Treasure Your Mother

 This poem was made possible because a daughter became a mother,

and now I see not only through daughter's forgetful, well-intentioned embrace

  but also through a mother's devoted and forgiving grace

  My mother and her daughters on my mom's most recent birthday

(Mom on far right then us girls standing in order from oldest to youngest)

Treasure your mother

And while you still have her

Tell her you love her

Again and again

Who knows which morrow

May turn into sorrow

When oft you will hunger

To tell her, in vain

Talk to your mother

Dear son and dear daughter

She fed, clothed, held you

And tucked you to rest

So while you still have her

Be kind; don’t forget her

For she like no other

Desires your best

Cherish your mother

Her life’s love and labor

Deserves highest honor

Where memory imparts

The echoes that weather

What none can untether

For she lives forever

In her children’s hearts

© Janet Martin

I have many friends who’ve bid their dear mothers

Their final earthly farewell

Forbid we leave our thank-yous unuttered

And mourn, too late the words we did not tell

Another Mother's Day poem here, by Ann Taylor

 Happy Mother's Day 
 

Can We Help?

Hebrews 13:16 “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

 No one can do everything but everyone can do something!
No one can say yes all the time but everyone can say yes sometimes!

Imagine if, when asked for help

Everybody would go

From here to there without kind care

And answer no, no, no

Imagine if nobody walked

The way of second miles

How sad this life of troubled strife

How empty of its smiles

Imagine if, when down and out

The cry for help would plead

But everyone would hope someone

Besides themselves would heed

Imagine if, when asked for help

Nobody would reply

How hard the way of day-to-day

Would be for you and I

Imagine if, when asked for help
With heartfelt friendliness
Heart-cries would cease, stilled by love's peace
Because we all said yes

© Janet Martin

We (our church-family) has a facebook page that from time to time holds these words 'Can you help?'

Imagine if everyone said 'no'.
Imagine if everyone said 'yes!'

God bless those faithful and sometimes few 'yeses!'

Spring-love

Oh tell me, does the valor of new morning dipped in gold

Bestow hope’s color to your heart that harbored somber hue

Does gladness soothe the sadnesses that ways of life unfold?

And does the hug of spring-love get the better of you too?

Does wonder heal heart-hunger with the art of leaf-laced loom?

Oh tell me, when life’s green umbrella world unfurls once more

And buds break into flower-laughter, after winter’s gloom

Do you fall into spring-love like a song-struck troubadour?

…and are we all poets perhaps, without ink-chartered Must

Does duty don a kinder beauty in nature’s rebirth?

And tell me, does the praise that flows from days of dust-to-dust

Inspire lays of spring-love to the Teacher of the earth?

To linger by the shallows where the swallows dip and dive

To drink from brinks of pink where More out-pours in morn’s ahoy

Tell me, does this not make you feel so glad to be alive?

Where treasure from the trove of spring-love fills our souls with joy

© Janet Martin

Hoping for you, a happy-heart day:)

If We Could See

If we could see the hand that cups

The way we walk, our fears would fade

If we upon our shoulder touched

The Touch of He whose Hand is stayed

If we with naked eye could trace

The Presence of Essence we trust

How holy-wholly we'd embrace

The nail scarred hands that hold our dust

If for one breath, faith would allow

A glimpse of mercy’s Majesty

Then we, without a doubt would bow

Beneath the hand we cannot see

© Janet Martin

 My times are in Your hand; Psalm 31:15

Counsel for Merchants of Moments or Driver of Dreams

If we leap headlong into choice

Without weighing its gain and cost

How doleful we, in hindsight see

Oft all we have is what we lost

Self can be such a jealous god

A boss that’s never satisfied

Thus, it behooves God's tender truths

To bend these necks of stubborn pride

For in life’s quest to gain and gain

Sometime we lose sight of its Whole

How, in the end, we will contend

With He who gathers back the soul

Be careful then and prayerful too

For merchants one and all are we

This wake and sleep a solemn leap

That trades time for eternity

© Janet Martin

 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Mark 8:36