Chrysalis...or Fourteen

Poised on joys of girlhood

She chatters, dream-wild

Within struggles a stranger

Half woman, half child

Dancing on a threshold

Caught between two worlds

Torn twixt morrow’s mating call

And yesterday’s girl

Trying to become Her

She which waits to be

Chrysalis of innocence

Holds maturity

Laughing, singing, fretting

Somewhere in between

Woman’s world and childhood

Ah, this is fourteen

© Janet Martin


 She chatters non-stop, all the way home, detailing the events of a week-end away...


I listen,
caught between her words
and her voice,
having been taught
through experience
that butterflies
fly 
away...

Cut Down to Sacred Sighs...

 This wee creature, out of our reach to free it eventually became...duck's breakfast:)

Oh, let us never grow too tall

To marvel at the smallest small

Or wonder at the communal

Old newness hung from season-strings

For, as we pause to recognize

The awesome laws of earth and skies 

We will not help but realize

The treasure in time’s simple things

…and how the gift of moment-gold

Though we may think it makes us old

Is but that strange and vital part

To keep us ever young at heart

© Janet Martin

Reveling in the return of cricket-song and a throng of other summer-sweets.


Psalms 8

 Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?^[c]

⁵ You have made them^[d] a little lower than the angels^[e]
    and crowned them^[f] with glory and honor.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their^[g] feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In The Skin of You and I...

Mayor Neil Driscoll wins this class...

This waning garb of skin

That we inhabit here

Before the Whole of Life begins

In death will disappear

This prelude to it all

Is of dire import

For everyone will hear The Call

That cometh from the Lord

Then, face to face with He

Who died so we may live

Each one will hear on bended knee

The verdict He will give

…there is a Promised Land

There is a Promised Lake

The soul’s inheritance depends

Upon A Choice we make

….in waning garbs of skin

Where flesh is bound to die

But oh, never the soul within

The skin of you and I

© Janet Martin

At last night's truck/tractor-pull, young, old and in-between gathered to cheer on competitors bound for what the announcer dubbed ‘The Promised Land’ …the 300 foot mark indicating a Full Pull.

…and many times the crowd heard the announcer declare ‘ that they were just shy of the Promised Land’.

 In tractor- pull terms this simply means waiting ‘til the next pull to try again.

Not so in that Once For All Call to Eternity

Hidden Harbor

Between thunderstorms July gathered the hem of her golden evening-gown and disappeared into a blaze of glory...

All things come but to pass

Ethereal escapade

This very moment I hold fast

Hastens to its parade

From Here to There, how swift

What is becomes what was

This very afternoon adrift

On twilight’s faint applause

Parting’s presumptuous pain

Patterns its warlike art

Upon the dark; something like rain

Falls heedless from the heart

…where all things come to pass

Time follows time, but I

Would like to find the hour-glass

That harbors sweet July

© Janet Martin


On the last day of July I always feel like I'm at a farewell party. Do you?

Free For the Taking

Click on images to enlarge...

The ride home from picking up groceries took a good deal longer than expected because...

It’s free for the taking

Sight’s bread for the breaking

Where nature is waking

From want, worship’s ways

Creation delights us

And grandly invites us

Nay, dearly incites us

To give God full praise

Time’s four-season splendor

Gifts vistas of grandeur

Too countless to number

Of sky, sea and sod

The Father of mercy

To creatures unworthy

Fashions from fronds earthy

Faint glimpses of God

It’s free for beholding

God’s glory unfolding

A Masterpiece holding

Hope’s foothold in space

We pause in our plunder

Witnesses to wonder

As silences thunder

With goodness and grace

© Janet Martin

The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works. Ps.104:13