Before Twilight Closes In

Light of day strikes snow-white cymbals

Lyricist of hill and dell

Spills inkwells of blush-bronze-purple

From a gold and coral bell

Thrums in hollows, hums o’er fallow

Strums the silver-frosted frond

Minstrel of brook’s shimm’ring shallow

Glides across ice-embossed pond

Sprinkles diamonds on the woodlot

Twinkles on the window pane

Sparkles in a quiet riot

On a star-embellished lane

Tweaks the chin of downcast dancers

Up, look up, The Maestro cries

Lest in vain we long for answers

While hope’s angel-throng replies

Kissing common curves with tincture

From a grace-anointed touch

Hinting at a bigger picture

Than the font of such-and-such

Teasing us with tender torment

Easing us from dance to dance

Teaching us to treasure moments

Before seasons still their stance

Shaping Time Enough to echoes

Live-laugh-love, the poets charge

While we grasp at hold and let go

Dripping from a quill at large

Quick, slow-down, stop, run, don’t dawdle

Tick-tock mocks the clock-ish sky

Soon soft shroud of dusk will swaddle

Morning’s ‘thus’ in lullaby

‘This is us’ what a love-language

You and I, together ‘we’

Darling, let’s not take for granted

Life’s free, finest luxury

Morning climbs above yon bowers

Like school-girls, we scale its grin

Searching frosted fields for flowers

Before twilight’s closes in

© Janet Martin

Reality Check...Immortality's Beck and Call

Psalm 9:10
And those who know Your name will put their trust in You,
For You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.

Sometimes thought’s eager feet get stuck

In murky streets of mud and muck

And we need more than mere ‘good luck’

To get from here to there

Boast bows to taste the beggar’s crust

Death wows defenselessness of dust

Time flowers with need for more trust

Hearts bleed, greedy for prayer

The hand that lights dawn’s awesome wick

And cuts the dark night to the quick

Does not forsake us when the slick

Of hardship hobbles plans

Where this communal cup we drink

Of days dark gray, glazed with bright pink

Is spiked with reminders to think

Of more than wine and dance

For Mortal is straked with a toll

That wakes awareness of a soul

And makes us think about a goal

Beyond this hole-pocked spree

Of give and take and compromise

Where laughing lips and dream-starred eyes

Hold hands that strip us down to size

…soul’s immortality

© Janet Martin

Unfathomable Transcendence

Then, in God’s mercies take thine ease

When miseries conspire

He triumphs over agonies

That fear and heartache sire

Conflict veiled in Unknown, resign

Its weight no one can bear

Take comfort in mercy divine

God hears each stuttered prayer

No other power here on earth

Such precious peace can lend

God, who has known us before birth

Each trial will transcend

So then, with humble heart and mind

Let Trust our hope secure

When day is dark and faith is blind

God’s promises assure

For it is not in life’s hooray

That man is prone to plead

We bow our heads to pray and pray

When overcome with need

© Janet Martin

 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Phil.4:6-7

From my sister-in-law this morning who was suddenly hospitalized the other night...
Last night so different from the night before. So quite. The Dr came in to see me at midnight and explained some things. The Dr from London let them know that it is a reaction that I had to blood thinner pills that I am on. So I will not be taking them again until I go back to the team of specialists in London. The leg is looking and feeling so much better. The bruising is almost gone. Before I left London the same nurse was in to see me who spent the night before with me. She said wow your leg looks so different. She said so black and anger the night before and today just a bruise. The pain is so different too. Now it just sore from the swelling. Haven't taken any pain pills since they gave me that wonderful clotting meds. Running a few more tests today or tomorrow. He didn't say when I'd be discharged... he said Dr this morning should know better.
Thanks for all the prayers thru this scary situation.

Don't Trip On The Roses...

Sometimes on a week like this it would be easy to trip over the 'roses'.

My brother-in-law Les was in hospital one night. He has a terrible flu or something. They sent him home for the weekend, hoping his double vision will clear.

Hubby Jim ( after a few tests) was told he has a tumor in his bladder. 

He is booked for surgery on Feb. 16.

Sister-in-law Karen (my brother Dave's wife) was rushed to London Hospital from the small local hospital after her blood-test results alarmed the Doctors...

Last night my nephew Anthony (Mike and Marlene's son) broke his collar-bone

Don’t take it for granted

Each day is enchanted

With mercies kind-planted

Where trials intrude

Day breaks bronze and yellow

Grace drips from yon cello

Equipping time’s hello

With man’s hope renewed

Don’t trip on the ‘roses’

Though thorn-tree imposes

The Father who chose us

Abides, age to age

His ways are higher

Than Thought’s haze and mire

Oh, don’t miss the choir

Because of the stage

Ah, someday in heaven

For those saved, forgiven

All hurt will be driven

From its Endless Day

No tear-shaped surprises

No trouble that tries us

No why-Lord disguises

As earth falls away

© Janet Martin

Faith-forge

 God sends enough yeses to defend guesses 

and enough no's to keep us on our toes/knees

How Eve-like we are; desiring to be as wise as God

How Adam-like we are; enticed by the lust of our eyes 

Sometimes we can't remember how we got through 'it' but God does

God tickles our scope of vision with glimpses of Him

All those 'important' things we think we will ask someday

 will be answered with one face-to-face look at His scars and His glory

The older we get the more learn 

about what we thought we knew

Easy to say 'surrender'

But far, far harder to do

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

And lean not on your own understanding.

Prov.3:5

What kind of winter is this?! said a little girl,

vexed at the disappearing snow...

What kind of 'winter' is this?! we say sometimes,

vexed at our disappearing comfort-zones...

Sometimes our hearts and hands are wrung and wrung with constant care

And prayers and pleas of seed-sized faith are flung to the blue air

The groundwork for grand miracles often evades our eyes

As God works in mysterious ways we do not recognize

He gathers up our trembling cries and cups us in His Hands

Goodness and mercy’s shape and size man oft misunderstands

For God knows how the heart is prone to worship wood-stone fluff

And confidence man puts in man is simply not enough

His ways of drawing strays to Him sometimes seems harsh and hard

But He, so wise, faithful and kind is always on our guard

And like a tender Shepherd He searches through dark and cold

To find the sheep that wandered from the safety of the fold

Earth’s common paradises offer a most fragile peace

Where everything we hold is everything we must release

Foolish to fix our faith on foundations that melt like snow

Better to trust the Hand that never, ever lets us go

© Janet Martin