Monday Morning Mantra (for a week not met yet)

 This poem started in my head in the night 

when troubles I face and might face 

took my eyes off grace...

 

 "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. 

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Matt.26:41

Better to pray than fret

Worry is worthless, dear

For steps and miles not taken yet

Better to trust than fear

Better to yield the weight

Of ‘what if’ to the One

Who flings ajar night’s starry gate

And ushers in the sun

Better to touch the hem

Of He who knows our need

Better to hold His hand, my friend

And let Him take the lead 

Better to bear the sweep

Of seasons by God's grace

Better to count blessings, not sheep

 Or troubles we might face

Better to bow the head

And sense Him in each breath

Better to break a crust of bread

Than gorge on feasts of death

Better to bear life's cares

Than to be vainly thrilled

Better bent knees than easy chairs

And selfish plans fulfilled

Better to breathe a prayer

Better to search His word

And cling to better comfort where

Love’s law is undeterred

© Janet Martin

Jealousy Allowed;-)

PAD Challenge day 7: For today’s prompt, write a jealous poem.
Maybe you’re jealous.
Or maybe someone else is jealous of you–or someone else.

'I'm jealous', whispered my friend
as she smiled
and squeezed my hand

while I beamed
like only
new Grandmothers can

Janet Martin~

Whisper a Picture...

 Above, proud auntie holding 'precious moments'

Cherish mere moments lest life disappears

Sealed in an ocean of soft-surging years

Siphon a stanza from time’s teeming laws

Salvage an anthem from Past’s gaping jaws

Precious, oh precious time’s most treasured gems

Measured in moments that become… poems

Whisper a picture in tincture of ink

Nature in limbo while poised on spring’s brink

Shimmer of mist flung o’er meadows at dawn

Grandpa’s firm handshake or wee babe’s big yawn

Flickers of shadow and light where July

Tickles the willow-wick tickling the sky

Tremor of moonlight on shimmer of sea

Murmur of midnight-rain pelting the lea

My, but a moment seems swift as a sigh

Yet, tempo of tick-tock can swallow the sky

So, borrow the Time to rhyme life’s common days

Into a token of worship and praise

Not over-looking the moment we hold

But humbly tasting its apple of gold

Cherishing moments lest life disappears

Into the current of days turned to years

© Janet Martin

After Forgiveness...

  PAD challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

 

After the bold, bare facts of love have etched their indelible knell

Like landmarks on a glove that pulses with worlds too complex to spell

After the cold, hard truth smacks us in faces once brave with fool’s scorn

After the heart has weathered being stretched, crushed, broken, hunger-torn

We learn to live, to love and give instead of scheming how to get

The aftertaste of wonder lingers; hope soft-mingled with regret

After we reach much higher than the ways that naked eye can see

After Forgiveness, God’s grace hones from bones of pride, humility

© Janet Martin

After All

PAD Challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. 

 

Sometimes I laugh, because after many interruptions the poem that began 

veers off course as I've forgotten where I was going with it.

so I try to gather the fray into some semblance of sense...

Sometimes 'somedays' that never will be

Must fill a line in poetry...

God, help the 'somedays' that remain

Never be a gift, granted in vain 

Sometimes it's good to count the things we did do, 

 ...not just the things we were going to and didn't!

After the days that turn to years

Where dusk by dusk, time disappears

To softly seal surrendered strains

In common cloth of what remains

Where Intention renews its vows

Of ‘Someday soon’, but then the Nows

Somehow prevail to strew the air

With shock-waves of moments there were

...to fill our stare with meek surprise

As we begin to realize

The deftness of dawn’s pirouette

Soon etched in onyx silhouette

…of moments met and tended to

Where words like 'yet still beg and woo

While weight of whispers chisels scars

Into the walls that cup dream-stars

And after our swarthy vow

To trick the touch of Time somehow

We learn, while growing old and small

We can’t out-fox time after all

...but make the most of moments lent
That soon play host to moments spent
And days that deftly drain a year 
 With nothing but the Now and Here

© Janet Martin

After-path

PAD Challenge day 6: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “After (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. 

We, armed with tools of mortal trade

Stand on a footing that was laid

By people who pass through Time’s hall

Like mighty waves that rise and fall

Always followed by those behind

…thus, wise the one who keeps in mind

The successor to morrow’s world

And mentors well the boy and girl

Waiting to fill the shoes of we

Who will have passed to history

Save for the footing that we laid

For future-students of Time’s trade

Who, new to olden aftermath

Curb stars through which to carve a path

Where still unchanged through centuries

A child is trained by what it sees

© Janet Martin

A verse that is never out-dated!

 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Prov.22:6