Five-o-clock Fall

 (this poem began stirring as I picked up my son at work last eve, but I couldn't commit to shaping it)

Autumn drinks daylight, its pale light soon stinted

Blue tumbled wind-song unravels in poem

Ribbon of wood-smoke climbs five-o-clock ladders

Lamp-light warms windows with home sweet, sweet home

Lush landscape mellows, chartreuse and bronzed yellows

Petrifies pastures where laughter of plume

Scattered through summer in murmurs of purple

…now every tree is a flow’r in full bloom

Dusk is a shepherd soft ushering shadows

Into a fold where Time’s gathered flocks sleep

Rivers of umber and russet rush softly

Beneath the fever of five-o-clock feet

Supper-aroma keens crisp chill with hunger

Dark-brooding dirge of farewell is unfurled

In tick-tock tempo, daylight is dismantled

Falling like leaves in a five-o-clock world

© Janet Martin

 I was drinking in the muted colors of dusk as we drove when Matt said "I'm pumped!" 

when I asked him why he grinned and replied,

"supper!!"

Remember those days when cool autumn sparked wild appetite?!

I loved coming in from the crisp outdoors to the smells of supper. 

Here and there houses were dark but for the most part lights warmed home windows and seemed to murmur supper-time.

In the Unwrapping of It...

 Gold gift wrapping is such a treat after wet gray!

It sweeps from brinks of death, soft pink

And nudges yesterday

With its cravat of this and that

To frontiers far away

From ether plains God’s grace sustains

The twinkle in His eye

It fills the earth; mercy and mirth

Paint laugh-lines on the sky

Now gently He unveils the lea

And draws across the hill

New testaments of Providence

Where hope and heartache spill

This is the day the Lord has made

A gift to you and me

May we with prayer and utter care

Unwrap it reverently

© Janet Martin

 He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and compassionate.

 Ps.111:4

Intangible Winnowing...

Sometimes I feel its blue pour through

The cracks that let the sunlight in

And all along the corridor of middle day

The rain drops grin

Sometimes the mosaic of moments

Bleeds and blurs; fall, winter, spring

And summer like a kaleidoscope of color, swirls

And twirls and spins

Sometimes the emptiness of want

Is filled with the intangible

Awareness that nothing stays long, save

Consequence infallible

Sometimes, it is enough to reel

Beneath the surreal winnowing

Of sand within the hour-glass; we pass but once

This way of things

© Janet Martin

In His Hands...

We are in His hands

No need for us to hold

The bleeding weight of shifting sands

For God is in control

We are in His hands

In spite of storm-tossed grief

The wind and waves heed His command

‘Lord, help mine unbelief’

We are in His hands

No sweeter peace can be

Than to entrust to Him the strands

Weaving eternity

We are in His hands

Faith, hope and love abide

Within the keep of He who stands

Within life’s tempest-tide

We are in His hands

No need for us to know

The bleeding way of shifting sands

God will not let us go

© Janet Martin

He said to them, "Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?" Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, "What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?" Matt. 8:26-27

And Jesus said to him, "'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief." When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, "You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again."…Mark 9:23-25

For All Those Things We Cannot Change

For all those things we cannot change

And all those things we do not know

For facts than none can rearrange

Of holding near or letting go

For high and low and in between

For faith and hope to cheer this day

For peace in spite of the unseen

We can do but one thing; we pray 

...and we pray, not to gods we see

Of sticks and stones or bricks and clay

We pray to He who tends the tree

And breaks the dark to light the day

We pray to He who sees beneath

The veil of flesh from heaven's throne

No frantic last resort is He

Who understands our wordless groan

No plea too great, no cry too small
This God who bends the wind, cups seas
Hears each sincere and selfless call
In Him there are no 'least of these'
So, for those things so hard to bear
Or understand, God grant that we
Within the solace of a prayer
May trust the answers, Lord, to Thee

© Janet Martin

Aren't you glad we can 'carry everything to God in prayer'?