Release

I found myself breathing these words this morning...

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

And not to live in hopeless need

But with the peace of sweet release

Allowing You to intercede

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

To place the weight of faithless fear

Within the grace of Your embrace

Remembering that You are near

Dear Lord, help me to trust in You

Relinquishing each care-worn part

Dear Lord, I need faith’s mustard seed

Help me to trust with all my heart

© Janet Martin

Sometimes it feels like there's an added weight to life's loads of care, Lord, help me pray then leave it there.

 Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.^[a]

⁷ Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and shun evil.
⁸ This will bring health to your body
    and nourishment to your bones. Prov. 3:3-8

Of Breath-bindings

They drift away

Gossamer shells

Without a flicker

Of farewell

And though they hold

Within their clutch

The staggering

Softness of touch

Where love and loss

And longing bleed

Where hope and faith

And honor plead

Where blood and sweat

And tears caress

The footfalls

Of our humanness

And monumental

Penitence

Bound in half-breath

Deliverance

They slip into the

Languid hour

Plucking the

Glory from the flower

And children from

A mother’s reach

They rend, they croon

Tender and teach

Then slip into

Impassive air

Buoyed by whispered

Wings of prayer

Or perhaps

Just a little sigh

As we murmur

Good-bye, good-by

But they do not turn

To reply

Or brush the teardrop

From our eye

Though they have stolen

Part by part

The utmost linings

Of the heart

They spin into

The atmosphere

Beneath a guise

That we call

Year

Janet~ 

So many year endings and beginnings in a year. This heat-wave has finished off this year's peonies abruptly, the school-year ends, another year of summer-vacation begins, Moments molding Milestones melting into moments making memories.

Inhale.
Exhale.
Life.

Of Pendulums and Purpose

The pendulum that draws the sun

From east to west to east

And lights the wick to virgin hope

As old dreams are released

It spurs us ever forward

In a tick-tock melody

‘Til flesh and soul are parted

At life’s final destiny

The misty morning gilds the dell

And spills into the deep

We fill our mouths with daily bread

And pray the Lord to keep

Our feet in paths of righteousness

Lest in errant folly

We see too late the horror of

Our heedless apathy

The pendulum that marks the hour

The hour that marks a day

The days that number weeks and years

Are not mere feckless fray

They are our gifted steppingstones

Leading, not to the sod

But from this earth to Heaven’s throne

And to the arms of God

© Janet Martin

Happy Summer Vacation to all Teachers and Students

It seems that we have come upon an island in the sea

Two months of sweet vacation-time already; can it be?

The gangplank lowers to the cries of farewell and ahoy

For it’s summer-vacation time for every girl and boy

Was it not just a mile ago that we embarked upon

A voyage charted, page by page to gossamer unknown?

Where autumn lit its match and leaf-song faded to the earth

The limb has been refurbished with summer’s green-gilded mirth

Beneath the watchful eye of Captain, crew, deckhands and such

We see a generation rise beneath love's patient touch

The bashful dreamer dances now and leaps into the sky

The fearful fledgling spreads its wings, eager to soar and fly

The fathers and the mothers try to find the words to say

Thank-you to those who teach them who they want to be someday

But all that we can muster as we search for words to speak

Is ‘thank-you dearest teachers, for the things you do each week’

The halls that ring with shouts and greeting soon will bear the pall

Of footsteps faint and fleeting where a thousand echoes fall

And though we disembark; though miles may draw us far apart

We keep our precious memories forever in the heart

(last verse optional)

Was it not just a mile ago that we embarked upon

A voyage where each lesson was a little stepping-stone?

And now its seems that we have reached their darling destiny

All eyes are on the clock for soon its tick-tock sets them free

© Janet Martin

Complete

We wash the dishes, polish sinks

Making living-quarters neat

We add the touch of blooms and such

But still, something is not complete

We do the laundry, fill the fridge

With healthy and good things to eat

And yet we sense a keen absence

Of something just not quite complete

We scrub the floors and fuss about

The mess left by way-faring feet

And almost there, we touch the air

Of something keen and incomplete

The front-door slams, someone calls ‘Mom’?

Ah yes, they say silence is sweet

I like the noise of girls and boys

Shaping what makes a home complete

Thank-you Lord, the daily war

Of cleaning-cooking-cares repeat

Yet, in the end they bind and blend

The joys that make a home complete

© Janet Martin

Last night at supper I tried recording the family in ‘lively conversation’ to put it mildly. I sort of missed the moment but it struck me how the completeness of living is not in its tidiness or quietness but in its noise and messes. I like being the listener to their debates/arguments; usually Matt versus sisters, something like-Why People Who Belch are Happier Than Those Who Don’t, etc…

Matt Versus Sisters (of course, at fifteen he enjoys few things more than driving his sisters CRAZY!)

Often, if hubby calls during the day and asks what I’m doing my answer will be something like, ‘oh, laundry, or cleaning or dishes’. ‘Again?’ he asks, ‘Is that all you do?’ No it’s not, but I do it a lot!

Of Happiness and Success...oh! and canned sausage

Success, for all its promises

Of comfort, luxury and bliss

Cannot, when all is said and done

Favor the heart with happiness

But happiness is that fair thing

Elusive to the hand of greed   

Its joy leaps from an obscure spring

Where love extends itself to need

The triumph of a life well-lived

And its rendition of success

Lies not in fortune’s vanity

But in the key to happiness

This key opens a precious vault

Filled, not with gold or silver boast

But with endowments visible

To those who’ve found what matters most

© Janet Martin

Sometimes happiness is a simple as sausage-on-a-bun with mustard!

...and sometimes God blesses us with the acquaintance of those who we know have found it and they seem to share it without realizing it; happiness.

We had a great day together. While I taught her of canning sausage she taught me of happiness; trust, joy, peace in spite of great unknowns as we chatted about families, marriage, love and souls; the everlasting-ness of souls bound to one of two destinies...and of how much God loves us and His desire is that not one soul should be lost.

Canned pork-sausage may not look so appealing but it is so great for a quick meal! Simply order your sausage in bulk. Spiral or place cut pieces in sterilized canning jar until full to the neck of the jar. Wipe jar-rim before placing sterilized lids on each one. Place in *Canner-pot. Cover with cold water and bring to a rolling boil. reduce heat to med. and steam for 3 hrs. Remove from heat.do not move jars while they are cooling. After they are sealed wash them and store jars in a cool, dry place.Meat will keep for months! Simply brown and serve. 

* Canner 

Summer and Poets

On canvasses of rolling green summer employs its will

On parchment unmarred and pristine a poet’s passions spill

Into the dell, on hill and field summer flings floral font

Against the knell of thought’s appeal a poet bleeds his vaunt

On moss and bracken tapestry summer releases rain

Across midnight serenity a poet frees his pain

As summer’s dawn breaks through the deep and day is new again

The poet rouses from his sleep to feed his hungry pen

  

On filament of sky and sod summer unfurls its mien

The poet sees the hand of God within earth’s mezzanine

And in the aftermath of summer all that will remain to see

Are the paths where poets wander searching for His poetry

© Janet Martin

Of Footprints, Fantasies and Forgetting

And so I went back there to stand

Where we had walked and talked that day

But the shadows in the sands

Of Time were strange, misshapen gray

The songs we listened to and danced

Like children on sweet summer’s shore

Seemed to have rendered their romance

To seasons and the ocean’s roar

And when I went back there tonight

In search of what we had that day

All I could find in the moonlight

Were footprints that had washed away

© Janet Martin