Of Fallen Leaves

I should be cleaning, I said to Victoria.

‘Nah, cleaning’s over-rated’ was her quick reply…

(maybe, but that's only if your house is already quite clean!)

However, the poem-wind blows keenest through Autumn Leaves

I should be working

But the woods

Are filled with jazzy overtures

And on the air

An aura broods

Of lullaby where leaf-note blurs

Into an under-

Tow of tunes

Anointing dust of days gone by

Where silence thunders

With a boon

Of echoes holding up the sky

…where soon a killer

Frost will strip

The softness from the touch of Her

And soon the Miller’s

Smile will tip

The b-b-bin that b-b-b-brings the b-b-blue-lipped B-r-r-r!

And all the Should

Cannot return

An afternoon of autumn sheaves

Where you and I

(Much Younger then)

Wander a world of fallen leaves

© Janet Martin

Not At The Mercy of Moods

Life's 'Stuff' can crush with emptiness

We all need More than we can see

We all need God to guard our thought

From dungeons of depravity

Yesterday in Judy's latest post entitled Leaks

 I laughed out loud as I read this; Don't 'Should' on yourself!

Thought can make us do that all the time! huh?

This morning Thought threatened to throw its Thrall over 

All There Is To Be Thankful For...

So, in case of despair

I fled to the Throne-room of Prayer!

Moods make us brood while woods and hills spill elemental art

Fond dreams, for all their fuel cannot fill Want’s gaping void

Seasons, like snowflakes fall and melt in pictures to the heart

Kindling a tender duel twixt love torn and over-joyed

We all need God; thought turns on us like storms on listing ships

It leads into temptations to wallow in doubt and fear

Its woulda-shoulda-coulda steals the laughter from our lips

A monster’s roar beneath placid facade of skin, my dear

How quick thought is to deviate from pious Best Intent

Adept Inventor of wars waged twixt Hope and deep despair

Where no one is immune to shrewd impulses Mortal Bent

And none but God can meets us in the Grand Throne Room of prayer

Life’s burdens would be like a millstone hung about the neck

Where Emptiness can drown the Downcast in its plumb-less pit  

We all need God to keep Thought’s Very Wily Will in check

We all need God; So Love can keep Thought’s Fragile Beacon lit

© Janet Martin

Search me, O God, and know my heart; 

Try me and know my anxious thoughts;

  Psalm 139:23

More Than Word-Play

You can’t control the talents He gives you, no doubt about that. 

But you can control the effort you put forth with those talents.”

 - Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw

“I didn’t do anything to deserve this gift,” Kershaw recently told FCA Magazine.

 “God gave me an ability to throw a baseball. 

He chose me for a reason, and I want to honor Him with that. 

You can’t control the talents He gives you, no doubt about that. 

But you can control the effort you put forth with those talents.”

'hopefully', (I often remind myself)
'our 'say' is more than word-play!'

What are we doing with what God gave us?
A month ago at a family celebration for our parent's 55th wedding anniversay
my niece Keturah sang the above song in a beautiful, pure
God's gift-to-her voice!

 No matter what let's honor God with the gifts He gave us!
Let's not be strangled by the dangling noose of comparison!
There is only one you or me!
Let's be the best version we can be.

The crepuscule of onyx tulle pulls back its ether door

And rains across our gain and loss the albatross of More

As have-and-hold of gray and gold unfolds what none can see

The fabric of its live-laugh-love, glove of mortality

Time’s joy-and-sorrow, beg-and-borrow-morrow-turned-today

Entrusts to us the Must that teaches dust-to-dust to pray

Where full extent of man’s lament, hard bent with Mercy’s ‘nope’

Cannot out-blot, no matter what, the God of Living Hope

The knife of life carves from silk scarves of morn, rock-solid cast

No one can woo a re-do from the avenue of Past

Where streams of dreams and schemes that overflow thought’s slipp’ry banks

Are not worth much until touch yields its clutch to humble thanks

Today is more than word-play; ‘say’ is nothing without ‘do’

The shuttle of rebuttal does not cuddle/coddle me or you

The matrix of kicks, sticks and stones and pricks of thorn-nicked woes

Lest we forget, is ever yet, the stem that holds the rose

© Janet Martin

 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, 

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 

giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Col.3:17