Love's Earnest Plea

Abide with me a little while

Oh darling, do not go

The night is warm beneath your smile

And oh, I need you so

Moments come and then they pass

Like dust tossed to the breeze

Let’s spread our whispers on the grass

In prolonged agonies

The winsome hours do not come

With shadow or with tears

What we put in them is the sum

Of pleasure, pain and years

I care not to leave upon

Some cold grave stone, a rose

If you should leave before me, hon

I’ll hold love’s memories close

Abide with me an hour more

Too soon our memories

Will deck the lawn and garden floor

In dry and withered leaves

Death's carriage stands outside the gate

For either you or I

When it is time he will not wait

Good-bye then love, good-bye

Janet Martin

The Gentle Hour

The laid-back breeze begins to tease

The hemlock and the pine

As Heaven’s fingers gently blur

West’s dim horizon-line

While in the east a languid feast

Bleeds from the harvest moon

A lullaby in velvet sky

Without a note or tune

The silhouette of maple-red

Is etched against deep blues

As God above in tones of love

The restless light subdues

And in the hush of dwindled rush

A halo crowns the dust

As all my cares in weightless prayers

Drift to the One I trust

My lesser loves like empty gloves

I place in Hands of grace

Why do I dread the miles ahead?

He holds the stars in space

He writes the hymn of willow limb

The earth He bathes with dew

And in the calm of midnight’s palm

His mercy is made new

Janet Martin

Tonight the silence is perfect, save for a faithful few crickets.

I'm tempted to pull out my wheel-barrow and work in my flower-beds,

the moon is so bright. It would be so still and so CRAZY! Why?

Oh....right. Nights were made for sleeping. Why does God save some of His best displays

for the hours when we're supposed to sleeping?!

His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning.

Great is Your faithfulness. Lam. 3:23

Teenage Compassion

When I looked into your eyes

You saw the tears in mine

And I beheld in yours

An unfamiliar shine

As my gaze dropped

To the floor

For I had never seen

You look at me like that before

…with compassion

Yes, my dear

I guess it's true,

Sometimes mothers

Need to cry too

Janet~

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Breath-taking

Caught in beautiful limbo
on that pivotal moment
of desire becoming fulfillment
with nothing more
than the faintest hint
of your smile

A moment, seemingly insignificant
set against a blue sky
but reaching to
the doorway of heaven
when your eyes meet mine
from across the room

Touch stirs and appeases
I have known ecstatic pain
in the warmth of your arm
almost touching mine
and driving me
blissfully insane

J~

When Night Is Deep...

When night is deep and long and low
And void of lisp or sigh
When silver, quivering moments flow
In rivers to the sky
When larkspur, rose and goldenrod
Have dimmed their vibrant hue
And all the earth is one with God
…I think of you

I trace the out-line of my sigh
Intricately designed
In moments filled with you and I
And whispers intertwined
And I cannot begin to tell
The first touch from the last
As mingled tears and laughter fell
Like dew upon the grass

An aching broods upon the mist
A clash of heart and will
Tugs at keen memories half-kissed
When night is slow and still
And curves around me, in a moan
With lips parted and blue
I lay my head upon a stone
…and think of you

J~

Finding Purpose

Sometimes, as the gold threads of daylight are waning
And all its brief moments are garnered like mist,
When the hand gently open on fringes of dawning
Soundlessly closes in a tightly-clenched fist,
As I try to separate beginning from ending
Only to see a perpetual blending
I am perplexed with deep melancholy
Vexed by life’s seeming futility

Do I stand at the end or a brand new beginning
As daylight surrenders to night’s turning page?
Is there any purpose to this life I am living?
Or are moments vague actors on time’s phantom stage?
I reach to touch a tangible truth
And long for the rush of undeterred youth
Is there a victory to this race I am in?
The ‘what was or what is or what might have been’?

I gaze to the heaven’s unfathomable distance
Layers of space upon space with no end
A vault that could swallow ten-thousand oceans
Or wink at an eternity in each grain of sand
Yet greater than this grand infinity
Is an undeniable eternity
A-waiting each soul that departs from this earth
So then, death is a beginning greater than birth

The somnolent stirring of leaves gives no answer
Exteriors seem cold, indifferent and base
Fear is an ache and hope a deep hunger
Nothing is permanent…nothing but grace
His grace is greater than anything
Our perfect Creator gives this life meaning
His grace saves the soul that will not die
And thus, by the grace of God go I

Janet Martin~

I’m not sure I captured in this poem the heart of my pondering…
It began with my 13 yr.old son’s off-handed remark about there really being no point to anything because everything ends…he was talking about fun.
Later my husband remarked that the problem with good moments is that they end…
And I asked him do they? Or is what we see as the end really the beginning of the next moment which could be better but we don’t know because we have not yet lived it. Okay, futile subject, I know. But I did get to thinking about how empty every moment is at its base level. We were created by God and within us is a place that only He can fill. And only as He fills that place can we find genuine peace and purpose. The created needs the Creator. Our life is a gift. Don’t we want to know the Giver?

Are those moments in the collage above moments of purpose...or futility?

I love the book of Ecclesiastes, and I love these verses from Ephesians 2:



But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Invaluable Wealth

In our hands we hold the greatest wealth time can bestow
Invaluable, invisible, a little thing called Now

Janet~