Glimpses Of What Heaven's Happiness Will Be

No matter who we are and what we do...life is imperfect. 

We've got problems and we always will but here and there God drops bits of Perfect into our messes and we are glad...

This little life, which tests our thankful patience

Offers simple blessings to keep us company

Stirring within us sweet fore-tasted glimpses

Of what, perhaps, Heaven and its happiness will be

Simple things are tourniquets to stem the tide of longing

And satisfy with commonness, our Want

Cup of tea, a mixing bowl, a stove, chatter of children

The kindness of a grinning kitchen-plant

Hello, little duty, of garden plot or pots and pans

What did I do to deserve such loveliness as thine?

Oh, may I do you the honor of serving with gentle hands

And never clench with crass ungratefulness what is not mine

© Janet Martin

Last night Emily and Rob dropped by, Melissa called, Matt and Victoria were home and the kitchen was a tea and cookie haven of laughter and chatter…

Today was a domestic salad bowl of cooking-cleaning-laundry-and little boys ;-).

Prelude to Paradise

Across earth’s patient high and low

A beaming tide of morning breaks

Midnight deserts its marbled lakes

As on the air the ebb and flow

Of dark to light bids dreamers rise

To toil on spoils of paradise

Is there a day fairer than this?

All other days have fled away

To boulevards of Yesterday

And who can enter that abyss?

Behold, the gold that gilds the skies

And bids us dream of paradise

The earth is full of graves, but we

Who seek salvation’s sacred goal

Made not for flesh but for the soul

Know graves are but the Thing we see

As we struggle toward The Prize

In Time’s prelude to Paradise

Across earth’s albatross of loss

And Mercy’s sundry attributes

The noise of man’s carnal disputes

Would be the very death of us

Save for the One who parts skies

And points the way to Paradise

© Janet Martin

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. John 9:4

Then Jesus told them, "You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. John 12:35

Anticipation's Aftermath

I can’t get over how every week just flies by…

Anticipation spills its lore like flowers spilling bloom

A sky-wide door opens and shuts each summer afternoon

And soon, like pictures in a locket, hearts expand their hold

Grappling where summer unravels Her pockets of silk-gold

Now Trouble finds a foothold, love, now laughter finds our lips

Now Time finds ways of stunning us in spite of her old tricks

And though there is nothing new under heaven we are awed

By haste of dawn to dusk and seed to husk in living’s laud

Chicory, Queen Ann’s Lace and goldenrod strip August bare

As dust stirred by the phantom feet of moments hovers where

The holy bittersweet of it drains into Bygone’s deep

And fists, once full of flowers find a wilted sprig to keep

© Janet Martin

I am constantly dead-heading,

Dumping jars of wilted blooms

To make room for fresh bouquets….

A little like life;

as one season fades

we fill thought-jars

with fresh bouquets

only to turn

and see the husk of anticipation

scattered in its wake…

August-matter

It moves through us in time; invisible

A shadow that startles the skin of things

Want struggles but is ever unable

To gather the dust of its winnowing

Resistance is futile; its wanderlust

Falls prey as afternoon to crooning dusk

And the foot-looseness in us must soft admit

We are far too small for the largeness of It

…that fits in the sigh of green-leaf good-byes

 A sky-blue piñata spills sun-sweet days

And we are distracted by a disguise

Of backyard picnics and bloom-happy ways

Where bare foot tempo etches an echo

That splashes through the middle of Hello

In songs of spilled lemonade and chatter

Fading in the fabric of August-matter

We are subjects to Change; none are immune

Or rare exceptions to time’s timeless laws

A lifelong study can never exhume

The Past from its place or Present to pause

As we, held to a lifetime of learning

Suffer side-effects of deeper yearning

For Time cannot fulfill man’s meager dust

Save Almost, in half-Heavens of August

© Janet Martin

Not Finished Yet

Let's face it; there are days that drain us emotionally, physically, even spiritually 

but God is on his throne while we are here yet never alone...hallelujah!

(yes, those are red leaves....already!!)

We are not finished yet

This thing that God ordained

When He breathed life to you and I

Can leave us vexed and pained

Life’s slip-and-stumble grid

Of get-up-try-again

Carves hunger to a learning curve

That word cannot explain

Time impresses upon

The likes of you and I

The impact of its brevity

As seamless years haste by

And all that we can do

Is never to forget

As long as God grants time anew

We are not finished yet

© Janet Martin

...so we tackle to-do lists that needs must be

and trust God for that which we cannot see...

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Gal.6:9