Of Given Day

The floor of earth’s room is flecked with gold

The heart of summer spent

Where everything we hallow and hold

Is mercy, heaven-lent

Aha, sometimes it slips our minds

How, as the years unfold

The only thing we will leave behind

Are hulls of gifted gold

Inhale, exhale, for the air is sweet

With opportunity

The husks of blessing at our feet

Frame hind-sight’s legacy

And all that we can gather of it

Is what we give away

We cannot hoard one penny-bit

Of any given day

The gauntlet of an unfathomed gift

Trembles in every breath

The fall of moments sift and drift

From instant life to death

…as the floor of earth’s room is decked in gold

The gift of living sent

In twinkling tides; we hallow and hold

God's mercy, heaven-lent

© Janet Martin

Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name...Matt 6:9

Surrender of Summer and other Such Seasons

So it begins;

Subtle exchanges

Colors once vibrant

With hope’s new-born rush

Softly fall prey

In the day-night-to-day

To jaded complexions

Beneath time’s trite brush

So it begins;

Laughter polishes pictures

Ignoring the tincture

Of faraway things

That teases new color

Into verdant valor

Tugging more tautly

On loosened heart-strings

So it begins;

Rebellion, contrition

…nature surrenders

By heaven’s hand taught

Unlike the struggle

Where human condition

Battles submission

In ramparts of thought

So it begins;

We kiss sun-freckled grins

Smile for a while

At decoys in full-bloom

While that wall-flower clock

On the blue-sky sidewalk

Subtly silvers

The floor of earth’s room

 ©  Janet  Martin

Time's Treasure Hunt

Dawn draws its well-known center-piece

Up from Time’s yawning shore

As what began in Eden’s place    

Is fresh and new once more

Be kind, oh tick- and-tocking leap

Bestowal of God’s grace

This little thing we cannot keep

Spills into our embrace

And what is clothed in mystery

Will soon its bit unveil

Before it turns to history

Like ashes in a grail

And oh, before it is no more

God grant that we have tried

Not to increase our earthly store

But on time’s other side

…laid up more everlasting joy

Of riches dear and real

Where moth and rust do not destroy

Nor thieves break through to steal

For soon the wind that combs Time’s fields

Will still; we’ll rise to meet

Where none can see what death reveals

Of treasures at God’s feet

©  Janet Martin


 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:  Matt 6:19

Prayer Cover Needed in Northern Iraq

“Prayer cover needed!"

Please pray sincerely for the deliverance of the people of Northern Iraq… 

This is an excerpt from a text from someone who is there!

Christian, lift Thy banner high

Raise a universal cry

Prayer drives through camps demon-shod  

To the one who hopes in God

Christian, who will faithful be,

Suffering on bended knee?

Love is greater than the sword

None are greater than our Lord

Janet~

Always Half-kissed...

What can we say that has never been said?

Early the morning creeps out of its bed

Easing through acres of high sky-blue mead

Before its slips to the river

Kissing Time’s silver with shivers of blush

Ever it fades into precious ‘what was’

Where none can plunder its Why and Because

Or pluck one plume from its quiver

What can we do that has never been done?

Nothing is new under day’s dauntless sun

Pirate and poet, proprietor one

Led by the law of an hour

Season-stoked spectrum of age-old distress

We stumble over its heaped happiness

Searching for something we cannot access

Save in the grave of a flower

What can we think that has never been thought?

Over and over the hour is taught

By the behavior of earth’s sundry lot

As we persist to discover

Time cuts a trail over trampled bygone

While we insist to repeat right and wrong

Always half-kissed by the words of a song

God prints on petals of clover

© Janet Martin

Soon summer's Saturday silvers shorelines somewhere far way...

Make it a nice sweet slice of almost-yesterday

All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, "See this, it is new "? Already it has existed for ages...Ecc. 1:8-10