Of Transitions and Trust

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This dust is the Must and the tester of trust

Oh, how its demons ambush and assail

Its care that we bear would drive us to despair

But for the promise that God will prevail

We grope for The Hope whereby mortal can cope

Oh, blessed assurance; this sorrow and strife

Will pass like the grass or time’s sand in a glass

This but the transition to eternal life

© Janet Martin

Praying this: Psalm 141 for those suffering in Syria and in South Sudan.

  I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me;
    hear me when I call to you.
² May my prayer be set before you like incense;
    may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

³ Set a guard over my mouth, Lord;
    keep watch over the door of my lips.
⁴ Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil
    so that I take part in wicked deeds
along with those who are evildoers;
    do not let me eat their delicacies.

⁵ Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness;
    let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head.
My head will not refuse it,
    for my prayer will still be against the deeds of evildoers.

⁶ Their rulers will be thrown down from the cliffs,
    and the wicked will learn that my words were well spoken.
⁷ They will say, “As one plows and breaks up the earth,
    so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave.”

⁸ But my eyes are fixed on you, Sovereign Lord;
    in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death.
⁹ Keep me safe from the traps set by evildoers,
    from the snares they have laid for me.
¹⁰ Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
    while I pass by in safety.

Gardener's Winter-hope Refrain...

When earth is robed in waves of white

And summer seems a world away

When hearth is warm with firelight

And skies are stoked with icy gray

Above nude tree-copse, stiff, austere

When all the flowers disappear

We do not lose our faith; we know

A garden waits beneath the snow

When dark comes early and stays late

In overtures of moody blue

The heart, a meek and muted slate

Of resolution and review

And when at last the day is born

In cold, colorless winter morn

We do not weep; for each requiem

Dawns nearer to hope’s flower-dream

Beneath the dead of winter; life

And oh, beneath its soldered deep

Faith waits; someday it will be sight

Where summer’s flower-gardens sleep

When winter’s climax grips us; cold
Spilling gray grumbles over gold

We are upheld by hope’s refrain…

Where sun and flower-gardens reign

© Janet Martin

 ...lest we forget:)

Gentle-born Dusk

As I drove home this evening I watched dusk roll over the day, like a gray-blue tide obliterating the familiar in its surge.

Gentle-born dusk rolling soft like a sea

Where workman and wanderer roam

Filling our thought as farewell fills the lea

With whispers of home sweet home

Aerial anthem, arabesque descent

Twirling, unfurling to earth

See how the hour with night-sky is bent

Over blue fallow and firth

Time is a rebel; ah nay, it is I

Fighting what cannot be fought

Gentle-born dusk rolls from gates in the sky

Over our scribble and jot

Methinks the trill of a flute drifts somewhere

Wait; or is it just the wind?

Searching for roses to place in the hair

Of someone that he cannot find

© Janet Martin

Mind-pictures

The other evening as we left on an errand I was berating myself for forgetting my camera... again.The sunset filled the sky with...wow! 'It's okay', consoled Victoria, 'just take a picture with your mind!'

'Take a picture with your mind', she smiled

So I do

Etching the profile

Of a young woman-child

Where dusk-pink

Has drenched high-noon blue

But this image breath-taking; fair

That I cradle where

Only thought can see

Is bitter-sweet

I can never keep

Its present clarity

And this picture of her

Will eventually blur

Though I stare long now

And hard

Soon it will fade

Cherished and frayed

Like a precious, lost postcard

And I have learned

Though my intent is firm

Soon I cannot find

That sharp-edge rush

As I turn to touch

Those pictures in my mind

© Janet Martin

Cutting-room Floor

The pen weighs heavy in her hand

Reluctant to heed thought’s command

As minuet and silhouette

Scatter like shards on living’s sand

And where a moment used to be

She sifts its air for poetry

An echo of a laughing child

Or haste’s redemption; tears run wild

Raging repentance and romance

Are intricately reconciled

And hope aligns with sympathy

Lacing the air with poetry

There is no ocean in a shell

No turning back after farewell

We face the morn; past’s pages torn

To drift in thought’s infinite swell

Where now and then passion runs free

Splashing the air with poetry

She leans upon her staff of ink

And where dusk drained the day of drink

Dawn breaks through bars of blue and stars

Life's cutting-room is bathed in pink

Soon it will fade to what must be

Of memories and poetry

© Janet Martin

Soft Sprawls a Lake of Blue...

Soft sprawls a lake of blue, blue sky

Above the wake of snow and ice

A startling dreamer’s edifice

or tiralee of summer’s sigh

It stirs the wanting in my eye

Love’s holding on and letting go

In subtle half-kiss notes bestow  

Its slow swan-song and lullaby

Soft sprawls a lake of bluest blue

Above a dreamer’s paradise

Where azure sanguine summer-eyes

Gaze kind on shoals of frozen dew

Cadence of winter's wanton chime

Evokes echoes of missing you

But this vast lake of bluest blue

Cradles all things lost unto Time

© Janet Martin

This Thing...part four

Where is this crooning ether-gilded Thing?

It mocks and keens our quiet coveting

A shadow or an echo cannot cloy

Or stuff the searching spirit with its joy

The sorrow-blooms of longing and despair

Have flung their broken petals to the air

And by the heath of laughter’s giddy youth

Time’s disrobed past exhales her somber truth

And still the heart wails with its wondering

Where is this crooning, ether-gilded Thing?

Where is The Thing that heals our innermost

Bereavement with a kind, quickening host

Of softer-sweet forget-ance; ere the bell

Of mourning tolls our long and last farewell

And ever-more its desperation stills

Beneath cold, folded hands and silent wills

Our vainest boast and paltry pittance then

The footfalls in a vale where mighty men

Repose as one with lowliest and weak

The Equalizer leaves nothing to seek

Pale shroud of skin veils thin the screaming heart

And where we fall and crawl, the minor part

Of our existence; hope’s immortal spring

Increases our cry, where is This Thing?

As every now and then vague glimpses of

Something not earthy stuns us; is it Love?

Confession pleads, vain farce; clanging edicts

Without This Thing which comforts and convicts

And still we strive in earnest pursuing

Where is this crooning, ether-gilded Thing?

To be loved once by Love, the great I AM

Fulfills our deepest need; lust’s wretched sham

Distracts, confusion paints a paper smile

Where disappointment lines its plaster guile

Yet we would be calloused, sadly remiss

To count our wants and shake a thankless fist

…the blood-stained God of Calvary implores

Alpha-Omega Love swings wide the doors

Of its inheritance; his Offering

Replies to our cries, Behold This Thing

…and though our shame and wretchedness is great

To call upon His name is not too late

Unless we turn our backs and stop our ears

Until that Great and Awful Day appears

…Another morning tunes our sigh and cry

On season-spangled highways to the sky

Across this sun-sod orb of suffering

We press toward the promise of This Thing

Perfected; not the cloy of ether-gild

But then, the hope of heaven’s joy fulfilled…

© Janet Martin

The Far Side of Today...

Soon, like the wayward wind

This too shall pass away

To deck the landscape of the mind

On the far side of today

Soon, like the flower thrills

Falling in petal-fray

This darling hour softly spills

To the far side of today

And soon this jeering chant

Of can’t and can foray

Will be swept up in dusk-capped waves

To the far side of today

The penmanship of Time

And moment-poetry

Fills eons with hope’s half-penned rhyme

And full-penned imagery

Soon, soon the silence tries

Those things which slip away

For even now a moment dies

On the far side of today

Janet~

Duty-Duel with a Kitchen-Countess

…To laugh the giddy laugh of innocence

Or lie beneath noon’s tree in guiltless ease

Ah Childhood; Keeper of lost luxuries

Stolen somehow by Duty’s recompense

And suddenly I covet the romance

Of girlish fancies, crumpled ‘neath the glare

Of dirty dishes and dust-pan despair

While doggedly pursuing Duty’s dance

Somewhere, but not in crypts of lifeless sod

A shy grave sprawls where I dare never weep

Lest I forfeit these gifts within my keep

Of blessing rendered by dear Duty’s rod

Rose-fingered dawn will soon fold to its breast

Another day of toil and spoil and such

I tremble now beneath the testing touch

Where love and longing vie for Duty’s best

© Janet Martin~

Spring-dreamin'

There, pillowed ‘neath the wooing wind

Fair spring has spread her floral dress

And we, hungry for her caress

Leave winter-weary woes behind

The dreamer of a thousand dreams

Is enticed to forsake his lust

Of garbled this and that; this dust

Is sweeter than thought’s phantom streams

The tyrant that growled grimly by

Our door in vexatious dissent

Has left his shivering lament

To amble from a bluer sky

And dimly now we might recall

The cut-throat gale and ice-travail

But we are drunk on perfumed ale

Of apple-bloom and lilac-shawl

While pillowed on a wooing cot

Of grass-whisper ‘neath new-born leaf

The weariness of winter-grief

Slumbers in cradles long-forgot

© Janet Martin

Ere Wings This Little Day...

Ere wings to rest this little day

Of sundry want and wonder

As unknowns their indictments splay

Within our thought to ponder

…And ere its flight disintegrates

In soundless composition

Its palavering and debate

Fodder for recollection

Ere droops the bloom of good intent

Of darling dream and duty

As morning’s silver stream is bent

To twilight’s tempest-beauty

…ah, would that we taste full its sweet

Its wisp of want and weeping

Ere daylight dies beneath our feet

To past’s eternal keeping

© Janet Martin

Love Exercises

Stretching,

Bending,

Pressing,

Reaching,

Exercises in

Love-

Teaching

Trusting,

Leaning,

Bowing,

Yearning,

Exercises in

Love-

Learning

© Janet Martin

Plea

Oh Thou who ravishes the dawn

With grace and golden splendor

Sketching on canvas of Unknown

What soon a day will render

Oh Thou who hears each pleading prayer

Though wept in secret sorrow

Help us our lot of love to bear

Without fear of tomorrow

Teach us each moment to bestow

A truthful, humble living

And ease our weight of want and woe

With genuine thanksgiving

© Janet Martin

Psalms 104:30 - Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

Rip-tide

There is nothing we can do

To still life's moment-tide

See how snowflake slips into dew

Covering country-side

See how wee boy becomes a man

And youth gasps; he is old

While ever in a moment-span

Its stunning laws unfold

And there is nothing we can do

For moments never rest

Ah yes, me-thinks there is one thing

…we can do our best

© Janet Martin

Heart-art

 Today is...gray.

No shadows dapple the front lawn today

Earth is a canvas of gray over gray

Darling, if it were not for love’s thought-art

It would be the color of my heart

No wild-bloom flowers on streets to the sky

No golden sun-beam or green-leaf lullaby

Darling, without us I fear this bleak art

Would be the colorless gloom of my heart

No purple posies on noon’s dinner-tray

No blue pavilion; just gardens of gray

Darling, if it were not for love’s whispered art

Today would be the color of my heart

© Janet Martin

Toast to January

We chase June echoes across feathered pane

Grand Jack Frost empires melt beneath our sigh

Up from the skyline of mottled terrain

Dawn drinks iced-ebony from midnight’s sky

Mute magistrates of a law undeterred

Oversee icy extolments obeyed

Orderlies dressed in stiff, white over-shirt

Tumble, responding in cloned escapade

Winds scold and simper, as warm zephyrs slink

Like chastised ruffians to sunny-south pews

The brogue of winter moans at every chink

Bent on fulfilling its preordained dues

We brave its volley of steel-tongue barrage

Pouring Colombian second-cup toast

'...to ether-esque echoes of mist-morn mirage

Shimmering somewhere beyond Jack Frost boast'

© Janet Martin

Mother's Midnight Musing...

My mind is somewhere else tonight

Complacency and thirst compete

As wanderlust leaps past this white

Of winter-night to you, my sweet

Upstairs my precious babies sleep

But one; and though fain I rebel

The tides of Time and youth are deep

And dreams tug deeper than farewell

Thought is an eager stead; the air

Is kinder than earth’s froth of snow

And almost I can feel you where

We used to dance too long ago

My mind is somewhere else tonight

Miles fold away beneath its feet

As longing sweeps the shores of white

Until I am with you, my sweet

© Janet Martin

Forever, My Love

Forever, my love, for now and for always

We will keep passion and prayer intertwined

Pity the one who dies while he is breathing

Inhale, exhale without dream, wide-eye blind

Forever, my love, for there is no quitting

Long-haul or uphill, we cannot cease

Darling, the hilltop and vale in life’s painting

Augments the beauty of love’s masterpiece

Forever, my love, beggars cannot be choosers

And I’ll be a beggar for love until death

To have my fill of our love would be torture

Climax of hunger fulfills every breath

Forever, my love, and that but the beginning

True love surpasses this flesh-blood divide

Hold my hand darling, life’s highway is slippery

And oh, lest we stumble, let’s walk side by side

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts~

Tender shepherd, how you love us

Oh, what comfort fills our cries

For one is of no less value

Than ten-thousand, in your eyes

***

Now I lay me down to sleep

And place within your care

Those things I tender to your keep

On wings of wafted prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep

For true love has no fear

What sweet assurance, Lord, to know

That you are ever near

***

Time, what weaves your season-strings?

Where is your vast, vaporous Sea?

You fly on tireless, transient wings

Toward That Thing…

Eternity

***

Mortality; the dust and sod

To Immortality

And God

***

Truth is not altered

Though Deception tries

To twist it and change it

Through golden-lipped lies

***

Oh, wondrous quality of truth

No matter how Time’s change

You are steadfast; Hope’s solid Rock

Nothing can re-arrange

***

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life

Unless I take my eyes off  Thee

Fixated on fear’s strife

***

We, wayfaring fellowmen

Of common toil and test

Should seek to help each other then

To do our very best

..for we,

Wayfaring fellow-friends

Are bound for the same shore

This trial-and-error road soon ends

In God’s forevermore

***

We ought to do all that we can

Today; tomorrow’s gate

Can offer us no guarantee

If we decide to wait

So we should call upon the Lord

Before it is too late

How sad to forfeit Hope’s reward

Because we chose to wait

***

Sweat, prayer and toiling

As tears drench the dirt

...all things worth having

Must suffer this hurt

***

Love…takes a deep breath

And then bites its tongue

Trying to remember

…once she too, was young

***

Vexatious flow

Of high and low

As by the grace

Of God

We go…

Have a blessed Thankful Thursday!

© Janet Martin

Ah, Season-sweep

Ah, season-sweep, how swift you leap

On nimble feet from stone to stone

You spill your fare of faith and prayer

Into the vortex of Bygone

From page to page and age to age

Unknown’s mute metamorphosis

Of what will be… is history

As what we touch, no longer is

Ah, season-sweep, within your keep

You gather little boys and girls

As soft you seal upon your reel

The innocence of un-teased curls

With deft disguise, love’s laughing eyes

Distract us from Time’s subtle ploy

Of yester-yen and making men

Of last summer’s rambunctious boy

Ah, season-sweep, the past is deep

With centuries of your demise

Where bud and leaf and joy and grief

Pass through our touch in moment-guise

From heaven’s urn your no return

Spills; thrilling, filling our reach

With season-ware and painted air

And lessons only you can teach

© Janet Martin 

Ah, we cannot reverse the sweep

where Time's tumble-weed seasons sleep...

Of Vantage and View-points

What do you see, bird in the tree?

Flitting freely from limb to limb

Or you, as you look back at me

Judging appearances of skin

What do you see, dear girl of twelve?

The outside looking in won’t show

Heart-oceans where love steals my breath

In rushing, reeling over-flow

What do you see as you pass by?

Vague view-points from the street won’t tell

Of life here on the other side

...its glimpses of heaven or hell

What do you see? Our vantage-point

Renders and shapes our point of view

I wonder sometimes, would mine change

If I was standing where you do…

© Janet Martin

School buses are up and running today! I saw Victoria double-check to see if I was at my usual waiting-spot inside the kitchen window and then, as she waved to me from the bus I suddenly wondered what her memory of this looks like…mine is the outline of a girl growing a little bigger every year; someday, like everything in life this too will disappear…

Sometimes, to change our point of view, God changes our view-point.

Of Hearts, Unknowns and Faith...

I know Whom I believe

I know that He is able

To guard the Unknown seeping through

Dawn’s faint and far-east gable

I know Whom I believe

Beneath life’s great Unknown

He cups His hands in faithful keep

And fills dark night with dawn

I know Whom I believe

Keeper of field and heart

Cradles in ceaseless vigilance

Unknowns unformed rampart

 

I know Whom I believe

Each fear and doubt I place

Into His promises and then

Press onward by His grace

© Janet Martin

My Dad, who has known little sickness in this life found out the other day that he will need heart-bypass surgery.( initially they assured him they should be able to avoid this) He suffered a heart-attack two days after we celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary in September, but we are thankful that this warning made us aware of his heart-condition. This down-time is testing the patience of a man who thrived on keeping busy, but being a man of deep faith I know that He knows Whom he believes and Knows that He is able…so his ‘heart-condition’ is okay in the Hands of the Keeper.

 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. 2 Tim.1:12

Of Illusion And Memories

Illusions are not memories

Nor memories illusion

Now and then we are perplexed

By illusion’s intrusion

Thus causing momentarily

For us to become blind

To what we hold of moment gold

By fancy of the mind

Illusions are not memories

Though thought flings wide a door

To sundry painted fantasies

Of what one wishes for

But we are thought’s proprietor

And must be diligent

To guard that wide and winsome door

From thankless discontent

Illusions are not memories

Nor memories illusion

Though perhaps they vex and tease

In chimeral confusion

Majestic wave from rolling seas

Its grandeur awes and pleases

To disappear in moment-ease

Upon the sand beneath us

Illusions are not memories

Although they spread their fare

In likened manner, readily

On thought-scapes boundless stair

We cannot hear the echo of

Illusion, only want

As memories console with love

Where vain illusions taunt

© Janet~