Still, Beneath Us...

Time slips beneath our feet like a dream

Summer is caught like a leaf on its stream

Sun-sparkle diamonds on five-o clock blue

Spills silver starlight like dawn spills its dew

Shimmering, glimmering mist-belvedere

Flowers and children bloom then disappear

Breath-stealing, beautiful, bantering beast

Washing our eyes with the crumbs of its feast

Morning melts over midnight like a sea

Surging above us in mute urgency

Fingers may linger but never can keep

More than a mem’ry from its moment-sweep  

It is no fable; too soon we are old

Fall spreads its table with garnet and gold

Once we wished wishes against supple skin

Now we carve niches like footholds within

While still beneath us time’s river runs wild

Testing the mother and teasing the child

© Janet Martin

No Matter What

We cannot

force Love

or belief

Though, 

of course

Sometimes 

we would
if we could

These Intangibles must be wooed by more than flesh and blood 

and no one but One God can probe that holy, inner deep no matter 

how much 

mouths 

denounce

no utterance 

can keep

or sever 

from our 

presence

Hands 

scarred

by hatred’s 

nails

nor bar 

hope or 

deliverance

for God’s
 Love
never 

fails

© Janet Martin

Have You Read This Book?

Unshakable, the Word of God

In spite of sundry season

Chief cornerstone, the author, Love

Anointing life with reason

Immutable, the Word of God

Invincible empire  

No pen of men eradicates

The ink of Holy Fire

Eternal IS the Word of God

Nothing its reach can sever

Though earth and heaven pass away

The Word of God will never

© Janet Martin

Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

IS Wonderful...

This morning when I woke the tank in my heart and head still felt sort of drained so I stepped outside and stood beneath the waking sky, letting Wonder wash awry worry and woe...

The broom that sweeps awry

the mist that melts the morn

that breaks the blue that wakes the sky

is wonderful, oh Lord

The loom that cleaves from air

the thread that weaves from naught

the hour we tread with care and prayer

is wonderful, oh God

The hand that holds the sea

where mercy’s grace is poured

without measure to you and me

is wonderful, oh Lord

The heart that trusts beyond

the art of sky and sod

that turns beneath the touch of One

is wonderful, oh God

© Janet Martin

 Let me hear Your loving-kindness in the morning; For I trust in You; Teach me the way in which I should walk; For to You I lift up my soul. Ps. 143:8

Ah, Love

Ah love, what earthly paradise

Ignites the splendor of your sighs

Where I admit with half-shut eyes

That I am quite betaken

Not merely by fair face or form

Or by the sweet, soul-rending storm

That rages where your touch is warm

And leaves me fully shaken

Ah love, what torment you ensconce

Evoking agonies where once

We thought that love was the response

Of Want fulfilling wishes

But now with boldness love declares

More than the blush of silly stares

Or famished flush of morning where

We rent the night with kisses

Ah love, what tug-of-war thou art

A flying, falling heart to heart

Where we vowed ‘til death do us part’

And nothing here can sever

As we shore battlegrounds within

For making love cannot begin

Without; but roars beneath our skin

Bound in one word; Forever

© Janet Martin

In Spite of Years

In spite of years leaves fall like tears

Unwrapping strapping, clapping trees

We suffer hurt, time's trampled dirt

Cannot avert its miseries

In spite of skin or next of kin 

We wear and share a common thread

Time's centuries cannot appease

The ageless pleas of heart and head

In spite of yesterdays our ways

Are much the same as way back when

We laugh and weep and toil and sleep

With naught to keep but echoed Then

In spite of modern day and night

The vast insight of centuries

Cannot outsmart the human heart

Or pause the art that unwraps trees

Janet~

The heart holds a holy hunger 

that Time can never fill

But when Time falls away at last 

We'll wake to find...

God will