Our Care-taker

Sometimes, even before I open my eyes

To see if morning has wakened the skies

They assault me; life’s fears and burden and such

So I keep my eyes closed until I feel God’s touch

We cannot see to the far end of the day

Or beyond a moment; it is wise to pray

To the One who can, then trust to His care

Those things we lift up as we touch Him in prayer

© Janet Martin

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isa. 26:3

Sometimes these promises are all we have and it is enough! because these promises are not a fairy-tale; they are from God.

Of Artist and Athiest

I saw Him draw the night aloft

And fill day’s dawn with hope

The Light reveals what dark can not

Of winter-gilded slope

Where Heaven spills its authorship

In masterpiece array

As every somber stem is dipped

In silver-dazzled spray

And Wonder manifests Himself

In tiny little flake

In dam’s of light that rends the veil

Where midnight’s legions wait

His earth is clad in bridal-white

The Groom bedecks each limb

With proclamations of delight

No one can transcend Him

The outer fringes of His work

Surpasses mortal thought

His whisper fills the universe

Time is a vapor jot

Held in the palm of He who breathes

Each glorious frame of art

Sunrise, sunset, each masterpiece

Faint glimpses of His heart

…and all the atheist can see

is sky or snow, or field or tree

© Janet Martin

Wonder, Worship and White Worlds

Where dusk spilled gold and corn stood green and lean

Earth’s halls are cold, ensconced in silver sheen

The quiver from whence sultry dog days fell

Has stripped the fence of all but winter’s knell

As lanes where bare feet stirred its silky dust

Persuade a bitter-sweeter wanderlust

The harbinger of spring is gruff and brusque

He rushes through dawning to early dusk

His austere stance is grim, tormenting tress

He graces laud-less limb in glass caress

His kiss upon our cheeks is keen and harsh

Yet as he speaks his whisper stuns staid marsh

The zephyr-lilt of August afternoon

Must don a quilt to suffer winter’s tune

Surreal, the frozen field and aftermath

Of icy seal on daisy-dappled path

And we are awed anew within its hush

By what our God can do with His paint brush…

© Janet Martin

I felt as if I was crashing through a glass temple, wondering anew at winter’s wonderland and worshiping without word the Wonderful One who whispers white worlds into being!

Intangible Touch

Within your two-tone sweep

You brush and crush and kiss

A double-sided bliss

From deep to ether deep

Across the air you splay

The colors of your sigh

Your hello and good-bye

Disguised as night and day

You hide in youth-romance

Or in the half-breath glow

Of innocence before they know

The power of your dance

Your cadence rises, falls

In hemlock hymn or gale

You laugh and weep and wail

In midnight madrigals

We cannot glimpse or grasp

Beyond your present breath

Or resurrect from death

Spent moments from your clasp

And from your phantom grail

Of future, present, past

A lifetime fills your glass

And spills on living’s trail

© Janet Martin

Limbo-Tossed

Have you laughed her silver laughter?

Have you wept her scarlet tears?

See? The hungry ever-after

Fills its reaching void with years

Have you spoken soft your longing?

Have you whispered your farewell?

Listen; can your hear the tolling

Of Time’s tireless evening bell?

Here upon her tattered hemline

Lies our scattered, shattered dream

Look; ah, look out to the skyline

See Time’s sweet resilience stream

Have you written your love-letter?

Laid it tender on her brow

Hark; is this her keen begetter

Drifting in on wings of snow?

Have your held her to your bosom

Have you kissed her half-shut eye?

Hush; methinks I hear her wind-song

Caught twixt hello and good-bye

© Janet Martin

To the Old Year...

We have wept your laughter-tears

And slept on tears of woe

And now, like all the other years

Away, away you flow

Into your tide we shed our dream

And bled our aching pen

The silence of your subtle stream

Is mightier than men

Yet still we wish upon your star

And pray the Lord to keep

Our loved ones whether near or far

As to yon brink you sweep

Then, as you fall away, away

To Past’s eternal home

A New Year fills its gold and gray
With what is yet to come
 

© Janet Martin

After-Christmas Thursday Thoughts

The packages are gone beneath the tree

Their paper torn, the o-o-o-h’s and a-a-a-h’s depart

But hope, love, joy; these precious gifts are free

If we carry True Christmas in the heart

***

Tuck to the heart those tender things

Of Christmas joy and peace

But sad regret and broken strings

Lift Up and then release

***

Calendar Christmas is just one day

But True Christmas never fades away

***

We cannot keep moments, they slip

And drip like snow from trees

But in the cradle of the heart

We keep their memories

Therefore we ought to tend with care

Each tick that time imparts

So we may ever gladly bear

Its treasure in our hearts

***

Silent night, holy night

Half-moon lounging on blue deep

All across earth’s black and white

Many tired children sleep

***

Sing a song of gladness,

Sing a song of joy

Christmas-best is worship

Of wee girl and boy

(Inspired by the wee, little girl who sang her heart out on the pew behind me at the Christmas Eve service; so, so precious)

***

I love the lights, the songs, the laughter

Of the Christmas celebration

But now it is the first ‘day after’

How I miss Anticipation

***

Darling, another year is spent

It’s wisp of waning thread

Is dangling on time’s needle, bent

With next year’s hope and dread

But one thing is not more or less

Or past or future, God’s goodness! Hallelujah!

***

Trial and Error, grievous twain

Of wisdom’s testing, vexing pain

They’ve taught us through another year

We lift a cup of cheer, hear, hear,

… ‘until we meet again’

© Janet Martin

Of Brokenness, Beauty and Bethlehem

We gather from all walks of life and struggle

The beautiful broken, rejoicing, redeemed

We are not perfect without spot or blemish

But Jesus is; and by His grace we are clean

Guilty by nature, yet pardoned and purchased

By He who became sin without sin

Wonderful wonder; the Babe in the manger

Knew His full mission before Bethlehem

Peace, only God’s peace transcends this world’s trouble

Love, only God’s love can comfort our woe

Hope, only God’s hope offers full assurance

And thus, by the grace of this goodness we go

And so we gather to exalt and worship

Jesus, the author and anchor of faith

We bow before Him in meek adoration

Broken made beautiful in His embrace

Redemption; not of our own works and boasting

Redemption; not by what our hands have done

Redemption; fully and only forever

Through Jesus Christ, God’s Own Beloved Son

© Janet Martin

There is so much broken beauty around us; in nature, in people. As we worshiped on Christmas Eve I was struck once again by the awesomeness of it all.

I hope to post some broken beauty of the storm eventually. (long story; camera troubles etc:)