Since God, So Rich in Mercy

PAD Challenge Day 4: write a 'since' poem

Since God so rich in mercy

Fills the night-sky with new dawn

We ought to trust His Providence

And humbly journey on

And since we are surrounded

With forefathers rich in faith

We ought not spurn the heritage

In which our hope is laid

And since we know that soon this life

Returns from dust to dust

We ought to consider the One

In Whom we ought to trust

And since God, rich in mercy (don't you just love that picture?)

Does not leave us to despair

We ought to fill our lips with praise

And our hearts with prayer

© Janet Martin

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, Heb. 1:12

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, 5 that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's special favor that you have been saved!) Eph.2:4-5

Since Our Last Conversation

PAD Challenge Day 4: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Since (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

Since our last conversation

Years have swept across the yard

And what remains of you and I

Is like an old post-card

Some memories grow distant, cold

Like hallmarks of lost fame

Time leaves its kiss upon my cheek

But you remain the same

We progress toward morrow’s place

Where hope still keens its dark

In spite of countless yesterdays

And dreams that lost their spark

Since the last time I craved your voice

The sun has risen…once

I always thought Time takes away

What it cannot ensconce

I’ve climbed many an afternoon

To gaze across the tide

Of Time’s intrinsic moment-swoon

…morning to noon to night

Since our last conversation

Past has grown robust and fat

For since dawn of creation

Years have a way of doing that

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on Accountability

Life’s escapade of moments runs like rain-song to a sea

And in each little drop is spun Accountability

***

Touch is not mere movement

flung into eternal Space

Nor words a free-fall from the tongue

that seem to matter not

Accountability is sure,

as God’s mercy and grace

The wise man weighs this truth

within the measure of his thought

***

Soon, soon this little day is spent

One string threads history

To prove that ever it was lent;

Accountability

***

To think we eat, laugh, love and drink

Without a Higher Call

Is to indulge like mindless beast

In God’s Plan of it all

***

‘Tis not for fortune, fame or fun

That we seek a reward

But knowing when this life is done

We stand before the Lord

***

The aftermath of every deed

Will fall in Time’s garden, a seed

The sower should think carefully

As these seeds sprout; what will they be?

***

One foot then the other, we stumble, we fall

But someday we’ll gather the worth of it all

***

Days devour moments brushing them to history

And what we put into them is all there will ever be

But in the seamless rendering of its perpetual flow

We should give God the glory, for ‘tis by His grace we go

***

Moments pass, forgotten soon

God, stir our memory

To regard as we fill their swoon,

Accountability

***

Pity the one

Who cares not a whit

When this life is done

What happens with it

***

Pity the one

Who lives recklessly

Ignorant of

Accountability

***

We cannot change what remains true

We give account for what we do

***

The love of God is kind and good

And though often misunderstood

He watches like Daddy, His own

Each promise like a steppingstone

Leading, not to a brutal rod

But into faithful arms of God

© Janet Martin

Rebelling a Little...in mind only

The poetry of rain-song twists the air into a sigh

Where rush of eighteen-wheelers and mute moments hurry by

We cannot halt the rubric of Time’s customary mien

Of twilight over afternoon or tick-tock tambourine

Over archaic skylines dawn to midnight disappears

Face it my darling, we can never be immune to years

Subtle-soft, the hand of time strums laugh-lines where the curve

Of youth and ignorance rendered its innocence and verve

…and we could sprawl like children with our feet upon a cloud

But accruement of knowledge, love, has made us stiff and proud

And so, sedately we impose upon rain-riddled deep

A paragraph of proper prose before we go to sleep

But if we were carefree, my love, then you and I would go

And wander out among the stars like urchins through the snow

…firm attribute of middle-age exploits its faculty

We pause for one more second glance into night’s poetry

© Janet Martin

Something about the rush of an eighteen-wheeler rumbling by in the dark rain sparked...something...while I was drinking my middle-aged tea and headed for a middle-aged bedtime to read a middle-aged book;)

Mercy-message

 PAD challenge day 3: Write a message poem

There is a message none should dare to shun

Of sacred absolution spilled in red

This mercy-message is for everyone

As on behalf of us the Author pled

There is a message no one should ignore

Lest Death should come and seal redemption’s gate

This mercy-message opens Heaven’s door

Or bars it to the one who trusts in fate

There is a message written, not in ink

But in the blood of One, Jesus, God’s Son

And all who will believe and trust in it

Will not perish when this small life is done

There is a message that never grows old

‘Love of God’ on centuries engraved

A mercy-message told and then re-told

For it is by His grace that we are saved

© Janet Martin

Message From a Poem to its Reader

 Pad Challenge day 3: Write a message poem

A poem takes some time to taste

Do not skim hurriedly   

Across my skin, lest in your haste

You miss the heart of me

For poetry is layered fruit

A passion-purpose prayer

Of message oft misunderstood

Like thought-seeds spit to air

This soul-blood fruit of fold on fold

Reveals, not at first glance

The bittersweet of gray and gold

Scavenged from word-romance

   

So, let it linger on your lips

This kiss of consonants

Is more than page twixt fingertips

Or Muse deliverance

It is the bread from beggar-bards

The salt siphoned from tears

The nucleus of poet-hearts

Exposed to eyes and ears

...and do you hear beyond the breeze

That word alone will spell?

Ah, do you crave intricacies

That poets never tell?

...and do you hunger for the splurge

Not of infantile drink,

But from a raw and ruthless merge

Of poetry and ink?

  

Or do you choose to dash across

This type-print that you see?

My love, to you alone the loss

Of missing poetry

 

 

© Janet Martin

Of Farewells Never Spoken...a message to the Past

 Pad Challenge day 3: Write a message poem

Somehow we brave the silence where farewells were never told

Time’s silver strings a labyrinth of dreaming and despair

Moments mete minute messages; night-ness and morning gold

We fill its rooms with vanity and memory and prayer

Oh, I have strained to touch you but Time’s hours intervene

The busyness of Bygone is a double-edg-ed grief

Where laws of hope and heartache poise twixt ‘will be’ and ‘has been’

In moment-meted mercy of desire and relief

A sea of echoes rushes through the hollowness of want

Futile to fret and hunger for a ripple in its grasp

Life’s hierarchy of happiness is not within the taunt

Of farewells never spoken, but in moments that we clasp

The girth of Past expands, yet we are ever far apart

For slipping through our fingers is Time’s tender moment-string

Those farewells never spoken shape the treasures of the heart

Thus we lift up each moment-cup to drink its offering

© Janet Martin

A Message to Old Man Winter

PAD Challenge Day 3: For today’s prompt, write a message poem.

Long we have scanned your sovereignty

Of nature-offerings

And preyed over thermometers

In hope of warmer things

Often you smiled and we were sure

You would say something nice

Before you raked your fingers through

Steel vaults of snow and ice

…but now you scribble on the air

A kinder melody

And we have seen you linger where

The blossom stirs the tree

…and we have sensed within your grit

A hint of letting go

As if you too are tired of it;

These signatures of snow

Your message is a slow strip-tease

On fields layered knee-deep

Our pulses quicken as you ease

Dark furrow from your keep

We linger longer and freely

Beneath your sun-kissed scrawl

Ah, maybe you are not really

An old brute after all

© Janet Martin