Painting a Poem

Brush dips to a palette

Of tinctures vast

As canvas of future,

Present and past

Word-spectrum glistens;

The artist must choose

From its plethora

Which colors to use

Pink from a peony,

Silver-swept sea,

Rush of a rain-song

Hush of stripped tree

Mauve mist of morning

Onyx of dark

Little Fred’s freckles,

Lilt of a lark

Trial and triumph,

Laughter and tear,

Create life-colors

To paint with, my dear

Thought scans perpetual

Possibility

Touching a tempest

Of unpenned poetry

© Janet Martin

Dusk Doggerel

 

Dusk reaches where each field is like a sea of gold-flecked sod

To tousle Benny’s hair a bit and tweak the cheeks of Maud

Then while we are distracted by the color of its sighs

It plucks the daylight from the air and dims the lighted skies

Like flowers, hours open, bloom then fall into the dust

Like children, we dash through Time’s living-room of toil and trust

Like miracles, the everyday unfurls from Mercy-reels

To scatter memories like leaves beneath dusk’s chariot-wheels

Purple is more than posies pressing through spring’s dormancy

It is whispers caressing what will soon no longer be

It is the mist of autumn rolling in across the moor

Where dusk reaches across the air and closes daylight’s door

It gathers, like a mother hen its brood of buy and sell

It settles soft upon the glen and woodland citadel

It rustles in a lullaby of plush, hush-shushing peace

And muffles with its ruffling sigh day's final, faintest crease

© Janet Martin

...that's how it felt to me, sitting on the steps outside until it was dark, then coming in to realize its only 7:15!

 

Through Tears

Through tears we laugh

Through tears we weep

Oh, language of heart’s deepest deep

Through tears we groan

Through tears we praise

Oh, language of Thought’s wordless ways

Through tears we hope

Through tears we trust

Oh, language of time’s mortal dust

Through tears we mourn

Or celebrate

Oh, language of human estate

Through tears we suffer

And rejoice

Oh, language of world-kindred voice

Through tears we love

Through tears we pray

Until God wipes our tears away

© Janet Martin

 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Rev. 21:4

We Never Can Tell...

We never can tell

What an hour will bring

Sometimes a flower

Sometimes suffering

We never can know

What will flow from time’s deeps

Sometimes she dances

And sometimes she weeps

We never can say

What a day will unfold

Will its gilt be gray

Or gossamer gold?

We never can tell

What will fill a new day

But this we know

We can always pray

© Janet Martin

We never can tell what a day will bring; tonight I come home to messages in my in-box for requests for prayer.

Please pray with me for my brother Dave who is in the ER as I type this. Pray that the DR.s might find the reason to increasing, intense dizzy spells!(adding an up-date. they are back home tonight with numerous tests booked)

Also, pray for my friend Melodie. Instead of flying to South Sudan where her and her husband are part of a mission team, she is suddenly booked for heart-surgery on Friday and the mission trip is cancelled.

...and last but not least, Pray for our dear brother in the faith Jim Bauman. His life has been a trial of health issues and there are so many times he should have gone to be with the Lord,(by man's reasoning) but God has a reason for keeping him here. He lost his wife a year ago on our daughter's wedding day. Oct. 12, 2013.

On Sunday morning, when asked to share some of what he has been through and what he is thankful for in a year filled with sorrow and sickness he replied in a clear, strong and steady voice with this:

 

Ps.103 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!
² Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits,
³ who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases,
⁴ who redeems your life from the pit,
    who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
⁵ who satisfies you with good
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

⁶ The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷ He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹ He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows our frame;^[a]
    he remembers that we are dust.

and this: Ps. 130

  Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;  O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.  If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.  I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.  He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

After the service, when I thanked him he chuckled, leaning on his walker and replied that he didn't think they really wanted him to use half-an-hour to detail his health struggles:)

Autumn Aria #2

Autumn rolls past wide-flung vestibules where  

We press our faces against bullish air

Like children, eager to experience

More; we press to beckoning vantage points

To hear old favorites played with new strings

Motley ensemble of minstrels; earth sings

The Choir Master to this orchestra

Startles spectators, rousing holy awe

First timorous tempo intensifies

Bronze, burgundy and sienna replies

Until each hollow and hillside is stirred

Joining an anthem too wondrous for word

Majestic montage of bashful and bold

Avid arrangements of russet and gold

Splashes of copper and sepia thread

Whisper of amber and baritone red

Passionate, ardent, out-pouring of praise

Rolls past our wide-eyed and word-wanton gaze

Subtle, the sorrel choral softening

Here a voice falters and there a snapped string

Contagious as the first flowering wood

One by one, more and more chords are subdued

The Maestro moves with intangible ease

As he approves the dismissal of leaves

Autumn moves past wide-flung vestibules where

Order erases leaf-song from its air

We press our faces to places bereft

Of its fullest flower; time-power is deft

Still, on the hill a few songsters remain

Strumming the postlude of autumn’s refrain

© Janet Martin

Autumn Aria #1