On Hope

Song: Whispering Hope ~

Hope is that Light to which we’re drawn

A thirst in every heart

It is assurances of dawn

When night is deep and dark

To Hope we lift our empty cup

Not in a faithless duty

But knowing Someone fills it up

With heaven’s unseen beauty

Hope breaks through ramparts of despair

And drives its doubt asunder

Hope is the Whisper in the air

That stirs the heart with wonder

Hope does not worry, does not quit

Hope draws us from our slumber

And lifts us from the darkened pit

Hope does not encumber

Hope is that Light to which we’re drawn

An unseen Hand to hold

Hope is the Voice that spurs us on

In spite of what we’re told

Hope is the beckoning of Life

Though tears may dim the eye

Hope makes bearable this strife

For without Hope…we die

© Janet Martin

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the LORD their God. Psalms 146:5

You Might be a Poet if...

Poet's turn off the computer, then turn it back on immediately because they realize one word needs to be changed...and no, it can't wait until morning.

Poets burn the candle at both ends...
...and in the middle too.

Poet's LOVE 'alphabet soup'.

Poets dream...in color!

Poet's motto...Live, laugh, love, write

A poet is someone who does not always see exactly what they are looking at...or for.

The poet's heart is never dull.

Of all the gifts whereby we're blessed
Is not the poet's gift the best?

Janet~

These are the Days

These are the days of lulled complacency

Days of choosing fatal violence

in distorted concepts of

good and evil

These are the days when judgment

is deemed the greater sin

and for which we are

held most accountable

These are the days of free choice

excusing virtue

These are the days of

dark consequence

But for grace, we all would be lost

© Janet Martin

Inspired by these words...

The delicate action of grace in the soul is profoundly disturbed by all human violence. Passion, when it is inordinate, does violence to the spirit and its most dangerous violence is that in which we seem to find peace. Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.    Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude.

as I read them here

Simple Rules for a Life Well-lived

Love one another

With each gifted breath

Every man is a brother

In the hour of death

Help one another

Be gentle and kind

Always with the other

Foremost in mind

Cheer one another

The language of grief

Is as universal

As comfort’s relief

Care for each other

No matter the creed

We all our humble

Creatures of need

Love one another

For soon we shall be

Sister and brother

For eternity

© Janet Martin

Curtained Portals

How broad the depth of night doth span

Far past this curtained portal

How vague the narrow scope of man

Beneath expanse immortal

Ten-thousand times each cloud’s expanse

Is mankind’s sure damnation

But greater far, Love’s mercy grants

For our debt, salvation

How swift time’s fluid scalpel curbs

Youth’s unrestrained illusion

And sets their feet on higher roads

Of Honor’s wise intrusion

How small is mankind’s mortal hour

How infinite God’s pardon

That He should pluck this lowly flower

To plant in Heaven’s garden

Unfathomed are the astral heights

Unfathomed is His wonder

I set my weak and earth-dimmed sights

On curtained portals, yonder

© Janet Martin

I was listening to the news...and needed to lift my sights higher

than this planet of doom and gloom...

 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: 

because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
1 John 4:4(KJV)

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Etched against the cerulean sky-line

The desolate, burned-out corpses

Of stately walnut tree and stalwart pine

Mark the graves of warriors and horses

The lacy tress of emerald spire

That stroked summer’s lithesome breeze

In cannon-bursts of blood and fire

Are reduced to scorched centuries

Where have all the flowers gone

That nodded in the calm of tranquil wood?

They mark the tombs of daughters, sons

Laid to rest in pools of gifted blood

Where have all the flowers gone

That bloomed too short, before they died?

They rest within the gardens where

Humbler posies bloom with pride…

…upon the graves of heroes lost

Before conceived deliverance

To grace the tombs of freedom’s cost

Nature replies in reverence

© Janet Martin

In the movie War Horse I was struck at how swiftly

verdant beauty and tranquility was reduced to ashes and blood.

Written for: Poetic Bloomings

Winter's Sleeping Pasture

It sleeps; nestled against the earth;

Beneath shadowy tresses

Where August breath had scorched its girth

The ghost of summer passes

The choristers of feathered throat

Have fled to kinder arches

As winter’s restless whistle strokes

Bizarrely-twisted marshes

Sweat, toil and sores the farmer bears

To plant spring’s barren fallow

But now he rests; he knows the cares

Of labor soon to follow

And on the ledger’s smudgy page

The balance of his losses

Straps to his heart the tortured faith

That succors farmer’s crosses

It sleeps, nestled against the earth

Before the grand renewal

As springtime seeps, in colored mirth

Toward the cusp of April

And every humble stalk is clad

In crystal-gilded vesture

A wild and winsome wonderland

Is winter’s sleeping pasture

Janet~

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

As Vast as the Unknown Glistening...

As vast as the unknown glistening

On a new day yet untrod

So is the infinite mercy

And grace of our loving God

As wide as the ethereal heavens

In copious pastures of blue

So are the unwavering promises

God gave to me and you

In lengths of transient ribbon

The unknown cloaks the sod

But not one thread escapes the hand

Of our faithful God

Ethereal Echoes

In the evening she would lean against the pillar of the porch

As nature dropped its chatter like parishioners at church

The breeze ran cooling fingers soft against her pensive stance

And in the gathering twilight how those memories would dance

‘ Oh Mama, watch our somersault’ she sees two little girls

As cotton dresses flew awry with tousled braids or curls

And then her eyes would rest upon nasturtium, lily, rose

The ivy on the south-west wall; how subtly it glows

As noonday sheds maternal warmth in dusty pink and gold

The farmer walked toward her then, his stride youthful and bold

Unlike the creak of wooden planks as now he sits and rocks

While time re-plays before his eyes the ticking of life’s clocks…

…the weathered pride of heaven’s walls charms intrigued passers-by

Pausing to hear time’s clock rewind in nature’s reverent sigh

Frames of a perfect romance lure the wanderer to its door

Hungry for glimpses of the life that played across its floor

But timber seals its creaking lips, eyes stare back silently

Its staid facade a soundless dirge of sweet melancholy

The ivy claws tenaciously against its wooden breast

Beneath a hundred-season sky its longing is caressed

And we are drawn toward the song of hallowed history

Of tumbled lawn, perennial bloom and musing's mystery

Where in the eve she leaned against the pillar on the porch

We gaze with awe-hushed voices like parishioners at church

© Janet Martin

I loved all the pictures but kept returning to this one...

Thank-you Mary-Ann for sharing the wonderful photos!

Photo Prompt at Real Toads

It could work for the previous prompt as well:)

A Little like a Snowfall Haiku

It falls soundlessly

In profound transformation

And then we are old

 

Limbs supple; fruitful

Surrender to time’s wisdom

White crowns youth’s forehead

Back into the earth

Returns all manner of life

A tiny seed stirs

© Janet Martin

White Grace Haiku

In the quiet night
the sky parted her dark lips
exhaling white grace