Trying to Write About Reason...

We push thought-syllables around…

Arrange, then re-arrange

To shape a new image or sound

Some familiar, some strange

We weigh the powers that must be

Of choice and circumstance

And how response is all that we

Contribute to Time’s glance

…of high and low and hold-let-go

Of flounder, fall and fly

By faith or fear we persevere

And cannot cease to try

God’s way confounds the thoughts of man

We seem bent to Time's strife

Yet, reason wraps into a span

What soon becomes a life

We know that daylight breaks the dawn

And disappears at night

But none can see the Great Beyond

Beyond its dark and light

...and living's greatest mystery

Is what death will unveil

As Reason becomes history

And Time an empty grail

So, we push mute syllables around

Squeeze thought into a pen

Unqualified to utter sound

But this to God…Amen

© Janet Martin

 Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.…Isa. 55:7-9

Wanderlust Versus Housework

Lured by your laughing blue eyes, my love

Lured by your argentate smirk

Ah, who can resist your taunting of

Wanderlust versus housework?

On one hand the call of the wind running wild

But on the other the cloth

Of that which becometh mother with child,

Can I not succor them both?

I feel the presence of dust-bunnies snore

I hear the moan of a mop

But ah, the window flaunts wide open floor

With fresh coat of sparkle on top

Is there a hard fast law to appease

Regarding the spending of air?

Surely tis better to dance with a breeze

Then just leave it lonely out there…

… Lured by your laughing blue eyes, my love

Lured by your argentate smirk

Ah, who can resist your taunting of

Wanderlust versus housework?

© Janet Martin

A Moment at a Time...

 

 We really can't take a moment and think, this is it!! What a day... The lady I babysit for rushed to the hospital this morning after her mother was removed from this van and airlifted from a local hospital to a larger one... Tonight I hear she is going to be okay! Injuries, yes, but none life-threatening as initially feared! Thank-you, Jesus!
...and let's continue to pray
.

I don't know how these stitches fit into a masterpiece but Jesus does...

 

We cannot take a moment

At face-value, but must trace

Like stitches in a garment

Tiny bits that interlace

Then, as they join together

Gradually we realize

The beauty of a picture

That we cannot recognize

If dissected in fragments

Yet as fragments find their crease

They are finely, firmly fitted

To reveal a masterpiece

© Janet Martin

Image Source

All, But This

 This snowy winter is allowing for new 'firsts', like cross-country skiing after supper beneath sunset skies! Skiing is a great time to meditate...

 Ah, Thou art He who spoke into existence land and sea

And everything therein; above, beneath, the night and day

Fair, fragile frond, reed-studded pond and mountain majesty

Soft silver snowflake sparkle, dusk, as daylight fades away

Your Hand touches Time’s treadle; moments course in seamless tide

As seasons spill their petals; moon, sun, stars Thy edict heed

Our thought cannot in full traverse this sod to sky divide  

But wonders at the One who every law of it decreed

Oh, Thou art He who watches from a high and holy place

Yet not with shouted threats of doom for our inherent sin

Your love and mercy pours unbounded in each day of grace

And whispers to us tenderly from soul-space deep within

For Thou art He who gave Himself, sin’s sacrifice and died

So man may live; you came to earth Your every law to prove

Then as redemption poured in red its need was satisfied

In You, who spoke to being All but this; a Father’s Love

© Janet Martin

We Write Because...

We write,

Not because we’re professionals

Or perfect

At what we do

But,

When we feel that beautiful feeling

We write because

We want you

To feel it too

We write

If only to share a little

Of our life-window hue

But when God breathes

His Beauty

Over the world

We write because

We want you to

See Him too

So we write of

Hunger and heartache

Of things past,

Yet to come,

We write about leaving

and loving and home

…Of passion’s hurricane

Bold bittersweet

Pleasure and pain

On farewell-cobbled street

We write to the gong

Of one a.m.

Roundels of rain-song

Longing’s diadem

Dusk’s darling doggerel

Dawn’s dew-drenched dream

Midnight’s mute madrigal

Retrospect’s requiem

We write of holding

And then letting go

Of moment’s bestowing

Life’s yeses and No

We write ink-pictures

And portraits of thought

Ravaging hours

For just the right jot

The poet confesses

Fathoms of the heart

Novelist, playwright,

We tear words apart

To measure their music

To treasure the taste

Of moments once more

Plucked from summer’s haste

Where the bloom is still heavy

With diamond of dew

And the heart is a levee

Of ‘missing you’

Or where noon on the boardwalk

Is misty beach-blue

Ah, words are thought’s medium

To experience The View

So, we write

Nothing strange 

Or foreign

Or new

But simply

Because

We want you

To be there too

© Janet Martin

I Love You, Not Because You're Pretty

 

I love you

Not because you’re pretty

Or blue-eyed

Handsome and cool

Not because of where you live

Or here you went

To school

I love you

Not because you’re rich

Or poor

Or somewhere in-between

Or because the grass

On your side of the fence

Is far more green

I love you,

I think you’re pretty

And you have such

Kissable skin

And I’ll likely always fall for

Your adorable half-grin

But these are not the reasons

That I love through thick and thin

For the person that I dearly love

Is who you are within

© Janet Martin

 I love when Edward asks her, 'do you find me handsome' and she says, 'not particularly' , then, when he asks her why, Jane replies,

"Appearance is of little consequence…it is the person within that is the attraction!"

~Jane Eyre~

Summit of Life's Hope-slope

 The sun seemed to stir from that summit this morning, washing the sky in riveting pink before slipping behind a wall of gray...

The Summit of life’s hope-slope; may we strive to reach its top

Forever straining to that scrim from whence Time’s mercies drop

And may its zeal and passion stir us ever up and on

From earth’s thorn-thistle thoroughfare to Heaven’s ageless dawn

See how seasons spin their sonnets from a thread of ether ilk

Or, how echoes weave upon it through Time’s sun and sable silk

Run, wee one toward your dream-tree groaning with prospect

Soon you will turn to see its crown in hoary halo decked

Ah, depression and oppression and confession confound

Yet hope rings forth eternally where God and grace abound

For man, though foolish fumbling, stumbling flesh cannot annul

The hope of Jesus’ righteousness and pardon paid in full

…and thus we press by faith toward a goal we cannot see

The Summit of life’s hope-slope ends beyond mortality

So now we touch our feet upon this cold and chafing sod

For we are on a journey to Hope’s Fold; the arms of God

© Janet Martin

What I Should Like...a Little While

 It's been a 'toy morning':)...

I should like my home to be

Not a showplace of pride and pomp

But a solace where children romp

And shape their childhood memory

Home; oh dearest, happy word

Let these four-letters symbolize

A sort of heaven-paradise

Where prayers are prayed and cares are heard

…and I should like my home to wear

Love’s mended woes, life’s spills and such

And not withhold from it the touch

Of childish fingers free of care

…and may its rod and rule be kind

The Word of God read and revered

Lest vainly innocence is reared

To thirst for truth, yet to it…blind

...and I should like my home to smile

With humble, thankful happiness

A tiny nook that God will bless

And dwell in for earth’s little while

© Janet Martin

‘Oh Mom, just leave it there’ said my daughter as I was about to polish away a handprint from the window, ‘that hand print reminds us *Nathan was here!’ (* little guy I babysit)

...jotted this while having lunch. One of the little guys I baby-sit is slurping applesauce and chatting about the 'nice, nice day' and I looked out at its gray offering and back at his innocence and laughed, yes! it is a nice, nice day!'

Time to do dishes and pick up toys!