This is Prayer

These are not just fleeting notions

Or some passing thought we feel

These are groaned pleas of confession

Making His forgiveness real

These are tender humble whispers

For safe-keeping in His care

These are trembling exaltations

As we praise Him; this is prayer

It’s a constant, keen awareness

A servant-hood that we embrace

As we recognize His mercy

In the outpouring of grace

It’s a kind, faithful enabling

Through life’s disappointing strains

This is prayer; complete entrusting

As his Spirit fills, sustains

His grace provides in moment-measure

Over all, His love prevails

This is prayer, constant communion

With the One who never fails

© Janet Martin

My grace is sufficient for Thee. 2 Cor. 12:9

Living Moment to Moment...

                                                ~As drops fill a sea so moments fill a life~

Poetic Bloomings gives us permission to borrow someoneelse's line in Hey, That's my line'

*Taken from Walt J. Wojtanik's Living Day-to-Day synchronicity poem

*Within every waking moment,
the gift of life is heaven sent.*

So if we learn to cherish moments

We will learn to be content

We cannot see the trickle

Of Time’s elemental force

But we can feel its whispers tracing

Our temporal discourse

Within every waking moment*

Trembles possibility

Gift of life, oh fleeting morsel

Full of opportunity

We cannot preserve its tenure

Tick by tock its measure slips

As we touch and taste the treasure

Flowing from Time’s gracious lips

Within every waking moment,
the gift of life is heaven sent.*

Oh God, I vow to cherish it

The gift of life that you have lent

© Janet Martin

A Synchronicity Poem

 Poetic Bloomings invites us to attempt a synchronicity poem

"Synchronicity" defined is the state or fact of being synchronous or simultaneous; synchronism. Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related.

This form consists of  eight three-line stanzas in a syllable pattern of 8/8/2. This poetry type has no rhyme and is usually written in the first person (variation removes that restriction) with a twist. The twist is to be revealed within the last two stanzas. Created by Debra Gundy.

If the Lord wills, the sun to rise

Dissolving the darkness in gold

Glory

If the Lord wills, rain to nurture

Earth’s fallow and field where farmers

Have toiled

If the Lord wills springtime its green

Summer’s gold and autumn’s crimson

Blessing

If the Lord wills shaded bowers

Barren land to burgeon with corn

And wheat

If the Lord wills strength for the day

Hope in each gifted intake of

Man’s breath

If He imbues us with talents

And the marvelous indwelling

Of love

If we acknowledge our vast

And our complete dependence

In Him

Dare we to claim one syllable

Of His praise, His honor or His

Glory?

© Janet Martin

I Miss You Tonight

When the tall blue shadow

Of summer’s twilight

Sprawls 'neath the scrim of July’s lengthened day

And when it is swallowed

By misty-blue midnight

As history absorbs its ephemeral prey

When the dark like an ocean

Sweeps over the garden

Over the hills and the woodlot and dells

I hear the whisper

Of days unforgotten

Oh, how the echo of retrospect swells

And I miss you

When miles flaunt their far-ness

And memories their mercy

When I am torn by the powerful grip

Of longing and loving

Of wanting and waiting

And hating the moments that silently slip

Between farewell kisses

And last parting wishes

Between the cooling of lips on my cheek

I hold you close

Where nothing comes between us

Save for the tears as they silently speak

And I miss you

Below the dark edge of

The Far East horizon

Hovers the sun if the Lord wills its climb

Yonder the west

Waits to drink its returning

This is the force of intangible Time

As it swells in my being

In its giving and taking

A moment by moment discoursing of grace

I feel you near me

For love’s quiet Knowing

Wraps me in the beauty of memory’s embrace

But oh, I miss you

© Janet Martin~

It can be people, places, moments...
These are the things we miss in the beauty of memory's embrace~

Hidden Harbinger

What is thought?

This master of moments

Begging and pleading and spurring us on

Thought cannot scale

Life’s hills or its mountains

It cannot lead by its sheer force alone

But oh, if we follow

One foot then the other

Thought will instruct where we choose to begin

For never an action

Have we undertaken

That first did not pass through this chamber within

What is thought?

This infinite ocean

Of mystery cradled in ivory cell

What is hope's precursor

This harbinger of action

Making public the pondering that words do not tell?

Dare we assume

That our thought remains secret

Or should we carefully consider its due?

For sooner or later

It spills into being

As action brings thought-life into full view

© Janet Martin

Ode to July Heat-wave

(if one could one would be here...however, since we cannot live on the beach we listen and look for songs not of the sea)

The whispered breezes faint in midday heat

No whisper strums the locks of flaxen wheat

The devious zephyr slips to cooler climes

A sultry hush noon’s panting quiet mimes

The milkweed staidly flaunts its purple crown

Queen Ann’s Lace weaves through garden’s dull and brown

No drought withers the glorious wild-bloom splay

Of red dead-nettle or loose-strife soiree

As ditches run, not with the warm spring show’r

But with the overflow of wandering flow’r

Some folk declare that it is just too hot

Too soon the howling gale will chill our cot

Too soon the bloom will fade into a sea

Of blue-gold days that never more will be

The orderlies of Old Man Winter wait

Beyond the pond, beyond the pale-cloud gate

While children bronze with leech and crayfish glee

Where green-pool cool forms childhood memory

We scan the rippling sky-line for a hint

Of rain to soothe earth’s pasture-land of flint

Spiraling sonnets drip from willow limb

Cicada-locust choirs drone a hymn

The green of June a brittle out-stretched palm

The oven of high-noon a hazy calm

The dog lays flat in dappled north-side shade

As does the cat; while we sip lemonade

Absorbing flavors rich with summer-lust

The heat, the hush, the ambiance of dust

Oh, drink the malted nectar of July

Too soon we hear its echo of good-bye

© Janet Martin

We are under a severe thunderstorm warning...thus the dead heat is actually spiked by vicious gusts of wind...

His Tender Blessings...a prayer

Lord, let Thy present blessing

Slip from us, not soon forgot

By the craving of a wind-song

In the gasp of what is not

Lord, teach us true contentment

Not by things we hold or see

But to know each tender blessing

Is a gracious gift from Thee

Lord, on my face I fall to plea

For victims of despair

And little children who must flee

From those who ought to care

Lord, open up our eyes to see

Not objects of vain greed

But humbly teach us how to be

Servant to creature need

Lord, let Thy tender blessings

Never be misunderstood

As offerings of entitlement

We all are flesh and blood

…and none of us is greater

Or lesser;  all are dust

Teach us how to love each other

Sharing what you loan to us

And let Thy tender blessing

Slip from us not soon forgot

By the craving of a wind-song

In the gasp of what is not

© Janet Martin

Michael Bull Roberts attended our worship services on Sunday morning

and then spoke to some of the youth for the afternoon, sharing his story. I am reading his book...words fail me as I read his story! He told them that he did not include the most ghastly details of his life in this book!

In Time We See

In time we see

The author of Ecclesiastes

Is right

There is nothing new under the sun

All is day

All is night

What man contrives with gifted breath

For his allotted hours

Is nothing more than life to death

Beneath temporal bowers

We would be wise to honor then

This sagacious advice

To remember the Creator when

Evil has not enticed

The heart from God to lusts of men

And foolish sacrifice

...someday

We will bow before God to explain

Our loves and lusts to Him
Repentance then will be in vain

As we recall what could have been

More important than this wise truth

To remember our Creator

In the days of our youth…

Janet Martin