The More We Live and Learn

The more we live the more we learn

The more we learn we see

How much remains for us to learn

Whoever we may be

The more we live the more we learn

To live right where we are

Because the future soon is past

And never very far

The more we live the more we learn

To honestly admit

How very little we full-know

Of what we thought we did

© Janet Martin

...but this one thing we desire to learn and know more and more
There is none like You, Lord!

Psalm 86:8-13

 Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;

no deeds can compare with yours.

All the nations you have made

will come and worship before you, Lord;

they will bring glory to your name.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;

you alone are God.

Teach me your way, Lord,

that I may rely on your faithfulness;

give me an undivided heart,

that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;...

This Slip-slipping Thing

History does not change

Save for the scope of it

Future is the Perhaps whereon

We dare to dream a bit

But Ever-present Now

Before it disappears

Is all we have to have and hold

As it weaves yester-years

Sometimes I crave for That

Which once fell through my touch

The gossamer of have-and-hold

A thread we cannot clutch

But cherish as it slips

From Here to There, the skein

Whereby eons unravel, love

Is dripped in moment-mien

…as history expands

Its panoramic cast

Adapting as time's newest strands

Are caught and woven fast

To that vast tapestry

Soft-vexing our clasp

With fragments of finality

Slip-slipping through our grasp

 

© Janet Martin

Happy 21st Birthday, Melissa...

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…