May Brook

May brook! Spring’s fling of silver hymns

Before warmer days drain your sash   

Beneath bud-heady, leafless limbs

You sparkle, tumble, lilt and splash

May brook, you honor meadow’s nook

With nature’s purest melody

You need no sheet-music or book

To learn or hone your harmony

May brook, you soothe and satisfy

The soul of all who linger near

To benefit from your reply

Should we confide in you a tear

May brook, between banks grassy-green

You ramble, ripple, swirl and sing

You turn each girl into a queen

And each fellow into a king

May brook, an orchestra of stars

Slips smooth across moss-muted stones

Beneath heaven’s riveting bars

Reflected in your undertones

© Janet Martin

Taking/Making Time For God's Poetry

this time of year a sunny, country laundry day

that doesn't smell farm-fresh/ aka manure😊

is a treat to be enjoyed!

 some of this laundry is re-laundered from some days ago because

we didn't feel like smelling farm-fresh AFTER a shower😀

also, if ever there was a time

when cleaning seems less urgent

it's in these days of stay-home-social-distancing!

So, I really couldn't come up with a good reason not

to enjoy at leisure, the great outdoors for a while!
Pure delight!

(if I did dare to point out any flaws/flies in the pudding

they would would be white, fluffy and frosty

 creating the need for warm boots, mittens and parka...in MAY!

yes, it is a bit of a chilled thrill today...

Let’s bend unwritten rules

About workaday week

Time unravels a sky-high spool

 Even now, as we speak (or read)

The theater of earth

Is primed with em’rald bliss

Nature is a showcase of birth

To wonder-full to miss

Let’s change the way we are

Into a gentler poem

Let’s duck beneath Duty’s high-bar

And take the green way home

Let’s pause beside the brook

That chortles to the sea

And take a longer, ling’ring look

At God-breathed poetry

Let’s take at most, some tea (or coffee:)

And leave the clock behind

While studying the scenery

That authors peace of mind

What if, when looking back

To view Past’s soldered sums

We didn’t ever stop to snack

On Heaven’s cookie-crumbs

What if all that Thought sees

When mortal bark is shored

Is forfeited epiphanies

On wonder’s smorgasbord

Ah, who could bear to view

Such life-consuming loss

Because all we were faithful to

Was workload’s albatross

So before ties that bind

Us 'neath the sullen sod

Let’s purpose ev’ry day to find

The poetry of God

Let's keep wants simple, hon
And trust implicitly
He who knows it takes rain (or snow) and sun
For perfect poetry

© Janet Martin

Door-Weighs

Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.

Psalm 141:3

this devotion from the other day...

This poem was embarrassingly easy to write😐

Ah, there is a door that opens and spills invisible ink

It reveals forums within us in the framework of a wink

Where the things that we keep hidden (by the grace of God) unheard

Can expose a world unbidden in the quick slip of a word

When Self seeks the throne of glory rather than humility

One small word can tell a story quite uncomplimentary

So if each day we would be prepared, before feet hit the floor

We ought to pray that God would set a watch upon That Door

…that he would let us weigh the motive when ‘word’ wants to spout

And help us hold back quick reaction love can live without

For the weight of our opinion before it is fit to share

Should be measured, poured and sifted through the filter of meek prayer

© Janet Martin

Whether-bound...

 As we try to plan

the way man is prone to do

we are realizing

in these unprecedented times

how uncertain the temporal is!
We don't know whether
 things will ever be what we considered 'normal' again...

We are (hopefully) reevaluating our loves and lives

with a more sober reckoning

Jer.17: 7-10

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,^b
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Whether wearing wide-eyed wonder

Whether tethered to the plow

As the stead of seasons thunders

Through the ever-bearing Now

Whether the weather is glorious

Or it roars like a wild bull

We find so much waiting for us

When we live to be thankful

In love’s heart-knocks we encounter

In the hooray or oh-no

It does not change Mercy’s author

Or the grace whereby we go

Then, whether moaning or merry

Whether grin-giddy or grim

We will find it secondary

When we live to worship Him

Whether tranquil or white-knuckled

As we face the Great Unknown

Whether anxious or untroubled

Footloose or worked to the bone

In the quick of joy or sorrow

In the thick of pray and fight

We will find hope for tomorrow

When we live by faith, not sight

© Janet Martin

Bottomless Possibility

Wisp of feathered cloud-frond, a quill
For blue sky full of ink

I wonder what words wait to spill

What heaven-poets think

Will it paint scenes of paradise

Blue-bonnet dappled field

Or gorgeous out-pouring of skies

As night’s black borders yield

Or will it run our fingers through

A labyrinth of stars

To wonder at the avenue

Of Jupiter and Mars

Perhaps a sweet and tender hymn

Of joyful gratitude

As May-minstrels soft strum the limb

With springs green-song renewed

Or will it tease the sense of smell

With blossom-heady lane

Or pungent lure of fresh-turned fell

And earth, after the rain

 

© Janet Martin