Genesis, Exodus, God

We went from smiling summer-like sunshine to....

b-r-r-r-r-ly, growling gale in a day!

Prelude to a frost-felled world...(these are last years frost-frames) no killer frost here this year...yet!

Womb of the earth gives birth to bud, then bloom

Intricate cradles unfold into flow’r

Steady, beneath leaf-green eddy, sheaf, plume

Heaven Her canopy, wind as Her broom

Earth hosts the belle of the hour

Loom of the earth weaves wonder to behold

Intrinsic shuttle, no rebuttal heeds

Skeins of rich purple, carmine, coral, gold

Tumble to treetops, gardens wild and bold

Miracles mantled in seeds

Tomb of the earth claims life’s cardinal due

(Warriors, genesis-exodus-shod)

Back to the berth where beginning’s accrue

Shimmer of violet, glimmer of blue

Cupped in Her fallow façade

© Janet Martin

Rainy Fall-morn Rumination

Ah, weight of woe and wonder

Thy retribution tests

The heart of hearts with plunder

Of uninvited guests

Where loneliness and laughter

Fashions a nagging knot

From fronds of echoed After

Entwined through present thought

Ah, crux of joy and sorrow

Pain, pleasure juxtaposed

Where hope and hunger war, oh

In battles unexposed

Faith and fear, feuding rivals

Courage and cowardice

Spar in heart-harbored duels

With God as sole witness

Ah, leap of love and longing

Cradle to grave emprise

Where have and hold, my darling

Is letting go’s disguise

Soft, soft summer-dust settles

In harvest bitter-sweet

Like pretty flower-petals

Scattered beneath our feet

Fall takes its leave in leaf-song

Relinquished note by note

It turns the tide of seasons

To lumps lodged in the throat

 Where Ever-after etches

Its essence, gray and gold  

To galleries of sketches

That heart alone can hold

© Janet Martin

When We Pray...

When we approach our gracious Lord

Though boldly, may He see

A heart of penitence out-poured

In meek humility

When we draw near to Holy God

Love’s divine genesis

May our pleas be wholly awed

Because of Who He IS

When we, with fervent hungering

Pour out our heart and soul

May we resign our will to Him

And trust His kind control

When we implore on bended knee

To He, all-glory crowned

May we never forget that we

Are bowed on holy ground

© Janet Martin

A Mother's Heart

 Precious weekend with the whole family passed SO fast!

All that remains is echoes...

There are gaps

When words don’t fit as well as she had planned

Perhaps if you live long enough, my love,

You’ll understand

Then there are words

You’ve heard so often maybe you don’t know

How ‘I love you’ wrings from its sentiment

Her joy and woe

There are tears

The years flow through us quicker now it seems

And she has learned to siphon splendor

From surrendered dreams

There are smiles

The miles we have to go would be too long

Without the beauty of love’s truly

Sentimental song

Then there are times

Sometimes when intention misses the mark

While gaps and words and tears and smiles blurt out

A mother’s heart

© Janet Martin

Not Because We're Crazy, Just Because We're... Getting Older;-)

Before the door

To season spent

Swings open to the new

And pathways hewed

Through spewed unknown

Fills retrospective view

Before the repertoire

Of More pours

Moments into hours

Have you delayed

Duty to dally

And converse with flowers?

…and have you,

For the love of blue,

Lain beneath welkin sweep

Before the door

To season spent

Yields to lorn winds that weep

Across the swell

Where hill and dell

Once green, lies sere and still

Have you taken

The long way home

To roam its poem-sill?

Nothing lasts long;

The song that stirs

The blur of leafy limb

Soon lies beneath

The bough, a wreath

On tombs of bloom-strummed hymn

Time’s easy-going manner,

Like a banner

On the breeze

Wafts, oft without

Much notice over

Almost memories

Before the door

To o’er and done

Turns into season spent

Before we pause

To wonder how

And where it came and went

Have you, have I

Have we without excuses

Crooned our thanks

While chatting with

Tired roses strewn

On high noon’s river-banks

© Janet Martin