Come, Dear Child and Let Me Tell You

 Part I

Come, dear child and let me tell you

As we stroll across the day

About One who made the morning

And the night that fades away

How He spoke into the blackness

Commanding, ‘let there be Light’

And how Time from that day forward

Became morning, noon and night

Come, dear child, the whole world surges

With the beauty God has made

See the dappled sun and shadow

Where the willow spreads its shade

See the grass, the tree, the song-bird

As it flits from limb to limb

Butterfly and lovely flower

All designed and shaped by Him

See the fish that fill the ocean

And the puddles after rain

Cow and sheep out in the meadow

Sweeping fields of corn and grain

Come dear, child and look around you

Every stem that sprouts from sod

Is a glimpse of the Creator

For it is the work of God

Part II

Come dear child and let me show you

The most wondrous thing of all

See this picture of a cross

Covered in red where blood-drops fall

See the One who hangs there dying

Nails pierced though precious Jesus

High above the earth His crying

Pleads that God would forgive us

Jesus loves the little children

And He longs for you to know

How He made the earth and heavens

Oh, so very long ago

And the One who made the flowers

Every bird and every tree

Is the God whose own Son, Jesus

Died for us on Calvary

Come dear child and let me tell you

As we stroll across the day

How the precious blood of Jesus

Washes all our guilt away

Yes, He made winter and summer

Everything in spring and fall

But dear child, then God made people

And He loves us best of all

© Janet Martin

Soul-searching...

The far-off cry of gull drifts on the lowering of day

Another bit of living scrawls its mark on life’s highway

Across Time’s slipping season its successive hours roll

Of dawn to dusk that leads to the unveiling of the soul

What is this Thing harbored within our tents of flesh and blood?

And why did Jesus come to wash it in redemption’s flood?

We cannot touch its bearing or define our inner Whole

Yet, by the Lord's declaring ‘man became a living soul’

Ah, we may sever from ourselves hand, foot or even heart

The soul no one can find though he tears every limb apart

Still, none denies the Hunger reaching beyond our control

For man may feed the body; only God can feed the soul

Desire feasts upon Touch, Taste and what we Hear and See

But it can never quench that place I think the soul must be

Though we may pause in awe to drink from laughter’s little bowl

‘Tis but the quaff that leads to the unveiling of the soul

© Janet Martin

Summons

This summons comes

Once, and for all

No repeat in its

Curtain call

Young or old

Or in between

Winter-white

Or summer-green

Across Time's field

Of yield it wends

Undeterred by

Knolls or bends

Who is next?

No one can tell

When will ring

Its somber knell

We should live

Each day as though

We will be

The next to go

This summons comes

With clarity

And thus begins

Eternity

 © Janet Martin

Of Time's Tick-tock

My cup of youth has long been drained

No spigot fills its begging bowl

Time trickles free, unrestrained

In tick-tocking clock-cajole

Oh, I have held up to the air

 Selfish hope for miracles

Time favors not, neither compares

In tick-tocking canticles

Adoration of an hour

Or reflection in its glass

Falls prey to the tick-tock power

Where tidings of summer pass

Common courtesy of clocks

Flings us far and brings us home

Subtle is that sea of locks

In its tick-tock metronome

No one can escape its splurge

We must all its free-fall brave

Ever forward ‘neath the surge

Of time’s tick-tock to the grave

Yet this ever-chanting rote

Mantled in tick-tock facade

Spills and fills each moment-note

With breath-gift from loving God

© Janet Martin

(unexpected day off) The boys I baby-sit are sick…it is so quiet, the only sound (between noisy traffic) is the drip of a tap and the tick of the clock…

March Farewell Song

 Those birds are robins! That can only mean one thing:) 

The homage of the robin stirs nuances where our lips

Pressed long against the song of frozen-field apocalypse

Arabesque alms of wonderful are wafting on bronze breeze

Inspiring the dormant limb with subtle melodies

The welcome mat for old man winter has been snatched away

And no one smiles to see his sense of humor spill its fray

Yet, he is not deterred but grins to watch his legions seethe

We try to play along; our smiles are more like baring teeth

The fellowship of fireside and hearth is bittersweet

We crave a stroll where waves cajole and chortle at our feet

For we are hungry eyes of winter-weary infantry

This madrigal of March good-byes ignites utopian glee

Farewell, ye brutes that battle with the maidens of the south

Farewell, ye gales of gall; of rebels reveling, uncouth

Welcome, ye jaunty jongleurs and ye blue-eyed balladeers

Your poetry of greenery will dry these icy tears

The intermingled echoing of spring and summer cast

Have garnered Time’s perfection in the idyll of the past

Ah March, you tease and test and vex with smile and scowl and sigh

Come, we will show you to the door; ah, cheerio, good-bye

© Janet Martin

This song makes me feel like spring...

  

(who is gonna fill George's shoes???;(

Masterpiece in the Making...

We crawl, sprawl, fall; thought’s ether hall

Compels us to inspire touch

And thus we dare to care, bear; share a prayer

For all its broken shards and such

  

We hope; grope faith’s impalpable rope. The slope

Of future rising where

Only thought, fraught with want’s intangible lot

Climbs its phantom stair

We breathe, bequeath to heaven’s unseen Hand beneath

Our stumbling steps and pleas

He holds, scolds, molds our folds of grays and golds

Into His masterpiece

© Janet Martin

Of Service and Sabbaths

A silent circuit of midnight to morning trolls the deep

This interview of dark to light is far above our reach

Yet in the discourse of its offering we work and sleep

Shaping within its aftermath those echoes we beseech

A pen cannot descry the whole of it; twixt sod and sky

Duty deploys its legions in a tireless regime

And we, of soul-skin service are its bumbling infantry

If would eat then we cannot sit idle by Time’s stream

Shalom, good morning, Buenos dias, howdy, how are you

We greet our fellow-comrades where the day unveils its strife

Adios, au revoir, good-bye, farewell, and see you soon

Arabesque affidavit as touch-homage shapes a life

Come now, we must be going for this semi-circle sweep

Of gold upon the grass will soon be swaddled in dark blue

As precious pitter-patter of an hour drains its deep

And all that we have left of it is what we yet must do

© Janet Martin

I cherish this one day of the week for rest from moiling toil!

May our worship be sincere and our rest sweet.

Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. Exodus 20:8

This Bit of Ordinary

This Saturday's muffins were a bit like today's weather...a little heavy;) but...

Now Saturday slips to the archives like wood-smoke curls to the sky
How motionlessly moments gather daylight into lullaby
I long to carve on time's lintel, something to help me recall
This 'bit of ordinary' tiptoeing down twilight's hall

Surely the table of midnight is spread with a star-sumptuous feast
I am reluctant to go there; ah, Time is a hungry beast
For as I reach to touch the fulcrum from whence it seems moments splay
This 'bit of ordinary' becomes one more yesterday

Yet, I would not trade one tomorrow to return to yesterday's hold
Lest as some past place I borrow I forfeit this brief moment-gold
Saturday slips to the archives; domestic and nondescript art
Still, this 'bit of ordinary' carves a wee place in my heart

Janet~

This is one of those sort of hectic Saturdays where I just quit...a quick day-end mop over the floor and I'll call it clean enough.

...oops! better move it before Melissa gets home or she will be greeted with mop-in-the-face:)