apprehends
The dream once care-free and footloose
Hardship and heartache’s grip befriends
The prayers we pray;  Ah, here the span
That supersedes our deepest hurt
For God is always greater than
The plans surrendered to time’s dirt
And He will not forsake our plight  
In spite of our blind-eyed chase
Into the wayward way of sight
That does not steal us from Love’s grace

© Janet Martin

Master-pieces





God creates no desolation
Winter’s tree, a lovely gray
Nature’s each season-creation
Beautiful in its own way

God excites our warped perception
Startles sight with snow-traced limb
Where the Author of perfection
Strews Master-pieces of Him

© Janet Martin

With Winsome Weight of Moments...





Ho, the winsome weight of moments
Tips time’s spectrum of thin air
Pours to quiet deep of midnight
Morning’s unmarred thoroughfare

Unattainable its flicker
After it passes away
Synchronized, Taker and Giver
Fashions from old dark, new day

…like an ephemeral river
Constant, its wake-waning tide
Where time's winsome wake of whispers
Leads us to life’s other side

War and peace borne on its murmur
Winter, summer’s silver breath
With the winsome weight of moments
Amalgamates life and death

...like the soft descent of snowflake
Singular until it lands
Moments fade into the framework
Of Forever's outstretched hands

© Janet Martin