Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Of Climbing and Canvasses



We each have our own range of mountains to climb
Spilling the art of our attitudes where
Accountability sobers our prayer
Urging us upward in reverence of Time

Clandestine cravings and comforts compete
No one but God can behold our hearts
And no one but God perfect pardon imparts
Thus making bearable life’s bittersweet

Over the canvas of daylight our thought
Paints into pictures life’s moiling chagrin
Reaching, ah reaching for something within
Straining to touch it but cannot tell what

We all are pilgrims and artists; oh God
Called and commissioned by Your love and grace
Our spills and stumbles fall to Your embrace
Pictures of pardon and hope brushed on sod

© Janet Martin

Guilt assaults me the instant those words left my mouth, ‘nothing ever stays clean around here’.
Victoria continues stirring her hot chocolate completely un-alarmed offering words of amused sympathy and suddenly I know I am not ready for a quiet, sterile house.
After she leaves for school I wander through messy rooms capturing ‘blessing in disguise’.
Even so, I believe a little organizing of ‘blessing’ is in order!

 Victoria is painting a house-warming gift to give to Emily when she returns from her honey-moon in a few days.

Breakfast Remains...

*Mount Wash-more waiting to be conquered! (*a name I read somewhere else:)

And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. 2 Thess.3:13



Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Autumn Is...





Autumn is coral on cobblestone morn
Acres of infantry posing as corn
Rosy cheeked apple with rosy cheeked child
Autumn is paint on a palette run wild

Bins filled with harvest and hearts filled with praise
Home and hearth kindled with banter and blaze
Autumn is full-moon on frost-feathered leaf
Complex alignment of comfort and grief

Autumn is pumpkin-pie-apple-crisp love
Faith’s aftermath slipping from summer’s glove
Autumn is moody and autumn is keen
Autumn is brandy poured over lime-green

Lovers find lanes lined with leafy repose
Dreams and death mingle like snow on a rose
Autumn is echoes of childhood on dusk
Wood-smoke entwined with wind-song blue and brusque

Autumn is farewell leaning on Time’s gate
Russet rebellion succumbing to fate
Autumn is sweater-warm hugs, cup of tea
Autumn is wishing you were here with me…

© Janet Martin

Today was everything autumn;
Pink sunrise,
Sun and cloud slide-show highlighting deep blue, gold and russet
Little boys with rosy cheeks
Munching rosy apples,
Hot tea,
Warmer sweaters,
Squash and corn chowder for supper with fresh apple crisp,
Family lingering in the kitchen by candlelight, (wishing for fire in the wood-stove)
Walking through leaves, watching farmers harvesting corn
And over it all a brooding wind tugging towels from the line, 
nipping our noses and stoking the 'missing you' in our hearts,
All the while reminding us ‘who’ is just around the corner!

Of Autumn and Autographs





You woo and you vex
You soothe and perplex
Running rampant fingers
Across timber-tress
And all in between
Where sweet summer had been
You turn green to gold
With ambiguous caress

You gather beneath
Your cumulus wreath
Memories and moments
Of memories to come
How early your night
Snuffs the day from our sight
Where porch-lights are beacons
To welcome us home

You chuckle then weep
You arouse, lull to sleep
Seraphim slide-show
Of shadow and sun
Kissing the air
With ambivalent flare
You steal a day
That has scarcely begun

You rage then you dance
Your tempestuous romance
Teases, appeases
Persuades us to laugh
Until one day
It seems you slip away
And all we can find
Is Jack Frost’s autograph

© Janet Martin







Matrix of Moments



 
This tree never grew as tall as it should have yet tirelessly tells each season.
It seems it is dressing or rather, undressing for winter.



Brusque blue breeze runs its touch over tresses
Limbs once exuberant, lathered in gold
Have no where to hide; they brace for the cold
Dreaming of springtime and pretty new dresses

Solemn and soulful, a gleaned-garden dirge
Murmurs in echoes where summer’s song swelled
And children grew limber while their mothers held
To mute moments melting on Time’s soundless surge

The wind is a wanderer; a tired troubadour
Searching for music in each forlorn tree
Where is the sighing leaf-song melody?
Its notes snuffed and scattered on earth’s umber floor

Masterpiece moments amalgamate; merge
Amorphic matrix of laughter and tears
Falling in half-breaths to hours then years
Shaping a life as its patterns converge

© Janet Martin

Forever...



 Image Source: unknown

No morning, noon or night
No beginning
And no end
No tomorrow
And no yesterday
In eternity,
My friend
But only forever and ever
As ageless eons roll
After this home of flesh and blood
In the endless home of the soul
 

© Janet Martin

My son was trying to wrap his mind around the idea of ‘no Time’. 

For God so loved the world
He gave His only Son
that whoever believes in him
should not perish
but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Monday, October 21, 2013

Moonless Monday Night Musings




Beware of the guests
We allow in our brain
For we become thoughts
That we entertain

***

Oh, irony of life and love
Oh, mysterious assay 
The only thing of worth we keep
Is what we give away

***

All the white-out in the world
Cannot erase one spoken word
Wisely we should remember then,
We ought to think before we’re heard

***

The deepest deep and darkest dark
Is pierced by a just single spark

***

This is the day the Lord has made
Its sunshine and its rain
Oh, use it well my friend, for it
Will never pass again…

***

Thought slips with ease across the miles
Teasing the heart with tears and smiles

Janet~


Oh, Soft Letting Go...





Linger, linger long-ly, oh soft letting go
Hold me in your arms; dance with me sweet and slow
I am not ready to swiftly untie
The strings of my heart to a hasty good-bye

Leave me, but leave me patiently if you must
For I cannot sever love’s ties in one thrust
Tarry against me; the warmth of your sigh
Comforts the farewell that shimmers near-by

Hear how the night-wind moans low on earth’s turf
Hear how the sea-song weeps long on its surf
How can I un-tether a piece of my heart
Where you seem to be such an intricate part?

There are no dead-lines to love’s bittersweet
Where living’s fulfillment and longing compete
So linger and hold me, for I cannot know
How long is the slow-dance of letting you go?  

© Janet Martin

Yes, I've recovered from my daughter's wedding, but the letting go will take much longer...

October-set...





October sets a-fire the tress with gold and scarlet gild
Akin to love when its first bud and burnished bloom are spilled
A sager sort of splendor soothes Time’s restlessness within
Oh darling, love me tender; I feel winter setting in

Fleet fingers pluck with purposed passion every petal-plume
The limb that lured the lilting lark falls prey to nature’s loom
Softly it sheds its bronze and reds, weaving October’s thread
In whisperings beneath our feet and silence overhead

October weans from hillsides every rare, riveting hue
How still the stark, dark silhouette is etched against its blue
As woodland lends its laughter to the breeze, mute moment-mirth
…Darling, our fantasies like leaves soon slumber in the earth

Oh, love me like a lover on the brink of his farewell
But do not leave me; autumn sets so swiftly on the fell
I see its sweeping splendor fall to fence-row, fallow, stone
Darling, oh love me tender; winter is too long alone

© Janet Martin

In the flurry of wedding plans and such, October seems to be setting so very quietly and quickly on fall's horizon!