A Simple Exhortation

There is an exhortation

We should not take for-granted

To bloom with exaltation

Wherever we’re planted

© Janet Martin

A few years ago a friend gave me portulaca flowers.

Now, every year they re-seed and come up wherever the seeds fall,

blooming vibrantly when many other flowers have begun to fade…

Reveling in Life's Blissful Ordinaries

As long as there are

Laundry-line lullabies

Ever-green framed skies

Freshly-baked pies

And barefoot brothers

As long as

Soft pink remains

For girlies and geraniums

And the kettle softly hums

A tea-song for mothers

As long as sun-flowers beam

Where gardeners dream

Beneath mellow-gold gleam

Of August warm glee

Then this world, in spite of gloom

And its projected doom

Is not half as woebegone

As it could be

© Janet Martin

Sonnet of Hope

As surely as the night falls comes the dawn

And greater than the Darkness IS the Light

As surely as the Unknown IS the One

Whose Hand is mightier than our fight

Frail witnesses are we of His great love

And mortal tongue can never fully tell

The wonders of His hand beneath, above

Guarding the gates to Heaven and to hell

His grace does not extend this wretched scope

For our self-destruction, but for Hope

***

As surely as the autumn comes the spring

We cannot bargain with the Hand of Time

The orchestra of nature’s offering

Is ordered not by law, but the Sublime

As we repeat, footfall upon foot-fall

The agonies and ecstasies of man

Progress is simply history’s recall

Of moment-breaths since time and life began

How futile is the gasp of human race

If we ignore its only Hope; His grace

***

As surely as the night falls comes the Dawn

Twilight is but the swansong of an hour

The bud of youth unfolds; a fragrant yawn

Before it renders to the earth its flow’r

We chase the ambient discourse of our thought

To realize what each of us must learn

The only thing of value we have got

Is Now; we tread a path of no return

But still the Hand remains that formed this scope

Of day and night; of death and life and Hope

© Janet Martin

My thoughts and prayers are with a friend facing some heavy 'unknowns' .
Can you pray on her behalf ?
God fills in the blanks of what I am unable to share.

Love you, G.

Irrefutable Proof

Love speaks

A universal language

And though hugs and kisses are nice

It declares

Its truest passion

In one word;

Sacrifice

© Janet Martin

What we make and take time for proves where our loves lie…

Aren’t you glad He took time for us?

 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 

 After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.

Isa. 53:10-11

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Walnut-leaf Harbingers

Premature stragglers

Scatter on green piazza

Prelude to gold rush

© Janet Martin

Our walnut trees are the last to leaf and the first to shed...

I can always count on those golden tears to mingle with my own 'heart-tears':)

Of Imminent Departure

Press the curves of your ethereal body
closely to me; there is urgency
trembling beneath the sultry serenity
of imminent departure as we
put on our best brave faces
to preserve moments sealed in our hearts.

Climb over me, align the fire
in your tortured gaze with my heartbeat,
Quite suddenly your lips
blazing with passion and desire
suffocates the dreamer’s bliss
in the quiver of imminent departure

I must inhale the scent of you
in our last dance; heady musk
filling my veins; eyes of bachelor-button blue,
Your neck is warm, your breath sun-sweet intoxication
highlighting the agony of waiting
in the gathering dusk of imminent departure

A ball of crumpled wishes
lodges achingly in my throat
barring all the perfect words
that I would tell, before you go
across the pale blue hill; and so we stand
as I beg you to press closer

Seal your promise of return within my hand,
Not with summer's roses, for shortly
they too deck the sand in bleak shadow-breaths; oh, come closer
so I may hear; not the foot-fall of imminent departure
but the landing of your tear
upon my cheek, in this farewell hour 

J~

Dear Summer,

Farewells are not forever, love

and if the grace of God above

extends Time's sands another year

then we shall meet again, my dear

Come darling, the sun-drenched ballroom floor is ours...

For some reason I feel like summer ends at the end of the kid's summer vacation instead of at the end of September.

Life-plea

The previous train of thought sparked another

God, let me not squander the vapor-present

In pining or regret for the past, over, done

Nor dwell in futile fear for the Future

As it becomes present,

…then it is gone

© Janet Martin

 

Moments fall like the rain outside my window,

the tangible present slips to reflection…

but, as I walk toward the reflection

it disappears.

Time-scape

Behind us slumbers our Past,

A mind-scape only we can see

Before us gleams the Future, vast

A vale of trembling mystery

Beneath us slips the Present, brief

A smooth and subtle under-tow

Above us, from infinity

Is He who ordains Mercy’s flow

© Janet Martin