New Reasons To Be Thankful

When life with sundry care to bear

Gives more than we deem our just share

And when the letting go is hard

And leaves us feeling sorrow-jarred

When we question the ‘why’ of it

Or nurse vain self-pity a bit

When it is past we learn at last

New reasons to be thankful

And when over a cup of tea

We think of others’ misery

And how when life poured out its woe

They bore the More of grief, then oh,

We are quite humbled at this thought

Of how life’s obstacles have taught

Us sympathy and then we see

New reasons to be thankful

When disappointment’s stings subside

And we have swallowed our pride

When we with love fully forgive

Then we have learned to fully live

When we have turned the other cheek

Without revenge to seek or speak

But remain kind, then we will find

New reasons to be thankful

© Janet Martin

Happy Birthday, Lucy .

God bless you as you seek to serve Him and shine.

Wasn't it a happy tea-party?

We parted agreeing on this thought; challenges teach us new reasons to be thankful!

March Maître d’

Lovely sky-flower, 

Sweet solar-plume, 

You have the power 

To set hearts a-bloom!

She is able to beguile

Even misers by Her smile

Weather-forecasters would be hated, I fear

If ever She chose to disappear

(I have heard people rant at the weatherman when the sun has not made an appearance for a while , and he had to remind them that he is merely the messenger and has no power over Her;)

It's Weekly  Wikem-time . Wanna know what that is? See Definition here, then play, won't you?

The Sun is by far the brightest object in the sky; Wikipedia

You wake the world with gold, behold

Another day begins, and we

Seem cheerier somehow, all told

When kissed by heaven’s maître d’

You warm the brook and free its dance

Not with a rough-neck yank and kick

But with caresses you romance

Winter with winsome limerick

…and on the pond where skaters twirled

And whirled while you watched from afar

You reach from some strange outer world

To splash its sash with broken star

…where now the loafing dreamer lies

Reborn beneath your smile as you

Scrawl soft upon earth’s stirring sighs

The sprawling shadow, gray, not blue

…and those of more and middle years

Are suddenly much younger too

As they inhale your elixir

Then dare to dream a dream or two

…beneath you, world-wide super-star

As old as time, still you impress

Each generation, for you are

The maître d’ of happiness

© Janet Martin

Don't you love it when you think it's going to be a cloudy day and suddenly the sun breaks through in a grand Hallelujah Chorus?!

Like the Wind Shedding a Tear...

 Dusk is donning its cape early on this cold, rain-dreary day...

There is something akin to loneliness in you tonight

But to identify it truly, oh, I cannot, quite

The brooding of your tone vexes what thought cannot attain

…the blue of what has never been nor ever will again

And when you drape your cape beneath dusk’s low, cavernous deep

And when you come to draw me from the fringe of ‘almost sleep’

And when the night lays plush and still against the windowpane

I feel that which never quite was, yet, cannot be again

…and if you would draw nearer I could better see your face

To glean from its expression that which thought cannot quite trace

But you are always only near enough for ear to hear

The essence of your presence; like the wind shedding a tear

The melody that drifts through me when light of day has fled

Echoes the unlearned art of farewell without longing’s thread

Where love binds near and dear though warmth of touch is torn apart

Save for the certainty of you and me still, heart to heart

There is something akin to loneliness in you tonight

But to identify it truly, oh, I cannot, quite

The brooding of your tone vexes what thought cannot attain

…the blue of what has never been nor ever will again

© Janet Martin

"I love this weather", said Victoria as she splashed through the doorway and I laughed out loud because I understood her perfectly!

Reason Versus Feeling...

 “Natural affection only, of all my sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not Feeling, is my guide…”  Mr. St. John in the book Jane Eyre

Reason reprimands my want

Feeling vexes Reason

Thought, caught in between the taunt

Of goodness and treason

What I should, Reason would do

But bold interjection

Swaddles Feeling with excuse

And hand-foot objection

Nature’s law is kind because

It caters to Feeling

Reason causes us to pause

To sounder appealing

Feeling is a flighty wind

Never out of season

On one hand its change of mind

But on the other, Reason

Sometimes Reason tests me sore

In life’s wheeling-dealing

A vexatious tug-of-war

With the roar of Feeling

But to Reason without Feeling

Were bloodless affection

Let the two then mingle keenly

Rendering me human

© Janet Martin

Love's Metamorphosis

Trembling 

We seek you

And 

trembling 

we find you

And 

trembling, 

we give you away

Who knew that love in its beautiful Hunger could fulfill someone this way?

 Blindly we seek you and blindly we find you and blindly we give you away

Who knew that love in its beautiful blindness could restore true sight this way?

 Broken, 

we seek you

And broken, 

we find you

And broken, 

still, still 

you increase

Who knew 

that love

In its 

Beautiful 

breaking

Creates a 

Masterpiece?

© Janet Martin

These days there's a lot of talk about 'finding ourselves, being true to ourselves, following what WE want' but it flies in the face of what Jesus taught...He didn't say find yourself, but deny yourself ...

 Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

 Luke 9:23