November-Frames

Stark silhouettes etched on backdrops of hasting dusk and tardy dawn...

 Joy-grief relief of gardens shucked, and turned and tucked beneath the sky...

(next year my make-shift grape-arbor needs a serious upgrade!!)😅

Still, stubbled sweeps of harvests reaped and gathered into bins and barns...

The morning-tide, a soundless sea that bathes the still-life lea with bronze...

Stark silhouettes etched on backdrops of hasting dusk and tardy dawn

Joy-grief relief of gardens shucked, and turned and tucked beneath the sky

The heart, a little like a cart by steads of fondest farewells drawn

The wind, a brisk custodian that whisks the brittle leaves awry

Still, stubbled sweeps of harvests reaped and gathered into bins and barns

The morning-tide, a soundless sea that bathes the still-life lea with bronze

The sudden, sweet tweet-tweet greeting as long-gone feathered friends return

The brooding tent of heavens bent with imminence of frosty fronds

The gaping gate where wonders wait to stun our gaze with grays and browns

Before the first soft snowflakes waft earthward from welkin worlds above

The beauty of spartan landscapes, of nature’s threadbare capes and gowns

Duty’s breath-stealing tasks, as thankfulness basks in God’s love

Brigadoon of November Noon, funereal fallow-hallowed hush

Fruit and root cellar shelves and floors festooned with toil and mercy’s toll

A heart-string unpreparedly snared on a crab-apple-dappled bush

The swing, bereft of barefoot child, a Masterpiece of Childhood’s Soul

Happiness dons kerchiefs and caps; laughter sounds small in fall’s ballroom

Each breath emits a puff of cloud, a bit like engines of a train

In ruddy cheeks and noses November’s kissable roses bloom

As leaves are raked and piled, and the child in each of us wakes again

Twilight’s twinkling front porch lights cheer work-weary streams of traffic home

Luxury is a cup of tea, a good book nook, and knitted shawl

And life is like the savoring of surprise flavours in a poem

Because November sometimes seems to be The Fairest of Them All

© Janet Martin

As we raked and heaped pile after pile of leaves at my parent's place

, we three children of yesterday (my brother, his wife and me)

 couldn't resist a a flying leap and romp because

something about leaf-piles wakes the child in us all.

A heart-string unpreparedly snared on a crab-apple-dappled bush...

Sheer Veneer

Is the haste of a season sometimes almost more than you can bear too?

Tonight we lingered, sipping rich, black espresso in the crisp, gold dusk...

Time’s fabric is so sheer

Like mist-embellished gauze

That gathers up laughter and tears

Into the year that was

How easily it slips

Through fingertips and sighs

Like poetry of eyes and lips

Of hellos and goodbyes

Futile to linger where

The daylight disappears

Beneath a shawl of dark blue air

Un-weathered by the years

How swiftly seasons waft

Like silver thistledown

Above the quiet woodland doffed

Of spring-to-autumn’s crown

We reach but cannot trace

The thread that weaves the year

As season-stitches interlace

Time’s fabric remains sheer

Let's savor its sheer bliss

With love's sheer appetite 

And let the sheer wonder of This

Fill us with sheer delight

© Janet Martin

Worth Every Tender Mercy

God is not who we imagine Him to be.

God is who He says He is in His Word.

God's Word is not filled with suggestions of how to live

but sacred commandments.

 God, through the prophet Jeremiah, has repeated, dire warnings for

all 'who walk after the imaginations of their hearts'

To live, to love and do our part

With strength and mind, to serve the Lord

Is no charge for the faint of heart

Or those impatient for reward

For oftentimes, what seems so small

On the grand scale of recompense

Is not what it appears at all

When trust chooses obedience

Rather than the darling appeal

Of ‘happiness’ that money buys

No glamorous façade, the zeal

That presses to the Greater Prize

…God has prepared for the Blest Meek

Who look beyond the god/laud of Self

To heed the commandment to seek

God’s kingdom first, not worldly pelf

Who loathe the cunning Tempter bent

On preening false illusion’s sway/prey

With logic’s soothing argument

To woo with ‘did God really say?’

Who earnestly guard heart and mind

Where Imagination deceives

The proud with promised lands that blind

With sight, what faith alone perceives

Where the recompense of reward

Is not yet, but someday will be

Worth every (secret) tender mercy poured

Into vaults of eternity

© Janet Martin

Pride is a great enemy to obedience

And quite the cunning foe!

Pride comes in so many forms...

last month our church participated in a fund-raised

meal-pack through Lifeline.

When donating online, the default-setting for donations

is to publicly display the donation amount (why??)

Mortified, I realized too late, after a few corrections

that my 'private' setting had switched back to 'public'!

I contacted Lifeline to please switch it to 'private'

but I think they had more pressing concerns😅🙏

(and it was very hard on my 'pride' to simply let it go)

Pride is such a stinker and humility SO hard to get;

the minute we think we have it we've lost it!!😂

Jesus taught us to give like this...

Matt.6:4

But when you give to the needy, 

do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

 4so that your giving may be in secret. 

And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5

Preciously Aware...

 Happy November!

Today's is my mom's birthday!

Our annual daughter and daughter-in-law's tea-party

is planned for next week because today she is celebrating with her sisters!

A very precious awareness of Each Other growing dearer

with each passing year!

A reminder for each of us to be preciously aware of Each Other! 

Time’s wheel of hopes and dreams and cares and prayers spins round and round

The hill where morrow’s stairway gleams at daybreak runs aground

And if we are not careful, we could miss what is today

While gazing at a stair full of mist-vendors far away

For, what is on display, both groaned and grinned, soon disappears

Like autumn leaves, chased by the wind, to pathless yesteryears

The physique of a wish is always just beyond our reach

And often we fail to critique the longings we beseech

Fixating on one point because it seems, to raptured sighs

To be want-worthy, while its flaws are lost in starry eyes

Until wisdom esteems that sage advice from days of yore

‘Not all is as it seems, then be careful what you wish for’

As time goes by, I want for less, yet covet more, a heart

Of humbler thankfulness for what God’s kind mercies impart

I want to be determined, in love’s hold and letting go

To keep one ear tuned to a wind that always steals the show

Then not to mourn the past or fret at what ‘yet’ holds at bay

But to be preciously aware of what Time grants today

© Janet Martin

James 4:15

Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

Sacred Similes or Art-Accountability Awareness

Like a vast lake,

blush, blue and gold

unfolding overhead...

...where daybreak, like a threshold to pictures that dusk will seal

Ought first to be a blush-blue-golden altar where we kneel ...

Like canvases to sketch upon, Today is always new...

The art succeeding stretch-and-yawn is up to me and you

Where circumstance is but the scrim we splash with artistry...

Like a vast lake, blush, blue and gold unfolding overhead

Day breaks; and from yon welkin hold dawn’s fledgling wings are spread

Where, young and old alike embark, like a migrating surge

Of souls, pressing toward the mark of eternity’s verge

Where it is not made known to us how far the future splays

Until we tread the exodus of mist-like, numbered days

Like canvases to sketch upon, Today is always new

The art succeeding stretch-and-yawn is up to me and you

Where circumstance is but the scrim we splash with artistry

From mercy-granted trays that brim with opportunity

To sing a hymn, to breathe a prayer, to lend a helping hand

To be kind and humbly aware of time’s trickle of sand

Like a tree softly doffed of leaves, moment-momentum keens

The seed that grows into the sheaves that harvest-season gleans/weans

Like artists poised before pedestals as dawn hoists Today

We brush-daub-lob Originals that appear drawn away

But not forever; someday when our ‘painting-days’ are done

God will be the Appraiser, studying them, one by one

Oho, surely in light of this, there is no Commonplace

Each day is like a holy kiss from God, a gift of grace

Dawn’s debut, as it rends the air, propels eternity

Toward each one of us, bearing Soul’s immortality

Thus, whether young or old, before we start Art of Today

Not one of us should be so bold as to forget to pray

...where daybreak, like a threshold to pictures that dusk will seal

Ought first to be a blush-blue-golden altar where we kneel 

To thank God for His favours and to ask Him to direct

Where many tints and flavours taunt, flaunt, wink and interject

Then, beseech His whisper to wage, where brushstrokes heed command  

So all that remains on the page are imprints of His Hand

   

© Janet Martin

The trees are definitely being 'softly-doffed' today!

Today's post inspired in part by part of my morning Scripture reading...

Jer.17:5-10

This is what the Lord says:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,

who draws strength from mere flesh

and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;

they will not see prosperity when it comes.

They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,

in a salt land where no one lives.

7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in him.

8 They will be like a tree planted by the water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

its leaves are always green.

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.”

9 The heart is deceitful above all things

and beyond cure.

Who can understand it?

10 “I the Lord search the heart

and examine the mind,

to reward each person according to their conduct,

according to what their deeds deserve.”

Also,

Partly by a line in the book The Irrational Season

by Madeleine L'Engle

"If you were arrested as a Christian, 

would there be enough

evidence against you to convict you?"

...and partly by an immense sense of standing on a fresh canvas of Time,

as I watched the sunrise unfolding

May You ask for and sense God's Hand over yours today!

Happy Painting!

Mine involves a scrub bucket and other

fall-cleaning essentials!

(like good music!)

Like this one!

Only a Holy God

Father In Heav'n (Yet Near Enough...)

Ps.9:1-2 &8- 9

(read the whole glorious chapter here)

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exult in you;

I will sing praise to your name, O Most High...

...The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of trouble.

And those who know your name put their trust in you,

for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Oh how our hearts groan as we pray 

for cares close to home and far away...

Our Father which art in heaven...

(yet, oh so near!)

I began this poem bright and early but the New Furnace Installers arrived

bright and early as well!

And because the computer, where I write is right in the main living area

where they were constantly walking through

I decided to finish it after they finished, 

which turns out to be tonight!

This poem was inspired in part as the very familiar opening to The Lord's Prayer

filled me with fresh wonder!!

Father in Heav’n, (yet near enough to hear Thought’s heart-borne plea)

How oft, with reverence and love, through living’s high and low

We pour before Thy throne of grace, our praise and agony

There You restore our souls so we can face faith’s cunning foe

Where, without You vainly we grope for hope and comfort true

For, hopeless is all hope without the hope we find in You

Father in Heav’n, (yet near enough to catch a falling tear)

No circumstance transcends Your love that reconciles and saves

Goodness and mercy’s author, You tread on dread’s storms of fear

When doubt’s dark tempests bother, You rebuke its wind and waves

As, through the power of your Word You fit us for the day

Faithful and true, You undergird all who trust and obey

Father in Heav’n (yet near enough to be our constant Stay)

Your love, an everlasting love that calls us all by name

You came to seek the lost, for all like sheep have gone astray

And though you knew the cost you did no King’s exemption claim

But suffered in our stead the price, redemption’s crown to win

Once and for all, the sacrifice that broke the curse of sin

Father in Heav’n, (yet near enough to know our every need)

Deliver us from evil with Your love that will not fail

When we do not know how to pray, Lord, kindly intercede

Remind us, come whatever may, Your purpose will prevail

No enemy can intercept what love has overcome

Father in Heav’n, (yet near enough to lead us gently home)

Amen

© Janet Martin

Lead Me Gently Home

With All That God Makes Possible...

 10 years ago it snowed at the end of October!

Happy final golden weekend of October, 2023

In autumn poetry tugs at the heart at every turn

awakening in us the same awe as it did in poets of old...

Psalm 8

 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

You have set Your glory

above the heavens.

2From the mouths of children and infants

You have ordained praiseb

on account of Your adversaries,

to silence the enemy and avenger.

3When I behold Your heavens,

the work of Your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which You have set in place—

4what is man that You are mindful of him,

or the son of man that You care for him?

5You made him a little lower than the angels;c

You crowned him with glory and honor.

6You made him ruler of the works of Your hands;

You have placed everything under his feet:d

7all sheep and oxen,

and even the beasts of the field,

8the birds of the air and the fish of the sea,

all that swim the paths of the seas.

9O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

If at all possible, allow yourself to pause from pressing care

To rest beneath the golden bough slowly but surely growing bare...

Look at the birds and breathe a prayer of thankfulness to He who tends

The creatures of land, sea and air with mercy’s gracious dividends...

If at all possible, delight in simple sight-and-sound of Leaf

Indulge desire’s appetite with wonders, momentous and brief...

If at all possible, allow yourself to pause from pressing care

To rest beneath the golden bough slowly but surely growing bare

Take time to hum a humble hymn of hope, happiness, peace and love

To take note of the gifts that brim from autumn’s dimming treasure trove

Look at the birds and breathe a prayer of thankfulness to He who tends

The creatures of land, sea and air with mercy’s gracious dividends

Now and then commit to ignore the rigid edict of tick-tock

Enjoy falls fading hues before they strew the yard and street and walk

If at all possible, delight in simple sight-and-sound of Leaf

Indulge desire’s appetite with wonders, momentous and brief

Enjoy the view, autumn-dawn pure; of no two days ever the same

Drawing us to our Farewell Tour back to the Hand from whence we came

Explore moments shucked from a sheaf that spills its grief in russet snow

As soft, the earth is tucked beneath a counterpane of Afterglow

If at all possible, allow Autumn’s glory to steal your breath

Before the gold and scarlet bough bears the stark evidence of death

Oh Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your great name in all the earth

From age to age, You light the wick that kindles worship's awestruck birth

For no mortal can grasp Your ways and thoughts, but should wholly contend 

With all that You make possible, to praise and praise You without end 

© Janet Martin

Explore moments shucked from a sheaf that spills its grief in russet snow

As soft, the earth is tucked beneath a counterpane of Afterglow...

If at all possible, allow Autumn’s glory to steal your breath...

Before the gold and scarlet bough bears the stark evidence of death...

Autumn Joys

 

A few snap-shots from the past few days that helped inspire this poem

The plush hush-hush of feet through leaves...

The plush hush-hush of feet through leaves

The stillness of fields shucked of sheaves

The way the wind through woodland weaves

A canopy of blue

The hurry-scurry, frisky squirrel

The leaf-cartwheel, the boy and girl

Imitating the lilt and twirl

Of treetop’s dwindling hue

Rain-rendered decoupage, wet-cold

Lanes and sidewalks paved with leaf-gold

A little mittened hand to hold

Or steaming cup ‘o joe

Gladness so profound the heart leaps

With praise for squash and pumpkin heaps

And all goodness man plants then reaps

As by God’s grace we go

The five-star bliss of five-star dreams

For five-star supper’s five-star beams

Of five-star happiness that gleams

In loved one’s smiles and eyes

Warmth of homecooked simplicity

And precious love of family

Kindles a thankful-as-can-be

Masterpiece-paradise

The undulating rise and fall

As landscapes pen a madrigal

That needs no words to say it all

Yet leaves spectators awed

By nature’s color-symphony

Spilling across the dimming lea

An autumn song we throng to see

Whose composer is God

© Janet Martin

Rain-rendered decoupage, wet-cold...

Lanes and sidewalks paved with leaf-gold...