Thursday, May 28, 2015

Mantra on May-green...





May-green rushes like an emerald ocean
Over earth’s trestles of umber and gray
Burgeoning rivers without sound or motion
Waken a wonder-world long held at bay
Now every limb is a hymn of sighed pleasure
Shush-shushing croon tunes earth’s blue-rafter room
Now every hill is a vault filled with treasure
Eager to spill its full measure in bloom

May-green surges to where air-eons merge
With verdant shorelines soft touching its sky
Miser and merchant cannot own the splurge
Rendered by nature to each passerby
Splendor indulges earth’s common bulges
Beauty and duty a stunning alloy
Merry the mantra as dark divulges
May-morning mercy-streams singing with joy

How does one spell with a quill such pure wonder?
How, from a crypt that seems stripped of all life
Can landscapes thunder with May-greenest plunder
Leaping from slumber to grace human strife?
Oh, it compels us to give God glory
No one on earth can boast power as this
Where May-green opens a new summer story
Ravishing earth with new-birth’s holy kiss

© Janet Martin 



I  just finished typing the word 'joy' at the end of the second stanza when sounds of ‘hoy, whoa!!’ drifted over May-green, through the window-screen and what should before my wondering eyes appear but a herd of cattle dashing, as giddy as rebels crashing a garden-party… and they did! Straight through my garden they thundered and one, feeling especially athletic sailed over the rail-fence barricade, the rest of more matronly endowment plundered through the fence after him with one clueless housewife giving chase!(I should have stayed in the house because they immediately bolted when they saw Miss Bed-head come a-flyin')
They are now in the process of corralling them in a neighbor’s field. Trying morning for a farmer.




Wednesday, May 27, 2015

But For God





Not for fame or fortune
Should we spend our days
But for God the Father
Who deserves all praise

Not for fickle riches
That this world endows
But for God who gives us
That which He allows

Not for adulation
Of our fellow-men
But for God; His glory
Forevermore, amen

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Hard To Hold...





How momentary is all this, I think, 
as the apple-blossoms scatter like petal-snow, 
...as leaves lose their 'first-gold, hard to hold'...

How momentary this,
The bliss of bud unfurled
In sun and sorrow-kiss
To time’s four-season world

How momentary all
Earth’s sprawling mezzanine
Where creature-grief is small
In light of Hope’s Unseen

How momentary light
And dark of night exchange
Their hierarchy, where sight
And Belief are estranged

How momentary time
The pantomime of clocks
Leads to the nearing chime
Of That which death unlocks

© Janet Martin

Treasures in Jars of Clay
…Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Cor.4:16-18

As For Man...

 (Song in Ojibway language with lyrics. Scroll down for words in English.)


“We are not here to celebrate life or death, said the minister at Vera’s funeral yesterday, but we are here to consider the seriousness of both.”

Here, where we love to laugh and learn
And contemplate time’s no return
Here, where the morning tide refills
What twilight drains to misted hills
Here, in the pulsing Must of Now
Before we lay our gauntlets down
We tread a sacred thoroughfare
That leads, for one and all to There

Here, in this hold-let-go affair
Of growing old beneath death’s stare
Here, where the flowers bloom then bleed
Upon the tomb that seals our need
Here, all who come to pass must climb
Beyond this little grass of time
For we are bound with common care
Toward that all-immortal There

There, where a roll-call will be read
There, where Truth crowns both hope and dread
There, where the place that we call Here
Will in a twinkle disappear
Thus, we are wise to contemplate
The awesome Prize that fools debate
And we would do well to prepare
Here, for forever’s over There

 
© Janet Martin



 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, And its place acknowledges it no longer.…Ps. 103:15-16

Vera asked that we sing this song at the funeral service ...

O think of the home over there,
By the side of the river of light,
Where the saints, all immortal and fair,
Are robed in their garments of light.
Over there, over there,
O think of the home over there,
Over there, over there,
O think of the home over there.


O think of the friends over there,
Who before us the journey have trod,
Of the songs that they breathe on the air,
In their home in the palace of God.
Over there, over there,
O think of the friends over there,
Over there, over there,
O think of the friends over there.


My Savior is now over there,
There my kindred and friends are at rest,
Then away from my sorrow and care,
Let me fly to the land of the blest.
Over there, over there,
My Savior is now over there,
Over there, over there,
My Savior is now over there.


I’ll soon be at home over there,
For the end of my journey I see;
Many dear to my heart, over there,
Are watching and waiting for me.
Over there, over there,
I’ll soon be at home over there,
Over there, over there,
I’ll soon be at home over there.


Words: De­Witt C. Hunt­ing­ton, cir­ca 1873.
Music: Tul­li­us C. O’Kane 


Jesus is Coming
"I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star." The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. Rev.22:16-17

Monday, May 25, 2015

Dear Little Day




 We are sincerely hoping this day is holding rain. We have had only a few drops since the seeds went into the ground!

Dear little day, just beginning
What do you hold in your hands?
Will it be flowers or sorrow
Spilling their tears on time’s sands?

Dear little day barely breathing
Artist of bustle and rush
What are the colors bequeathing
Memories poised on your brush

Dear little day never witnessed
Or handled or held before
What are the pictures you’ll scatter
At dusk, on living room’s floor

Dear little day, soft you offer
‘never-again’ charges to keep
For when you slip from Time’s favor
You will not wake from your sleep

© Janet Martin