Redeeming Moments

We hold within each moment

A brief and twinkling span

Yet, we ought to redeem it

As wisely as we can

For moments linked together

Form more than ethereal ties

But prove, as we redeem them

Where our true love lies

© Janet Martin

Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephes. 5:15-20

Beneath it All...

  

Poetic Blooms posted this picture prompt

When I complain

Then in a way

It is the same

As if I’d say

That I should be

The one to hold

The ball of green

And blue and gold

God, forgive me

When I pine

To know Your hand

Is over mine

Bestows a peace

Word cannot tell

Your Hand beneath

God, all is well

When I complain

Tis but to say

That God should plan

His way my way

God, I’m so glad

You know it all

And it’s Your Hand

Beneath the ball

© Janet Martin

It is Ours to Dance...

Poetic Bloomings challenges us to write a villanelle

The villanelle is 19-line poem consisting of 5 tercets and a final quatrain. It requires no set meter, nor number of syllables per line. It carries a pattern of only two rhyme sounds (ABA in 5 tercets, and then ABAA in final quatrain). The first and third lines of the first tercet repeat alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas, and rejoin as the final couplet of the quatrain.

A Villanelle

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

Its fusion orchestrated by love’s most perfect Hand

It is ours to dance; lest heaven plays its melody in vain

To crave a minuet of past refrain

Is but to miss the chorus He has planned

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

He tunes Time’s dulcimer; its temporal strain

Touched by One whose thought we cannot understand

It is ours to dance; lest heaven’s plays its melody in vain

Now high, now low, the harmony of pleasure and of pain

Sweeps soulfully across the sea and land

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

It is not ours to object His choice refrain

The Maestro of life’s orchestra directs His precious band

It is ours to dance lest heaven plays its melody in vain

Too soon the music fades from earthbound plain

It is not ours to know the why or understand

We cannot choose our sunshine or our rain

It is ours to dance; lest heaven plays its melody in vain

© Janet Martin

A Door Wide Open...

The day recedes into the past

As night inhales its waning gleam

And into Time’s depleting stream

Our little deeds of day are cast

The miles and smiles of centuries

Stretch silently within the wake

Of moments; for we cannot take

From it but this; its memories

How still the rush of bleeding hours

How kind and cruel its ruthless flow

For none can see where moments go

So I must pause and smell the flowers

And I must pause to see the corn

A silver sea in noon-day heat

The laughter of a child is sweet

As on the breeze its lilt is borne

And as the dark curls o’er the day

And as the twilight curtain drops

Time does not slow and only stops

When it is far too late to say…

I wish that I had paused far more

To hold a child upon my knee

And listen long and willingly

Before the closing of its door

© Janet Martin

Perfectly Placed

Placed softly

beneath our stumbling feet

not because we

deserve it

but because He

loves us…

A brand new day of grace

Placed kindly

before our pleading gaze

not because we earned it

but because He

forgives…

A brand new day of grace

Placed tenderly

over our trampled past

not because we

want it

but because we need it…

A brand new day of grace

© Janet Martin

Bottomless Chalice

Image Source:  cartwheelit.wordpress.com

It does not slip softly from our shoulders

Falling like a robe to the floor

It is not like the rushing and rolling breaker

Dissolving as it touches the shore

It runs through our senses, not like wild fingers

Of wind as it ruffles the corn

Yet, disregards fences and wantonly lingers

Where thought tumbles, both keen and forlorn

Deep in the hollow of hidden eclipses

Where hope and fear coalesce

Where love holds closely and yet releases

In simultaneous caress

Here in a twisting and turbulent tide

Or still as a frozen sea

Inexplicable oceans of longing abide

Its source an abstract  mystery

We carry a chalice somewhere deep within

That nothing in this world can fill

A hunger sprouting from the seed of sin

As we bear our share of ill

As we love and laugh and trust and pray

The ache will remain until

Heaven descends to take it away

This void that earth cannot fill

© Janet Martin

He is I AM

He is the All-awesome

All-benevolent

All-compassionate

All-delivering

All-eternal

All-faithful

All-gracious

All-holy

All- incarnate

All-justifying

All-knowing

All-loving

All-mighty

All-noteworthy

All-omnipotent

All-powerful

All-quintessential

All-redeeming

All-saving

All-truthful

All-unfathomable

All- victorious

All-worthy

All-xcellent

All-Yahweh

All-zenith

God

He IS ALL in all
He IS I AM

© Janet Martin

Never Like This Again

It will never be this way again

With sentimental thought

I touch the moment I am in

I cannot curse this vapor thief

That steals while it is giving

And heals while inflicting grief

The timbre of pleasure and pain

Is love’s essence, bittersweet

As I realize it will never be like this again

Perpetual trickle of laughter and tears

Time comforts and torments

As moments become years

It will never be like this again

So I caress it tenderly

This moment I am in

© Janet Martin

I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the last morning forever, of three scholars leaving together.