Heart Trouble

 PAD Challenge day 10:For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Trouble,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem.

Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent. Ps. 4:4

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Ps.119:11

The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip. Ps.37:31

I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart."  Ps.40:8

The terrible terror of sin

That seeks to lord within

 Oh where can we begin

To break its hold apart

Your Word, your word oh God

Is like a mighty rod

Where weakness can be shod

With armies in the heart

The lion of the deep

Roams to and fro to seek

The struggling one, the weak

To deceive and devour

Your Word, your Word, oh Lord

Is like a two-edged sword

It slays dark demon-hoards

With sacred, sovereign power

The spirit is willing but oh

The flesh is feeble, so

To God’s word we must go

To battle fiends of hell

Your Word, your Word, Jesus

Kindly, gently frees us

Where vice trembles, teases

You whisper ‘it is well’

© Janet Martin

Faith-trouble

To hope in One we cannot see

To know while circumstance deceives

Takes more than this mortality

Can muster; Lord, help us believe

To trust in God’s infinite grace

To rest in peace amidst life’s storm

Takes more than fingers can embrace  

Or fathom in this flesh-blood form

To reach without tangible touch

To love beyond regard for cost

To give without knowing how much

To make God our sole soul-boast…

…takes more than we can prove with might

This ‘hope that maketh not ashamed’

Where ‘we live by faith, not by sight’

Tests every Promise we have claimed

© Janet Martin

Living Hope

 ...who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;…1 Pet. 1:5-7

Time-trouble

PAD Challenge day 10:For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) Trouble,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem.

How many times do we say I love you,

Take care, be careful, drive safe, see you soon

Hello, good-bye, trust in God above you

I can’t believe another year is gone…?

How many times do we try to linger

Over a moment that simply will not

Tasting the essence of timeless lessons

Traversing echoes with hungering thought?

How many times do we wish for what isn’t,

Long for what wasn’t while holding what is?

How many times do we retrace our footsteps

Trying to find what no longer exists?

How many times without slight intention

Do our best intentions fritter through our reach? 

Head, heart and hands are in constant rebellion

Too stubborn to learn what Time wants to teach

How many times do we wade through flowers

Wasting the hours that weep to the air?

How many times do we wish for more Time

While through our fingers it runs unaware?

How many times do we say I love you,

Take care, be careful, drive safe, see you soon

Hello, good-bye, trust in God above you

I can’t believe another year is gone…?

© Janet Martin

 

These Precious Days

When the tree weeps an auburn circle, love

Beneath bleak and barren reach

When the sun is sallow and hollow, love

Over drab, deserted beach

When the people that sprawled half-lazy, love

Are bundled and brisk white-breathed

When thought is a schooner half-crazy, love

On a sea that is silver-wreathed

When dark settles over late afternoon

Like a somber mourning cloak

When the east at supper is full of moon

Or rain where the sky-pane broke

When the land is bleak in the aftermath

Of nature’s grand *magnum opus

And all that is left is a husk-strewn path

Where the wild-bloom of summer was

When banter of breeze saunters through stricken trees

Expectancy baits the day

Like a hush as yon curtains are parted

And an orchestra starts to play

Once more we are gently reminded, love

Of Time’s wafting, winsome ways

Where all that we have here on earth, my love

Are its sweet and precious days

© Janet Martin

*Latin for 'great work'

Winter will pass,

the days will lengthen,

the ice will melt in the pasture pond.

The sparrow will return and sing,

the frogs will awake,

the warm wind will blow again.

All these sights and sounds and smells will be yours to enjoy, Wilbur-

this lovely world,

these precious days...

Charlotte, from Charlotte's Web

Rendezvous with a Pen

PAD Challenge day 8: write a blind poem

I do not know where you will go

I follow you with my eyes closed

I chase the ripple of your sigh

Then trace the laughter in your eye

This touch-taste-trusting rendezvous

Is like feeling my way with you

Through murky ink, for who can tell

What you may make me think or spell?

Tremor of fear, dread and delight

Course through senses not bound by sight

Fearless scavenger of the heart

You dare to tear its walls apart

Without apology you rend

Where propriety oft pretends

You ravage through to truth exposed

I follow you with my eyes closed

Futile to beguile you with lies

For you can see behind closed eyes

The paradise of ignorance

Blushes as you rush through my glance

To move the hand that grips the quill

That shapes the bidding of your will

I do not know where you will lead

And so I follow, blind with need

© Janet Martin