Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Summer Sonnet





Why do you haste with step so lithe and fleet?
Who must you visit and why do you rush?
The essence of your lilt is bittersweet
For as you spill in coral, floral blush
Where golden rod and milkweed plume compete
We feel you slipping through the underbrush
And while our arms are laden with your mirth
Or else while we run fingers fondly where
Soft spring had stirred the atrium of earth
We sense a winnowing upon the air
Within the sweep of harvest-heavy girth
Within the answer to a farmer’s prayer
And as we linger in your citadel
You softly draw us nearer to farewell

Place your distraction kindly at my door
For I am eager to be entertained
With sunny days or raindrops as they pour
From lintels high above, free, unrestrained
Yet, even then I cannot quite ignore
The imminence of something yet contained
Within the hours as they gently reach
To fill our baskets with glad garden-grace
Or in the waves that roll across the beach
Or in the canopy of walnut-lace
I taste it in the sweet smile of a peach
And I have lived enough to keenly feel
Your precious moments dripping from Time’s reel

The splendor of your tender eventide
Cannot persuade me to mourn or to dance
I am enamored but you do not hide
Time’s truth within your rose-petal romance
How swift it seems the night and day divide
Your portion; the vine covers the fence
And Queen Ann’s lace gilds every meadow-lane
I am not sad and yet my gladness aches
For in the rippling grass and golden grain
The Hand that gives is the same Hand that takes
And I can never perfectly explain
The beauty of this pain that gently breaks
Surging within, in humble, soulful praise
For the sweet rendering of summer days

© Janet Martin

Those Choices We Make





For those choices we make
That are lonely and hard
And often misunderstood
What comfort to know
God knows and cares
If we choose those things we should

When we stand before Him
On that Great Day
Where nothing is concealed
It is good to remember
In the choices we make
The truth will be revealed

© Janet Martin

To choose to do right can be a lonely thing…but God sees! My girls and I were chatting about this and I told them what once my dad told me; "Remember, when we stand before God it will be ourselves and Him, nobody else; (no one to point to and say, but they did it) and He will know every single time we said ‘no or yes’ to honor Him. It is not easy but it will be worth it all!" 

 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak you in light: and what you hear in the ear, that preach you on the housetops. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:26-28

Recompense





The highs and lows of joys and woes
Are living’s dispensation
They try and test our boasted best
With tears and consolation

But, in the end its complex blend
Renders a certain recompense
For good and bad, happy and sad
All adds up to experience

...and wisdom's gold does not unfold
 If we shrink from its reaching
As life employs its grief and joys
And we learn from its teaching

© Janet Martin

Monday, July 22, 2013

But, Of Course



 

‘But of course’ you whisper and sweeten my sigh
I don’t like the spaces after good-bye
When the warmth of your kiss has grown cool on my lips
And I touch you, but only with thought’s fingertips

‘But of course’, you murmur and do not pull away
Though you are sequestered to yesterday
Where laughter and lingering and letting go
Swirl, twirl in a vortex of love’s high and low

‘But of course’ you repeat as you slip from my reach
For Time does not sympathize, though I beseech
It lends its bestowal, then, in spite of my pleas
It gathers its granting to sweet memories

© Janet Martin

Shall we dance? I ask of this day and it replies, 'but, of course'.

Of Vacations...and Secrets (edited re-post)

 

After their travels they regaled us with tales
Of mountains and castles, of vistas and Wales
The food was splendid, the rooms were grand
The ocean green on silver sand...

...we ate apples on a moon-bathed fell
It was almost heaven, but we didn't tell

Janet~

Of Coming Home





My mind is on Home this morning... it makes that monstrous soiled laundry heap a little bit more sweet:)

Of all the sights our ventures boast
No matter where these miles may roam
One destiny surpasses most
None measures up with coming home

Of portals exotic and grand
Of mountaintops or castle-dome
Or turquoise waves washing the sand
Nothing replaces coming home

We leave its solace to employ
Love’s kind responsibility
But, oh the sweet and humble joy
Of coming home is heavenly

Someday, beyond life’s painted hall
Of tear and toil, of loss and loam
We will embrace once and for all
The utter joy of coming Home

© Janet Martin

This Beautiful Feeling of Home





My brother Dave has a poet’s soul. Last night while we (a few siblings and spouses) were chatting on his deck as the kids played in the pool he remarked, Hey, you guys, do you ever, as you drive in at your homes, feel this big sense of gladness that this is your life and this is your home? And do you ever think, man, I’m so glad that it is and what a wonderful place to be? (this guy has known difficulty in his life…much!!), but oh, I knew exactly what he meant; this feeling of utter contentment and thankfulness. He concluded then by saying how his heart breaks for all the people of the world who have never known this beautiful feeling of home! Amen, brother.

Last year on Dave’s birthday I sent him this poem, because his wife remarked that he and I were both ‘sky-lovers’(aka poets;). She laughed as I raved and she said, ‘you sound just like your brother.’

This morning his words have driven me to contemplating...
 This Beautiful Feeling of Home

What is it that makes a house a home?
A lovely solace where the soul
Is blissfully content in spite
Of living’s care and duty’s toll

At home we touch with tender ease
Those things not given second thought
Of common familiarities
Weaving an essence heaven-wrought

…and when life’s path leads from its door
Insisting that we cannot stay
How much more sweet is coming home
After the hours spent away

For home makes simple people kings
Not by the grace of things and stuff
But, as God weaves our broken strings
Into the music of His love

Here moments shape life’s memories
Of song and sorrow, joy and strife
Methinks this lovely thing must be
A glimpse of Home beyond this life

© Janet Martin

Home, sweet home, God bless our Home, Home is where the heart is, Welcome Home; these are not trite cliches.

The neighbors were gone for a few weeks on summer holidays. When the kids dropped by to pick up their mail I asked them if it feels good to be home and together they replied 'Yes'!
My sister and her hubby were gone for a week; she told me looking forward to a trip and leaving are great, but coming home is even better!

Melissa came home on Sat. night after a week up north at a kid's camp. She said it feels so good to be home. Here sisters share a moment as she shows them pictures on her phone and tells them about her week.





This Thing...Part Two




 Wow, said my son Matt, as he reverently touched the pages of a neighbor's family heirloom Bible, 'this never changes. These words are still exactly the same now as they were way back then, and way before 'back then'...Yes! and in this book it is written ' Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.' Matthew 24:35

When on those dreamy banks at last we stand
Betaken, not by grief or living’s care
But by the utter glory of a land
Where pinnacles of earth cannot compare
To Heaven; we begin to see at last
Our hope complete; for His love has not failed
Though mockers spit and jeered and stones were cast
In ignorance and hate; God’s love prevailed
For Love cannot be slain; it transcends flesh
While evil threatens to destroy and kill
It cannot take what God instills in us
Our gifted breath He cradles in His will
And when He wills this flesh-blood cup will fall
But death for some, will be our gladder gain
For then we leave this sin-cursed orb of gall
Beyond this thorn-and-thistle port of pain
To eons of thought’s greatest mystery
Alpha, Omega, First and Last, the Same
Where I AM IS: we strain but cannot see
Or grasp the vaguest glimpse of Love’s acclaim
But oh, its Urge within us bids us on
For all we cannot know One Thing is sure
His Word abides; we build our hope upon
Love’s Truth; for its foundation will endure
Hate has no Heaven-promise; only hell
Pray tell then, who can its evil afford?
Soon we will bid this fickle world farewell
And everyone will receive their reward
According to the things which we have done
Not for salvation’s price; but out of Love
By this we prove what words cannot atone
Of whom we serve; this world or God above
For action’s voice is irrefutable
It testifies where speech stutters and fails
Its proof is certain and immutable
And in the end its witness will prevail
The wise take heed and ponder the discourse
Of thought and where its evidence will lead
And who among us has not felt the Force
Of He who seeks to satisfy our Need?
Our Need is universal; it is Love
Man cannot live by bread alone; the soul
Is not sustained by this world’s treasure-trove
Only God’s love fulfills and makes us whole
Clay holds no fortune that can satisfy
It simply keens the hunger of the flesh
The treasures of this world with this world die
Oh, what will succor longings that enmesh
Within the aching vortex of desire
And what will be the purpose to life’s pain
As we grapple and grope through life’s quagmire
If we shun God? Then is our suffering vain,
For hope pleads not from beds of sloth and ease
But from the broken heart, the weak and poor
And while we question suffering’s agonies
We weep to God, for He will not ignore
The cries of those who place their trust in Him
Proclaiming power, not by what we see
But by the promises that yet remain
Until that full and final liberty
When hope that is not seen will be revealed
The glorious climax to salvation’s plan
As the veil where His glory is concealed
Will part and we behold the Son of Man
And then, like Stephen we will cry aloud
‘I see Jesus standing at God’s right hand’
And all the unbelieving and the proud
Will believe, bowing at the judgment stand
Where Love will be the Victor evermore
The wordless groans for which He intercedes,
The anguish and the tears as we implore
Will be banished as Love’s triumph succeeds
The frustrations we were subjected to
By Divine Love, so we would seek and find
Freedom from sin’s bondage thus brought into
His glory as we leave this world behind
The glass we peer through now is dark, but then
When face to face we see the unknown known
His Love will be our ultimate acclaim
As we worship before His holy throne
Where death and sorrow will be wiped away
No pain and crying ever enter there
Though questions fill our answers with dismay
God did not His own beloved Son spare
But offered Him, a living sacrifice
To pay a debt of hate with Love’s pure blood
And we will enter Heaven by Love’s price
Redeemed within Love’s unrelenting flood
For He has suffered and was tempted just as we
But Love will overcome the wiles of hate
This suffering that seems must surely be
Will never pass through Heaven’s gleaming gate

© Janet Martin

 Our speaker Gord Martin at this morning's worship service just returned from a visit to Burundi. His topic was Is There Purpose to our Pain? and he showed pictures, told stories of the pain and horror they were told of and witnessed leaving them shaken, as those suffering proclaimed the power and love of God...and he came to the conclusion that many times the only purpose of pain can be that through it we seek Hope, the Living Hope, Jesus Christ.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope  that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Romans 8; 18-21