Of Life's Simple Things

 A collage of simple-thing blessings in my right-here-right-now: autumn snagged on the carpet, foot-prints in the snow, birdies at the feeder, dripping tap means running water,ice-ensconced buds,winter-laced trees,lotsa laundry means busy blessing of family...
How many ‘simple-thing-blessings’ surprise you right where you are!?

Ah, patriarch of beauty

What joy your bearing brings

You kiss dullness of duty's face

With this; life’s simple things

Oh, stranger to vain-glory

You tip the jars of grace

And trim the barren winter tree

With threads of gilded lace

The gavel of your judgement

Is never harsh or hard

You drench new dawn with light of day

And pin the dusk with stars

Your moments none can gather

Or ever quite appease

And yet they fill life’s larder, love

With tender memories

The memories we garner

Are woven with the strings

Falling from mercy’s fingertips

In gentle, simple things

…of twinkle spilled in laughter

Of crinkled, autumn tress

Of snowflake sprinkled from a sky

Foreign to ugliness

…of silver-studded sorrows

Of beggar-blooded joys

Of hope in each tomorrow, love

Where God His will employs

Oh, patriarch of beauty

On time’s four-season wings

You cheer our humble here-and-now

With this; life’s simple things

© Janet Martin

Beneath God, Oh the Wonder of it All...

As our minds turn Christmas-ward we are recalling the ice-storm of the week-end before Christmas last year! Though it made for some stunning nature-shots, we are hoping for a less slippery season this year;)

Beneath God, oh the Wonder of it all

See how the surf of seasons rises, falls

One to the next is sutured, seamless sweep

Where future, present, past flows deep to deep

Yet never wavers from our Father’s keep

Creation, cradled in the hands of love

Where moment-meted ages push and shove

Yet, cannot out-maneuver hope and grace

See how the morning spills from mercy’s face

To frame the work Love’s passion holds in space

Beneath God; holy wonder penetrates

These walls of flesh and blood; it saturates

Our lowly understanding where the air

Is vexed with thought’s excuses shaped in prayer

Yet not disdained by I AM’s tender care

Oh, who can God's full sum of wonder spell?

Or ever find an equal parallel?

The God of old is still our God; Amen

The Jesus that was born in Bethlehem

Is He who promised He will come again

Beneath God; yet cradled close to His breast

Ah, in this wonder our fears may rest

While surf of seasons, as they beck and call

Perplexes reason, on our knees we fall  

As we but glimpse the wonder of it all

© Janet Martin

This past Sunday was the last Sunday of my Sunday School teaching term. (Gr. 4&5) We learned about Genesis, The Fall, The Flood, the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. As we concluded the lesson we discussed how each story is not some abstract happening  for our entertainment  but one generation linked to the next, right up to Jesus being born in Bethlehem and right up to now that story is still being written!

 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, Gen.2:4

Counting Lessons

 For the past month or so this 'fellow' has come to say hello every morning!

You can count on dreams

To break

You can count on years

To fly

You can count on your breath being stolen

With nothing

But the blue of time’s eye

You can count on plans

To fail

You can count on hearts

To bleed

Where love is a double-edged,

Hunger-flushed grail

Spilling fulfillment

And need

You can count on hope

To hurt

You can count on faith

To win

You can count on flower-tears

Fading to dirt

Where death and life begin

You can count on prayers answered

'no'

You can count on fears answered

'yes'

And in life’s good-bye you can count

On hello

To stun us with happiness

© Janet Martin

Sonnet of Late Autumn's Late Day

How blue twilight falls to the halls of late day

How cold on the fallow its sallow kiss lies

Its stark invitation to put toil away

Calling where autumn is closing its eyes

Gentle, the mantle of scarlet and gold

Drifts from our visage to cradles of dirt

Muted mosaic enfolded and rolled

Into Time’s nevermore where echoes flirt

With love’s appointments and whispers of loss

Juxtaposed here in autumn’s albatross

Those places we see where nobody sees

Beckon when dusk dangles dark overhead

The weight of Want strangles laughter with ease

Yet without Want we are already dead

The fall of fall fills landscapes fully bare

Stripping the tresses of girlish appeal

Save for the scrap of a leaf hanging where

Once upon May and June its high noon reeled

With newness of bloom and blueness of sky

Before Time’s hours tore holes in its sigh

Hollows are laden with autumn’s last rose

Nature relinquishes its neon tears

Brittle, they scuttle in huddled repose;

Death is a sleep without hours or years

Life is a ladle from whence seasons drip

Dusk is a pool at the end of a day

Here in late autumn how swift skylines tip

Tucking to darkness earth’s stripped overlay

Here in late autumn its late day is bent

Heavy; a levy of Past’s firmament

© Janet Martin

Pondering the Inevitable...

It must be so, the fall of fall

Succumbs to winter’s silver shawl

We brace ourselves for winnowing

Of zephyr-song, but then, comes spring

No winter yet, has not succumbed

To pirouettes of zephyr-song

Caught in the tempo of sun’s ray

The will of winter melts away

The summer-heart, though it may mourn

The fading art of autumn shorn

Knows winter is the wailing wing

That ever without fail, brings spring

And so, life’s must-be-so’s’ oft are

The path leading to gates ajar

Leading, not back to what has been

But ever onward to spring-green

A winter gale cannot deter

The winsome will of gossamer 

...of zephyr-song and buds that wait

To spill in spring beyond its gate

 © Janet Martin 

PAD Challenge day 30:  For today’s prompt, write an inevitable poem.

 A spoke to the farmer of this field today...he's hoping it will be harvested this week! There are many farmers hoping the snow will hold off for a while yet!

The Inevitable Death of an Oreo

 They didn't have a chance

I think the cookies knew

That a me-and-cookie romance

Can never end with two

 

  

They didn't have a chance

I think cookies can tell

That a me-and-cookie romance

Cannot end very well...(for them, that is;-)

 

Janet~

PAD Challenge day 30:For today’s prompt, write an inevitable poem. The poem that always had to be, or a poem about something that was inevitable.

Oh, Death

PAD Challenge day 30:For today’s prompt, write an inevitable poem. The poem that always had to be, or a poem about something that was inevitable.

He is a Marksman and does not miss

Then laugh your full laughter and kiss that soft kiss

Slow dance with moments, hold steady their gaze

'cause he's gonna get us one of these days

The blush of morning teases feet to the floor

Deftly adorning Time's street with its More

Grinning and weeping, the flash of a flower

Falls from his sheaf like the ash of an hour

He takes no vacation, and he never sleeps

...he only comes once to each one, but for keeps

None can decipher the names on each dart

Nor when his arrow will enter the heart

His is a presence both feared and revered

Time's breath-by-breath essence gently commandeered   

By this Marksman's Master; Death is but the rod 

of flesh back to dust and the soul back to God

Janet~