Common Bond-age

We all have a cuppa sorrow

Harbour hungers, hurts and fears

No one knows what waits tomorrow

To arouse laughter or tears

We all feel that vexing yearning

Complex to articulate

We are all still always learning

Learn to listen, learn to wait

We all hold a world within us

From whence hopes and dreams beseech

While the flail of seasons winnows

Times and places from our reach

We all sense the verge of progress

That is out of our control

But we also all have access

To the Keeper of the soul

…who sees wounds and longs to bind them

In whose presence abides peace

Pray then that we seek and find Him

Before grace withdraws its lease

We all have a cuppa sorrow

Battlegrounds no one can see

Save the One who holds tomorrow

With Supreme Authority

Not one of us is forgotten

God so loved the world that he

Gave His Son, Jesus begotten

To redeem humanity

So, though life is full of hurtles

And the sufferings of dust

We all instilled with Immortal

Have a God that we can trust

© Janet Martin

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 

and I will give you rest.

Matt.11:28

I Heard My First Cricket of Summer Today...

 Cricket-stages waiting to be filled with invisible minstrels...

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me a little sad

For these are the minstrels that chirp-chirp away

The beautiful summer we had

I heard the first cricket of summer today

It tugged at my heart with its call

Knowing its rhythmic backdrop will play

Until the frost-chill of the fall

I heard my first cricket of summer today

Plaintive soloist, but not long

For soon a whole hidden cricket choir will play

August and September’s earth-song

Aha, close your eyes; can't you feel the skies lower

Balladeer rousing both teardrop and grin 

 Drawing its bow over heart-strings and clover

Velvet vibrato from a black violin

I heard my first cricket of summer today

And it made me both sad and glad

To know that the crickets did not lose their way

And will play till ‘the summer we had’

© Janet Martin

To Incognito Athletes...

 My cousin Wayne, (mentioned here) 46 years old and bed/chair ridden 

because of MS and the loss of part of a leg in a farm accident,

 is one of the most valiant 'athletes'

I have ever met!

Also, another one of my faithful readers
is suffering immensely because of a fall 6 weeks ago and now some added complications!
She was admitted to the hospital last night and is feel physically and emotionally at her limit!
Will you pray for Jan R., for healing, strength and encouragement?

Will you pray that they (and we) may be faithful

in the fight to the finish! 

Because no one can predict who will cross the finish line first!!!

Philippians 3:14
I press on toward the goal to win the prize 

of God's heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.

Failure and success are like competitors in a race

And it is hard to tell sometimes which side the favor lies

We tend to measure success by position or by pace

But the One at the finish line sees beneath its disguise

I’ve seen a shadow of a man put ‘better men’ to shame

Humility is something that collects no accolades

But rather gives full credit to a Greater Worthy Name

Knowing our time on earth is like a bloom that quickly fades

I’ve watched one bedridden yet beating ‘great athletes’ by smiles

Surrender is a hard fought thing until we fully yield

And it is not always the one who boasts the most in miles

But he who knows that soon the inner man will be revealed

 

Failure and success are not always what they may appear

The road we see runs through a veil that ends the wend of Time

Beyond the slope where hope vies with the sigh of now and here

To the Reward after the race and its arduous climb

Not all who run will win a Prize; then pray and pray and pray

Lest we become distracted by the way faith’s rivals run

And test the spirit lest by decoys we are drawn away

And miss the most beautiful prize of these two words ‘well done’

© Janet Martin

...and then today's devotion fit right in to the topic!! 

Ode to July

 Canadian July leaves little to complain about 

except maybe sometimes it's too quick!

Mist-mellow ambience, yellow and blue

Aura of romance amidst much to do

Ditch-garden-meadow a billow of bloom

Sun-shadow willow-harps serenade noon

Something ‘bout July evokes surf-like roars

Rushing, receding across heart-cupped shores

Sense of sabbatical sweetens tick-tock

Lavishes looking with pink hollyhock

Tunes untamed tempos with flower-full fronds

Tickles the wheat field from sea-green to bronze

Something ‘bout July rouses with each morn

Joy for life’s roses in spite of the thorn

See how the countryside spills grand tableaus

See how the Artist awes us with His prose

See, nature’s nuances never grow old

Sparking and soothing the sigh of the soul

Something ‘bout July feels like heaven’s poem

Something ‘bout July feels like coming home

Hello, Queen Ann, your lace-looms whir on queue

Chicory-fringe, we’ve come to expect you

Hello, white chamomile, how do you grow

Heaped along roadsides like summery snow

Something ‘bout July makes gladness complete

Clap of the screen door and slap of bare feet

Sunflowers flower before the bud breaks

Bachelor buttons spill little blue lakes

Salvia-fountain is ready to burst

Hummingbird hovers to quench nectar thirst

Something ‘bout July bids us to behold

That which is filling morrow’s echo-mold

Loveliness leaps like a hymn from earth’s heart

Happiness laughs; what is man to bear part

Of such a melody Mercy composed

Glimpses of Gloryland still unexposed

Something ‘bout July beckons yet fulfills

Making each day a succession of thrills

© Janet Martin

To blog-readers only.
I don't share all my poetry on Facebook but I did link this one to FB
with this remark.
 Why?!!why-why-why?!!! asks my better half when he asked what I'm writing about...
and I'm not sure what to say other than because it just has to be...