Heart-lessons

Sometimes the heart spills inside out

With love and hurt and hope and doubt

We ache to turn its outside in

But cannot reach to deeps within

And what we thought we knew was true

Is more true than we ever knew

Before the tide of morn to night

Spilled oceans of grief and delight

And that heart-cup beneath our bones

Is all filled up; it moans and groans

As expectations are reversed

And joy’s elation moment-cursed

The ebb and flow of come and go

Perplexes everything we know

The heart must be an acrobat

A punching bag, an alley cat

…a howling gale, a teddy-bear

A fort, a ship, a sailor where

Life is a sea and a tight-rope

We cling to faith’s guard-rails of hope

…for oft the heart pours inside out

With love and laughter, fear and doubt

But with each sucker-punching thrust

The heart is learning what it must

…the heart is learning how to trust

© Janet Martin

Because We Cannot Be in Two Places at Once...

Because we cannot be

In two places at once

The part of me

That used to be

With you misses

You, hon

Because we cannot be

In two places at once

We fill the air

Twixt us with prayer

And leave the rest

To God

Because we cannot be

In two places the same

The blanket of

Memories, love

Warms every

Picture frame

© Janet Martin

PAD Challenge day 3: write a blanket poem

Our daughter and son-in-law just returned home after visiting his family in Nova Scotia. Good-byes are hard at both ends because one simply cannot be in two places at once!

Hope-blanket

 Last night the moon was up before the sun was down and now the moon has gone down and the sun is up!

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Pet.3:9


PAD Challenge day 3:For today’s prompt, write a blanket poem.

Hope does not bow its head
to slip like seasons do
into the blue; it smiles instead
across Time's ever new

The blanket of the sky
in sundry shades; sun, rain
throws back the colors of the night
then draws them up again

...and tucks beneath earth's chin
with faithful loving care
the hope of Time's begin-again
for hope does not despair

But lifts its yearning eye
The comfort of God's scope
blankets the morning-noon-night sky
with everlasting hope

Janet~

Here He is again, pulling back the night with pink and gold delight...  

 

October-set

 When she saw tomorrow's forecast Victoria squealed and did a happy dance; November plus snow can mean only one thing...the beginning of Christmas music in the Martin-house;)

October frets from eaves cold, gray

It sets in leaves of golden fray

To slumber where we used to lie

Beneath blue blankets of the sky

Before earth’s tent was dull and torn

And lowered to a land forlorn

October slips into the hush

Of stricken wood and underbrush

Pungent its tattered chatter lies

Cradled in summer’s lullabies

As silence strums night’s frostiness

And numbs our noses with its kiss

October sets in gold and red

Lavishing trails where dreamers tread

A sodden, trodden aftermath

On nature’s endless garden path

Where we hear in Time’s undertow

The dance of feet waiting for snow

© Janet Martin

Death...In Memory of Troy

Death gives no reason when it comes

And often without warning

It chooses one still far too young

To turn our hearts to mourning

Death does not regard prominence

As its appointment severs

Mortal ties of family, friends

And changes lives forever

Death, who can tell how near or far

Our own appointment hovers?

Pray we choose then to live each day

As though life soon is over

© Janet Martin

I did not know Troy personally but...

...suddenly he is every parent’s son as every parent mourns. A horrific crash on the week-end involving three local youth claims the life of one.

In remembrance of Troy.

So Alike, Yet oh So Different

Approx. 40 years later...

As we sit here recalling years that long have come and gone

And as we reminisce of childhood’s happy hours spent

Where kindred memories abound, some shared, some saved by one

I smile; because we’re so alike yet oh, so different

One remembers something that sparks someone else’s thought

And suddenly we are transported back; laughter is bent

Around the kitchen sink perhaps where life was learned and taught

While we grew up so much alike yet oh, so different

For a brief morning we relinquish bonds of mother-toll

As we become the little girls around our mother’s knee

And mother smiles as if she too returns to years time stole

Of having everyone at home the way it used to be

For things we cannot change, for afternoons lost and replaced

We tend time’s tender echoes with a reverent lament

As we exchange fond pictures framed where footsteps are retraced

In memories so much alike yet oh, so different

© Janet Martin

We were together on the old home farm yesterday to celebrate my mom’s birthday with our annual tea-party.Everyone brings food to enjoy with fellowship:)

It’s sweet and strange, the things the mind retains and so interesting to hear what one sister remembers that others have long forgotten! 

 

At this sink many an hour was spent chattering, arguing, being extremely silly, singing four-part harmony, watching the world from this window while doing dishes. A family with 10 kids always makes lots of laundry, lots of dishes and lots of precious memories.

My brother and his family live here on the home farm.

The Green, green grass of home