As Long As Life Remains

PAD Challenge day 3: For today's prompt, take the phrase "As (blank)," 

replace the blank with a new word phrase, 

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

(Playing with these prompts as time allows!)

Oh there's another title for this prompts haha! '

As Time Allows

Young at Heart Frank Sinatra

As long as life is granted, pray

That I/we may learn the art

(Though nothing keeps the years at bay)

Of staying young at heart

Then though the seasons take their toll

Beneath their staid finesse

May I/we retain in heart and soul

A youthful loveliness

Where as the winds of change persist

To weather wizened limb

Beneath the tresses, silver-kissed

May Youth’s sparkle yet brim

Like a gnarled tree laden with fruits

Of pure and humble truth

May Beauty’s finest attributes

Inspire green of youth

Each season is a work of art

Like links in daisy-chains

To keep us ever young at heart

As long as life remains

© Janet Martin

Love Does Not Promise Easy Street...

 

Love does not promise Easy Street

Or lap of luxuries

But pulls plans from beneath our feet

To bring us to our knees

Love, though a many-splendored thing

Kindling desire’s sighs

Soon startles dreamers with the sting

Of ashes in our eyes

Love hones hearts to humility

With others first in mind

In the face of hostility

Love is patient and kind

No matter what thrills and delights

It will not be enough

Until we set our keenest sights

On learning how to love

The lifelong scholarship of love

Would drain all grin and grit

But for the faultless Promise of

The One who authored it

By loving grace and discipline

He helps us all life through

To wear the shoes that we are in

With purpose, glad and true

  

Then, when the gold of love runs blue

And snuffs the wishing star

Love is not something that we do

But something that we are

  

© Janet Martin

Col.3:14-15

And above all these put on love, 

which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 

 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, 

to which indeed you were called in one body. 

And be thankful.

Autumnal Eventide Aria

Twice (yesterday and today) this post wanted to be a morning poem

but by the time it was complete it is an autumn eventide poem/aria...

Enjoy! and forgive the 'stumbles'... 

Time’s trodden track of centuries bestows beneath our feet

Unbroken sod, uncharted seas, where man and morning meet...

Time’s trodden track of centuries bestows beneath our feet

Unbroken sod, uncharted seas, where man and morning meet

Life’s best and worst is blessed and cursed with universal need

Where pilgrims of hunger and thirst once more, by grace, proceed

Earth dons a burnished afterglow as woodland lamplight dims

As leaves, like freshly-fallen snow, lie silent ‘neath stark limbs

As day starts to unravel breath by breath its lathe unfurls

Thoroughfares left to travel, riddled with potholes and pearls

Life’s murmur of existence shimmers like a sun-tossed leaf

No measure of resistance can thwart Time’s four-season Chief

Where this day that the Lord has made, none can take credit for

Or blush beneath the accolades as dawn swings back its door

How reckless to suppose this speck of Being that we brave

Is nothing but a feckless trek from cradle to the grave

How reassuring to be held in love that knows no bounds

As centuries and seasons meld His changeless Word resounds

Time’s trodden track of centuries hinges to now and here

Where, like the banner of a breeze our footfalls disappear

Into autumnal eventide; a wafted wisp that weaves

Impressions of a countryside asleep beneath the leaves

© Janet Martin

Life’s murmur of existence shimmers like a sun-tossed leaf...

Into autumnal eventide; a wafted wisp that weaves

Impressions of a countryside asleep beneath the leaves...

For Fence-Crowders

I'm trying to keep 'my eye on the furrow 

and my hand on the plow'

but wow, not an easy task 

while poem-breakers surge 

 where leaf ballerinas twirl 

and wanna-be-ballads waltz !

Sometimes duty feels like a fence

Where obligation bars

The gate between toil's diligence

And pastures full of stars

Sometimes responsibility

And ballad-bearers clash

As seasons throb with poetry

Where hands of time are brash

But in a world so full of ways

To amaze and enthrall

It is enough to sing the praise

Of He who authors all

And should a breath or two perchance

Be wrangled into word

Pray it will stir the heart to dance

In worship to our Lord

Then, though duty does not resign

Where obligation bars

The gate, may thankfulness outshine

Yon pasture full of stars

Because the One so full of love

Where hope and mercy brim

Will overflow joy's treasure-trove

With the wonder of Him

© Janet Martin

Isa.25:1

O LORD, You are my God. I will exalt You,

 I will praise Your name,

 For You have done wonderful things;

 Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

How Great Thou Art

From Rent Reservoirs

Beauty and duty distractions kept me from my keyboard this morning...

but not from worship!

Surely the hour is an altar awaiting our sacrifice of praise!

Not difficult on a morning like today!

(I linked to the word brigantine in the poem

because grand-sonny wondered why grandma was looking at boat pictures)😊

He arrived while I was working on the first stanza

which is why my morning poem became an afternoon poem

...with a message that is wonder-full any time of day or night!

Once again, like yesterday, the sunrise was like listening to an orchestra...

From mercy’s boundless reservoir new morning meets its mark

On daybreak’s brigantine once more passengers reembark

Who knows what waits where welkin gates are grandly flung ajar

Where, only when time’s tide abates will we have won faith’s war

Heavens unfold the glory of love’s kind mercy renewed

Where we behold but fringes of unfathomed magnitude

Praise He who cups earth’s marbled globe in absolute control

And as we touch the hemline of His robe, He makes us whole

The train of the king’s glory fills the temple of the earth

Then tell the old, old, story of the Saviour’s lowly birth

Of how he left Perfection mankind’s sin-debt to atone

How, with His resurrection death and hell were overthrown

…and how all who believe in Him receive the gift of grace

Eternal life; no sentence grim when death’s dark door we face

Then come what may, where mercy’s kind compassion is renewed

We face the day with peace of mind and humble gratitude

...for He who rends dark yonder with a glimpse of Majesty

Where hearts thunder with wonder at whispers of 'let there be'

As mercy breaks the bower of the bud with crimson rose

And from a reservoir of love, God's goodness overflows

© Janet Martin

After the sun rose it disappeared for a little while...

...only to reappear with a sky-wide smile!

Sorry for so many pics 

but trying to pick only a handful out of a couple hundred wow-some photos

is no small joy-task!

Psalms 50:2 - 

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, 

God hath shined.

Word 'Count

PAD Challenge day 2: Two-for-Tuesday challenge...

Write a ready poem, and/or...

Write a not ready poem.

the words we use 

to think 

and write 

and speak

should always be

seasoned

with discipline

and grace

kindness 

and honesty

it seems the tongue 

has quite a gift

for swift, 

ready reply

So pray the words 

we choose 

to use

will aid

and edify

So when we bow

 before 

the One

who taught

 us how to live

we will 

be ready

by God's grace

a word-account

to give

© Janet Martin

Matt.12:36

But I say to you 

that for every idle word 

men may speak, 

they will give account of it 

in the day of judgment.

Just Between You and Me...

I wasn't going to do this November's PAD challenge but just too tempting!

So many great prompts to lure me out of my writing ruts...

PAD Challenge day 1:

 For today’s prompt, write a correspondence poem.

I lack poetic confidence 

Just between you and me

These days a phrase with prominence  

Passes as poetry

 To write with utter disregard

For what was once the rule

Confuses this out-dated bard

Who is still quite 'old-school'

What authenticates poetry

These days, quite mystifies

In fact, it is not clear to me

If rhyme still qualifies

I want for poetry that steals

The earth beneath my feet

To make me fall head over heels

In love, when first we meet 

These days ink puts on quite a show

Just between you and me

I lack the confidence to know

What is still poetry

© Janet Martin

P.s. maybe I'm just envious of the poets who have mastered free verse

but either way, I enjoy this quote below...

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. ~Robert Frost

Monumental Metamorphosis...

 

I'm photographing this tree prolifically right now

because I know I could wake up any morning to see it barren in one fell swoop...

Summer will always relinquish its roses

Each season precious because

Soon we look back on the scenes it composes

With,

‘Wasn’t it good while it was?’

Nothing can deter the blur of time’s tincture

Constant metamorphosis

Reminding us not to rush through Now’s picture

But

Cherish with kindness, what is

Summer will always precede autumn’s echoes

Winter will yield to spring’s breeze

Darling, right now we are forging mementos

From

Moments that make memories

Summer will always relinquish its flowers

But there is no cause for gloom

Behold the buds dangling from yonder bowers

Where

Joy is a four-season bloom

Let’s love as if this was our farewell chiseled

On marble headstones because

All we have left when life’s flower has fizzled

Is,

‘Wasn’t it good while it was?’

© Janet Martin

Psalm 23:6

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: 

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."