We Reach

To pick a flower we must reach...

We reach; thought speaks the heart

The heart cups oceans, love

The oceans of Want, wish and need

Breeds our reaching-glove

Morning; it offers More

Where yesterday took flight

We reach twixt After and Before

To drink day’s dying light

Darling, a beggar begs

A dreamer dreams and dreams

A poet dreams and begs, then dregs

The reaches of thought-streams

Will Will and Want subside

Before we close our eyes

Unchained from reach of learn and teach

And life-breath reaching sighs?

Nay, nay, for then pray, pray

What would the dreamer do?

A beggar begs for more than bread

We reach from old to New

…and thereby we grow old

The fount of living red

With mercy; we beseech and reach

God breaks our daily bread

© Janet Martin

God has laid our More on morning’s platter. We reach for more than bread…

I reached to pull back the covers, reached for a light, clothes, cupboard door, coffee mug, the bread for school-lunches…methinks life is a sequence of reaching…

In order to take, we first must reach.

We cannot reach into nothing for,

 ...wherever we reach, God is.

In the Sunday School class I teach we learned about the Fall of Man on Sunday...we talked about what we thought Eden must have been like. Food was free for the taking; a platter of perfection and all Adam and Eve needed was within reach! But they decided, after being deceived that the One Thing they wanted was the thing God told them 'Thou shalt not'. they reached that fateful reach, and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; perfection was no more. Sin had entered the world through disobedience...as we read the verses where God punishes the Serpent, Adam and Eve,

one student remarked, 'Wow! Eve (or woman) sure got off a lot easier than Adam (or man)

Adam/men have to work and sweat every day but Eve/women just have to do their suffering once in a while...;))

 

Wonder-some

One wide-open highway, one wide-window afternoon and one wide-eyed woman on a bike= happy, happy, happy;-)

We traverse far and wide to see

The artwork in God’s gallery

Of turquoise sea, white sands, green field

Kaleidoscope of autumn-yield

Still, after marveling at blue

Caught on a crown of crimson hue

After russet gusset, gold grain

Pink gossamer of mist-kissed main

…after summer slumbers, her form

Enshrouded in a color-storm

Of vista sweeps and purple deeps

And cradles where her leaf-song sleeps

…after each stunning season-show

The hike-bike-driving-walking 'wow!'

We turn, where evening shadows fall

To home, life’s ‘loveliest of all’

…and here kindly the kettle hums

No matter what ‘next season’ comes

Here we frame pictures hung on thought

Seasons spill soul forget-me-not

…and here, in spite where we’ve been

The heart is tugged by hands unseen

And thus toward its arms we come

That corner we call home-sweet-home

© Janet Martin

Often, as I turn into our driveway whether walking, biking or driving

 I am sudden-struck by Grateful Wonder-some,

 That God saw fit to bless a bit,

 My life with loveliness of Home

...even the horse knows when he is homeward bound!

The Breeze Undresses Trees...

 ...in five days the breeze has almost completely teased the leaf-song from this tree...

The breeze undresses trees

Methinks I hear her laugh

Her whisper sews white-woven clothes

Where grows the silver chaff

The breeze teases the leaves;

Green’s metamorphosis

Of scarlet-gold is hard to hold

Too long upon her kiss

The breeze runs, wild with ease

Baton across the limb

Where strum those mournful melodies

Of summer's dying hymn

The breeze scavenges seas

Of oak, maple and elm

And none can thwart her piracies

Of Hunger at the helm

The breeze, like infantries

Invisible can pull

A battalion of memories

Within her phantom hull

The breeze undresses trees

Shushing plush-red refrains

...soon all that will be left to tease

Are skin and bone remains

© Janet Martin

Summer's Afterglow

How readily a season shapes

The pastures of the dead

Our eyes devour landscapes now

Like beggars seizing bread

September green is fair as June

Save for the ling’ring gaze

Where farewell tunes the Brigadoon

That set our hearts ablaze

And to a crypt soft-petal-lipped

Where summer slipped and fell

The pumpkin-flavored flowers drip

To fence-row, heath and dell

The stream that snakes through cattail brakes

To yonder ponds and seas

Gleams like a seamless sash on lakes

Of bronze frond melodies

Time’s building-blocks are lithe, like flocks

Of feather-citadels

Its touchdown locks and forms the rocks

Where soon the future dwells

A diadem of garnet gem

Graces September’s brow

Where now our sighs ravish the hem

Of summer’s afterglow

 © Janet Martin

Once More...

Once more Thy gracious goodness

Startles the drowsing lea

Thy everlasting witness

Doth comfort what must be  

To crypts of soulful hunger

Once more Thy mercy sends

A measure of new moments

That naught but Love defends

...and we of lesser knowing

Lift up hearts full of praise

Once more to Thee, bestowing

Thy patience to our ways

Ah, Shepherd of kind Essence

Hear this from humble dust

Awake in us Thy Presence

Once more, so we may trust

Janet Martin~

I would like to reply to you
    and to your friends with you.
⁵ Look up at the heavens and see;
    gaze at the clouds so high above you.
⁶ If you sin, how does that affect him?
    If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
⁷ If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
    or what does he receive from your hand?
⁸ Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,
    and your righteousness only other people. 

Job 35:4-8