On Repentance

Repentance is no taper-lit session

Nor a lip-service of pathetic pleas

It is acknowledgement and heart-confession

Wrought in the soul on remorse-bended knees

Repentance is no bitter pill we swallow

It is no sallow or smooth-spoken prayer

Truth will reveal by the actions that follow

Whether a heart of repentance was there

Only repentance truly seeks a Savior

Only forgiveness can absolve sin’s grief

Only the Lord vindicates our behavior

As we cry to Him in humble belief

There is no substitute that we can cling to

No scapegoat satisfies our self-defense

Grace and forgiveness restores hope within us

As God delights in our true repentance

© Janet Martin

 May those who delight in my vindication shout for joy and gladness; may they always say, "The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant." Psalms 35:27

Life is More Than Light Cajoling...

 Around here the trees have suddenly burst into bloom and life seems 'refreshed' but...

Life is more than light cajoling

Night to morning, morn to night

It is more than moments rolling

In Time’s tireless tick-tock flight

Life is more than bitty seasons

Spilling wonder to our gaze

More than Reason’s futile reasons

To annul our foolish ways

Life, for all its slip and stumbling

Life for all its moment-boast

Is more than a faith-fear fumbling

Nor the grave its uttermost

It is more than nature’s showcase

More than yearning shaped in years

It is not a road to no-place

As its last mile disappears

Life is mercy’s grand enrollment

To a roster, Jesus-bound

For He suffered our atonement

Therefore life is holy ground

....and we are Love’s blood-bought children

Not bound for some dead-end goal

We are dust-to-dust creation

Harboring an ageless soul

Therefore life is like a pathway

Time, its sweep of sky and sod

Death, the awful, awesome gateway

Leading to the throne of God

© Janet Martin

Where Plain Duty Lies

 Dawn excites the morning skies where a world of Duty lies, Pray, before its memories drift, oh, we do not waste this gift!

Sometimes, where my plain Duty lay

I turned my head the other way

And whispered words with pretty eyes

Believing my self-wrought disguise

Declining love’s soul-surgery

Of patient humility

…but I could never bar the guilt

That mocked me beneath night’s quilt

Or pretend away truth’s stealth

Unable to fool myself

For the key to happy living

Lies not in getting, but giving

Somewhere mercy’s benefactor

Quiets accusation’s actor

Though, like Peter I denied

Love’s plain Duty, grace replied

Replenishing life’s sin-stained awning

With a gift of faultless dawning

Today, where my plain Duty lies

Pray I do not close my eyes

Nor seek to absolve its tug

With some fantasy I hug

Lord, this day help me to prove

The meek mission of true love

© Janet Martin

 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 1 Cor.3:13

Vapor-regale...

This day gently tethered by Duty and dream

Dissipates; with it its marvel and muse

No second chance to replenish its dues

Ethereal frigate on Time’s vapor stream

Filling the night with farewells’ fond requiem

Once upon childhood we thought not of years

For Time was a gondola drifting at ease

And we were quite eager for wide open seas

Oblivious to how soon Time disappears

Caught on its ripple of laughter and tears

Silver-mist schooner, soft swiftly you sail

Bound for a shoreline where Time will abort

And all we know is God waits at its port

Where now we lean to peer over the rail

Grasping at droplets of vapor-regale

© Janet Martin

It's late but I wanted to post a little something to try out our new computer after the old one died, suddenly; now we are up and running again.

Hope you all had a happy Saturday.

Poised on the Brink of a Poem

Poised on the brink of a poem, my love

Somehow your touch on my thought

Stirs me to reach past the ache of farewell

Back to a place memory-wrought

What is the color of loneliness, love

Is it the shade of a breeze

Rising and falling, a phantom baton

Strumming the night-ridden seas

Is it the whisper of what-once-had-been

Rousing both wonder and want

Tipping a scale bent with laughter and grief

Painting thought’s walls with its taunt

How is it that ink curlicues can compose

Harmonies sweet and surreal

Cupping the echo of living’s adieus

Where only thought-touch can feel

Masterpiece moments re-shaped into word

Never do justice and yet

Somehow a memory secured in a poem

Helps me to never forget

Someday I'll take the piece still in my clasp

Though now the music of home

Seems quite ordinary, I know I exist

Poised on the brink of a poem

© Janet Martin

No Weather in Heaven

We thank Thee Lord that there is no weather in Heaven

No dark sky, no morning sun

but only forever the Lord God's full glory

on and on and on...

Today the rain falls, the sun rises

and everyone suffers, enjoys equally

the same weather, but in Heaven

only the believer will be

In Heaven seasons will flee away

...no need for rain, no drought or storm

To test the faith, faith will be sight

And sight forever Christ the Lord

Janet~

I was ready to hang out a long line of laundry when the sun disappeared behind low, dull sky and now it looks like it might rain...again.