Saturday, August 5, 2017

Roses at Midnight





How precious were those moments
How dear the common hour
Like buds that gently opened
Into petals of a flower

Love’s laughter was like sunshine
It’s suff’ring like the rain
Its seasons like the rose and thorn
Of life’s pleasure and pain

How hardly we had held them
Before they fell away
Rose petals on a garden
In a world of yesterday

And where there had been laughter
Where rafters rang with cheer
It seemed that ever after
Surely love would wear a tear

The bough of bloom was broken
The loom of gladness rent
Where sorrow was love’s token
Of a lifetime fully spent

But God, so rich in mercy
From petals grace bestows
Stirs from love’s tender mem’ry
The beauty of a rose

From folds of sweetest fragrance
When night is dark and still
The power of mere moments
Performs a miracle

What precious, precious comfort
Fond memories can impart
As roses bloom at midnight
In gardens of the heart

 Janet Martin

Midnight's Rose





There is a bloom that blithely blows
Upon grief’s tomb called Midnight Rose
Dearest by far its fragile form
Beams like a star through sorrow’s storm

It soothes the prick of thorny stem
With ruby-tinted diadem
As echoes from fond days asleep
Return to bloom on midnight’s deep

The air can wear the soul-sweet scent
Where flowered hours came and went
The night is filled with soundless sound
As petals strew Thought’s hallowed ground

Tears cannot wash lost smiles away
Or drown the crown of yesterday
Where oft, softly they reappear
As Midnight Roses draw them near

…and almost we can feel their touch
And presence that we miss so much
Midnight, where rambling roses nod
Cupped in the faithful hand of God

The faithful hand of God, ah this
Is where the crux of comfort IS
With love His compassion bestows
To midnight’s loneliness, a rose

Then pray that nobody forgets
The Bloom that here and now begets
Where, who knows when, its Echo blows
Across the tomb of Midnight’s Rose

© Janet Martin



Friday, August 4, 2017

Simple-Soul Sonata

A glimpse at simple gladness that fill busy everyday with awesome wonder!






How lovely are life’s simple things
Its treasure spills from earthy troves
And grants its wealth to toiling kings
In butterfly and flower groves

How precious are life’s simple gifts
The clink of coin can never buy
The lilt of lark, the dark that shifts
The glory of a sunset sky

How priceless are life’s simple joys
They come in common shape and size
Of laughing, learning girls and boys
Of book-tea-shade-tree paradise

The scent as summer rain splats dust
The love of family and friend
Heart-hearths kindled with hope and trust
As fond farewells and hellos blend

A window warmed with flower-jars
An hour here or there, care free
To stroll a knoll of wild-bloom stars
Or loll beneath noon’s blue-sky sea

A poem penned by ink or spree
Of humble tumble-weed, a fence-
line fit for finest royalty
Festooned in nature's innocence
  
How fully fair life’s simple Best
A puddle full of golden sun
And for the one who knows God, rest
And heaven when this life is done

© Janet Martin

 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
Psalm 145:9

Thursday, August 3, 2017

My Prayer-book





My prayer book is the Bible, oh,
A rose, or wind-tossed trees
My prayer book is the trial’s blow
Sent to bend stubborn knees

My prayer book is a daughter, far
away or at my side
A son grown taller than his father
Rife with dreamer's pride

My prayer book is my mother, ah
For oft her head was bowed
As she surrendered to the law
Of what God's love allowed

My prayer book is the Vast Unknown
It teaches me to trust
While laughter, longing, grin and groan
Tunes its Cardinal Must

My prayer book is a baby-child
Innocence watching me
My prayer book is ‘maybes’ run wild
That thwart what I can see

My prayer book is the love I hold
The love I wish I had
The love that jars me with its gold
And weights me with its lead

My prayer book is the dark of night
Silence can wail with fear
My prayer book is the Morning Light
Kind proof that God is near

My prayer book is soft, whisper-bound
A Tome of death and birth
While thought turns pages without sound
God moves heaven and earth

© Janet Martin


May This Day...





May this day be like a highway
Leading to the sick and poor
Rather than a feckless my-way
Filled with lust for more and more

May this day be like a garden
Where we tend the tender root
Before harvest proves the hidden
Bent with visage of full fruit

May this day be like a chapel
Wall of wind and roof of sky
May we be a humble people
Singing songs to God on high

May this day be like a window
Facing north, south, east and west
Framing, in the wake of it, oh
By the grace of God, our best

May this day be like a front line
Where we war for Heaven’s gain
Knowing, though sight veils sweet Zion
Our fight is not in vain

May this day be like an altar
Where we burn idols of stone
As we make the heart a Psalter
Of worship to God alone

© Janet Martin