Of Yokes and Hope

Dawn splays a madrigal of hope

Before our gaze, on eastern slope

The yoke of midnight disappears

As call of life and love endears

To us the soil beneath our feet

Where we embrace its bittersweet

Fixing our sights not on the sky

But on the One who hears our cry

…for oh, how bleak would be our want

Should we be chained to season-taunt

And nothing more, save for the thought

Of nothingness where once we sought

With eager eye the lust for life

Before the yoke of toil and strife

And heartache common unto man

Drew us to seek a higher hand

So we cling with hope’s pleading prayer

To He who gilds the waking air

With more than gold or crimson trace

But with assurances of grace

He bids us Come, lest we despair

By what we think we cannot bear

And so we fix our gaze upon

The hand that splays the sky with dawn

© Janet Martin

 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matt 11: 28-30

God Hath Not Promised Skies Always Blue

Hint 'o Spring Homage

The starving wood will soon be dressed

In garments grand with eagerness

Desire and duty ally

Like poetry against blue sky

As faithfulness of Time bestows

To leafless twig and sprig, a rose

Assurance spreads its gilded lot

Through heart-hollow and woodland plot

Where April’s scolding wind was harsh

A kinder zephyr strums the marsh

As ragged overcoats are shed

In hopes of emerald and red

Beggar and baron grin to see

The sheen of green on dormant lea

As winter discontentment fades

In daffodil-trimmed palisades

Where soft Spring’s season -maps unfold

Across earth’s umber, green and gold

© Janet Martin

 Our first truly fabulous spring day today!

Velvet Now

 Now (below) must wait for its Now in full-color (above)...yet gray Nows slip away as velvet-ly as the gold

Now you see me, now you don’t

Velvet-whispered monotone

Wrangling moments from the air

To melt on Time’s tick-tock tongue

And then, while we were busy, you

Drew darling lullabies to naught

Save for breath of baby-blue

Trembling, velvet on dusk-thought

Now you see me, now you don’t

Ah, you velvet-fingered Now

Intangible hurricane

Wrought in soundless moment-flow

Bastion of arabesque

Unfettered succession, how

You weave a life and centuries

From the velvet thread of Now

© Janet Martin

This Holding-Letting Go

This holding-letting go

Perplexes our reach

In moment-metered ebb and flow

Across Time’s phantom beach

Where love, longing and loss

Their tendrils intertwine

An ephemeral albatross

Of delicate design

How privileged are we

Love’s darling care to bear

The cap-sheaf of our deepest grief

Stuns us beyond compare

For in its gentle hold

We learn to dream and dance

Forgetting the climactic fold

Of double-edged romance

This test of want and will

Ravages human heart

While love composes madrigals

Its nuances impart

A tender, sweeter song

Of wildly, wondrous woe

As heartstrings resolute, hold on

While learning to let go

Love does not gift to us

Commodities to hoard

But grants within its lenient touch

A rare, richer reward

For touch, lavish, intense

Precedes the letting go

As it prepares a recompense

That holding cannot know

 

© Janet Martin

When Dawn Unfurls a Golden Sash

 It's so nice to see a gold-colored morning!

When dawn unfurls a golden sash

Above the hills soft-silver washed

And all the earth is morning-splashed

With Time’s refurbished Must

Then, we rejoice to see anew

God’s grace in glory-gilded hue

Where we embrace His purposed due

Of hope and faith and trust

When night recedes, an ether tide

Of dissipating dark to light

Somehow within the heart ignites

The will to carry on

For we are not forgotten souls

Ordained to suffer futile goals

Where Time its aimless air extols

In egotistic yawn

When, from a Fount we cannot see

Cascades kind opportunity

How grave Responsibility

Extends its pleading will

It fills the heart and hand with awe

Mercy and Goodness without law

Gifts human race with one more dawn

Love’s calling to fulfill

© Janet Martin

Saturday Waits...

Saturday waits for love to be ministered

In mops and pots and pans

It paints practical Master-pieces

Where sweet thought-wonder spans

A filament of fears and years

That ravished our embrace

As tick by tock Time disappears

To its elusive place

Saturday waits for love to shoulder

More than weight of brooms; its rooms

Yearn to be filled with gentle laughter

Where Time weaves from ether looms

Tapestries of joy and sorrow

Who can know what colors fill

Skeins of its afternoon or morrow

Spilling from the Weaver’s will?

Saturday waits; we touch its tarmac

With worship of whispered prayer

No matter its shade of canvas

Saturday will soon rest where

We cannot change one jot or tittle

Of its mercy, moil and mirth

God, help us to shape a little

Bit of heaven here on earth

© Janet Martin

Off to make this gray May day beautiful, by God’s grace...

A little, lovely romance to get us started;))

Where Is He? He is Here

 I would choose this shade of morning but God chose the color below so we praise Him for gray today...

Where is He that evokes

Within night-deep, the dawn?

He strums the elements with rhapsodies

Of rain and sun

His betrothal of hope

Saves us from vile despair

Where demons flaunt death-desperate doubt

His whisper stills the air

Where is He that persuades

The bloom from soldered bark

Or hearts to trust Him and believe

That once were cold and dark

He succors day by day

Though dread and deceit taunt

Still He appeals on our behalf

To triumph our want

Where is He that implores

From Banquet Halls in wait

While grace in boundless Fathom pours

From Mercy’s unbarred Gate

Ah, we have seen His star

…glimpsed grandeur in belief

The earth His fullness testifies

In every new-born leaf

Where is this King of kings

That lives in hearts of men

Yet cups Time and its universe

Within Hope’s nail-scarred hands

Wonder and hunger vie

We marvel and beseech

He who transcends sod, sea and sky

Remains within our reach

© Janet Martin

 "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." Matthew 2:2

Yes God is where He has always been; everywhere. How can we find Him? Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Matt.7:7

Of Love's Long Afterglow

There is no way to trace the dividend of you

You wrap your sigh, a twisted wraith

Around thought’s bluest blue

There is no way to know the colors of your art

Where love and laughter lithely brush

A tear into my heart

There is no way to spell loss left to yester-year

While ever yet tomorrow swells

With restoration’s cheer

There is no way to hurt save that of letting go

How sweet it is to wear the want

Of love’s long afterglow

© Janet~