Imagine...

Imagine…

If we smiled instead of frowned

And gave each time we took

And for our questions found

Our answers in The Book

And we’d say yes to love

And we’d say no to hate

And oh, instead of guns

Imagine if we prayed

…And traded our fear

For hope and faith and trust

Imagine if Belief

Would banish doubt in us

Imagine if patience

Would calm spite's angry sea

And we would think before we speak

How wiser words would be

Imagine if we wore

Gentle humility

And filled with kindness every pore

Where greed and pride bully

Imagine we’d forgive

Each bitter grudge with grace

Wouldn’t this world where we live

Be such a better place?

© Janet Martin

 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the LORD has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

— Colossians 3:12-14 

Can you imagine the love that would pour forth from each day if these verses were put on as you put on your clothes in the morning? That's what Kara asks us to pause and ponder...

Worth The Wait...

The hem of heaven’s dressing-gown pools golden on the snow

Above the blurring, slurring scowl of winter’s undertow

The sting of wind-raw kisses comes to vex the ruddy cheek

Where churlish gusts of sleet-dust whirl and swirl across the street

The feet that pine for sun-sweet dirt and garden paths to stroll

Must plead the warmth of thermal socks and boots; mittens console

The hands hungry to plant and prune and press beneath the sod

The seeds that cup bloom-miracles and providence of God

The gale that wails through orchard ghost-towns soon will slink away

And trees that shiver in the cold be clad with fragrant fray

The marsh where mistrals, harsh and hard-fisted torment its berth

Wait to be tickled once again by zephyr-gentle mirth

The sky swallows the sun before its warmth can reach our toes

But dreamers are not thwarted by the rogue that bully-blows

And throws a cloth of ice-snow ‘cross dawn’s wide-eyed wakening

We know in time that Time will intercede and bring us spring

© Janet Martin

Guess what I’m doing today; planning my garden! 

Yes, I said planning NOT planting;-)

  Each winter I say, ‘this spring I’m going to plant a pretty garden with lots of flowers’, then planting time comes and practicality prevails…I need every inch of it for food, it seems. Oh well, for now I have fun designing winding garden paths hedged in by flowers, bird-baths and bird-houses, here and there a ‘siesta-spot’ for dreamers to stop and watch the bees, taste the breeze and know this was all worth the wait!

 Perhaps I can try to come up with a plan that integrates both whimsy and cabbages into a practical, profitable garden, Lord willing strength, health and enough sun and rain, of course!

Brenda writes of ‘a reprieve from the cold today’…the only reprieves we’ve had this winter are the ones we create in-doors!

And Sarah has come up with a design for ‘the super-gardener’! I think maybe that’s what we gardeners will look like in heaven as we putter around in those heavenly pastures:-o

Oh no!! I just remembered something…The Beast (aka as my garden-tiller) balked last 

August and would NOT cooperate again even though I changed spark-plugs and oil, leaving me with a weed-infested garden by October. I think I better start dreaming tiller-bills;-( before I can dream of this...(as I was looking through last summer's photos I realized that sometimes 'siesta-spots' happen because not everything grows that we planted, so we allow the volunteer sun-flowers to stay, then set a bench there for the dreamer...)

A Most Genial Companion

 It was a quick supper with few dishes, leaving a large, dark, wind-wild-stormy evening to fill...

You come, my love and keep me company

When winter’s early eve is cold and dark

By musing’s hearth your touch ignites a spark

To kiss the waning light with poetry

The human heart is prone to want, and oh

The want of what is not can rend the air

In spite of what we hold, in spite of prayer

Sometimes silence can probe our longings so

But then you come to me and mediate

In poetry what Time cannot abate

A melody caught on night’s raging storm

Is not deterred where Old Man Winter roars

How is it that Time moves through walls and doors

To taunt touch without filigree or form?

And when it seems that everyone has gone

Upon their miles to go before they sleep

And when the night seems far too dark or deep

And sight would swear that I am all alone

Ah, still you come to dance away the hour

And plant upon the dark a poem-flow’r

Time’s tempest seems to stir the heart of us

And winter-dusk, though brusque captures your eyes

Then let the frigate of day-dreams capsize

And let the ocean in the sky adjust

Its colors to the clock; the cold is kind

-er with the comfort of your kiss to charm

The lips that murmur where the dark is warm

With almost-poems and in them I find

Though often you are overlooked by men

You are a most genial comrade, my pen

© Janet Martin

Loving Beyond Feeling

Phoenix Rising invites us to explore the sound of love; the sound in emotion...

On some days

The love she feels

Morphs into a monster

As something

Foreign reels

Ferocious as love,

These fork-tongued foes

Remind her

She cannot simply rely

On what she feels,

But knows

How is it, velvet touch

Can turn harsh

As scratches on chalkboard

And what she thought

She knew of love

Mocks loud

Where demons lord?

To simply rely

On feelings shows

How little of love

She really knows

© Janet Martin

Image source