Glad! ...and Happy Thanksgiving, Canada

I’m glad we live where children laugh up to the big blue sky

Where love is served in supper soup and autumn pumpkin pie

I’m thankful to forefathers who through faith in God endured

With blood-sweat-tears for future years this land their grit secured

I’m glad for moms and dads who did not quit when love was hard

For freedom to stroll down the street or sit in the back yard

For luxury of ‘what’s for lunch?’, ‘what shall we do today?’

For ramble-amble gambols beneath sky-heath blue and gray

I’m glad for harvest, home, for poems, picnics, company

A table spread for dinner or a quiet cup of tea

For noise of carefree boys, for girly-girls, for work well done

For family to scold and hold and miss when they are gone

I’m glad we live where worship to God is not outlawed (yet)

(Though He is greater than the hate that ignorance begets

And he is faithful to the humble, never border bound

Where prayer can move a mountain to the sea without a sound)

I’m glad for gardens, summer sealed in jars for winter’s lunch

For puddles, cuddles, kite-string muddles where autumn leaves crunch

For teddy bears and messy high-chairs holding morrow’s man

For days gone by to look back on and future full of plan

I’m glad, so glad for you, my love, and glad, so glad for me

Even though we have never met we are all family

I’m glad for Words to gird our hope in a God who is real

His mercy, new each morning buoys the believer’s zeal 

Wherever we may be from where we were, I’m glad for this

Today is always clean, without intention run amiss

I’m glad for zinnias, zephyrs, zeros on a credit-line

Tables for two, when rain forecast is wrong and its sunshine

Oh my, when we begin to count the ‘glads’ of day to day

It behooves us, before all else to bow our heads and pray

Our gratitude to He who helps, loves, keeps our whole life through

I’m glad that we can know where we go He goes too, aren’t you?

© Janet Martin

To Keepers of Home Sweet Home..

"What, no Thanksgiving Bake-Buffet??? but it's tradition"

said Victoria, after my suggestion of 'maybe not this year'

so I baked,

(if only to preserve a little sameness in life's constant change)

She tends the Flame, preserves a touch of sameness where Time’s tide

Is bent on change and the estrangements of its sultan stride

She keeps the kettle on, stirs supper-soup and hums a hymn

Turns on the lights of home sweet home when gloaming shadows dim

She guards the hearth where innocence of childhood days are doffed

Its laughter, sweet upon the lips spirals to echoes soft

As Time goes by she comes to learn how sacred-swift the role

Of discipline and cultivation of body-clothed soul

How small may seem the menial task that fills her résumé

And oft, when asked ‘what do you do?’ she knows not what to say

Strange how the mop-sweep-fold and keep of homespun commonness

Cannot convince the by-stander 'tis earthly heaven-ness

The plant and gather season is a smooth and subtle sweep

Baskets hold fruit and flowers; most of harvest rests heart-deep

She weeps for the full joy of it, oft caped in noise and mess

And treasures the kind measure of love’s humble happiness

She knows that she cannot afford to overlook her charge

Soon, far too soon young heads are turned by the wide world at large

And thus she bows her head, pleads for a Higher Hand to guide

As she tries to preserve a touch of sameness in time’s tide

© Janet Martin

This morning I am so thankful for what a good night's sleep bestows...
invigoration where weariness the night before felt eternal!

Mighty Mite...and Brantley's nine month pics:)

 Brantley is nine months old!

Time has its way with everyone it meets...

My, my how we need to cherish its precious blink of baby girl and boy joy

Photos by his mom, Emily

Meter of moment, how mighty its mite

No one can fight Time and win

Little by little with morning to night

It sets its proof on our skin

I guess the kisses of clock-flung tick-tock

Soon tunes us all to Time’s sport

No matter how fast and furious we walk

None can out-run its cavort

Love makes us thankful and mirth makes us glad

Guilt makes us heavy of heart

Hope makes us happy and fear drives us mad

Mercy metes morning’s fresh start

Take it or leave it, tell me what that means

Tick-tock insists on its due

Nothing can thwart moment-sport; soft it weans

What seemed so stable, from view

Sit at your table and look long and well

Into Time’s hello-shaped Now

Here is a gift we cannot buy or sell

Able to handle each How

Pat-a-cake, wakey-wake, then off to school

Report cards, here comes the bride

Parenthood, God is good, don’t be a fool

Treasure time’s tremulous tide

Meter of moments, regimented flight

Fueling fond memory

Nothing appeases Time’s keen appetite

Easing the leaf from the tree

© Janet Martin

Of Heavenly Fathered Miles...

No matter how wonderful they are our earthly fathers are found wanting.

They are not always near and they don’t always hear when we talk to them,

Nor do they always understand.

Not so with our Heavenly Father.

The miles life lets beneath our feet

May not always be easy-street

Where why and if and but compete

In mouths and hearts and hands

And sometimes in the flight of it

And often lonesome ‘night’ of it

We hunger in the fight of it

For one who understands

…and someone does

He always has

We know because

I AM abides

His Word is sure

It will endure

Nothing can lure

Him from our side

Then in the lowly dirt of it

And aching holy hurt of it

Love will be worth the work of it

Heaven waits to reply

But in the meanest while of This

The often second mile smile-kiss

The Kindest loving Father IS

Our need He will supply

Come unto me

This is His plea

Simply that we

Trust and obey

He never leaves

Never deceives

Blind faith believes

He leads the way

When we can’t spell the why of it

And we well with the cry of it

Still, through the low and high of it

One Thing remains the same

No matter what the liars say

We will meet face to face someday

Our Father, Truth, The Life, the Way

Salvation is His name

Be not afraid

Nor doubt-dismayed

Our Father paid

Sin’s debt we owed

The One who gave

Hope to the grave

Will help us brave

Life’s heartbreak road

Pour out your heart-of-hearts to He
Who came to die for you and me
So that someday, praise Him, we'll be
Forever round His throne
Forevermore no sorrow-tears
No hunger, pain, no morrow-fears
Our Heavenly Father commandeers
This worthy, earthy groan

© Janet Martin

 After this manner therefore pray ye: 
The Lord's Prayer

Our Father which art in heaven, 
Hallowed be thy name.
 Thy kingdom come, 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
 Give us this day our daily bread.
 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil: 
For thine is the kingdom, 
and the power, 
and the glory, 
for ever. 
Amen.

Matt.6:9-13

Butterfly and Flower-Hour Prelude (Serious Enjoyment!)

Yesterday the flower-garden boasted almost as many butterflies as blooms!

This Butterfly and Flower Hour gilds an Awesome Door... 

This Preparation Place traces fresh faces with love-lines

Where we hold near and dear the Here of Mercy-lent designs

Time's grace is interlaced with high and low of hold-let go

For, after all, life’s scrawl is but the Prelude to The Show

This practical, poetical, inevitable poof

Is like a silver sun-glint on a frost-embellished roof

How much we make of much that we cannot take with us when

We slip from this whisper of skin into Forever’s Then

Tomorrow, none can borrow from its sorrow-joy, Today

Is all that we will ever have before it slips away

This is an invitation-to-salvation-day, pray we

With sacred expectation ready for eternity

Death is no cold-hearted surprise; it comes to everyone

But who knows when, save God who grants Heaven when life is done

But not to everyone; then pray before it is too late

We call upon The Name that saves the soul from folly’s fate

Ready or not, time’s tittle-jot will soon falter and fail

Then, (holy, holy Then) faith will Endless Until unveil

And all that love surrendered for the sake of Christ the Lord

And all Self took for granted will receive its just reward

This race is like a chase where grace is all the good we have

This life is like a lineup through, not to death’s earthy grave

This butterfly and flower hour gilds An Awesome Door

It tips The Grail that pours The Prelude to Forevermore

© Janet Martin

  (behold, now is the accepted time; 

behold, now is the day of salvation.)

2 Cor.6:2 KJV