We Are...in After's Before

 

 Last year's threshold of this day was far more colorful than this year...the reason I remember? I sent the above picture on a birthday card I made for my dad last year:)

Over the threshold of the east like waves that wash the shore

A new portion of moments sweeps into After’s Before

Where cupped between Time’s firmament of Future filling Past

We are. Upon the breadth of Now each little life is cast

The poetry of it can steal our hearts and soothe our fears

The agony of it can feel like wounds tattooed in tears

But then over the threshold where the Now of yester fell

A new Now spills its everlasting charge of ‘Do it well’

Holy, holy, the free-fall of an hour soon is swept

Into Past’s captive endlessness; our Want of it inept

Yet we are often wanderers of it; not with our feet

But with reaches of thought; its jaded journey bittersweet

Now blooms then breaks in petals. We are reapers of its moil

The plot of it may cause our heart of hearts to ache with spoil

The toil of it may spit at us; still in form of Today

Over the threshold of God’s grace a New Now carves its way

© Janet Martin

Futile Unforgetfulness...

Sometimes I wish

I was woman enough

To tell you I miss

What we will never have

Sometimes I wish

The greatest love

I never knew

Wouldn’t be you

Sometimes I wish

We could turn back the clock

But if we did I know

I still wouldn’t know

What to say…

© Janet Martin

Why? because Tor and I just watched the movie Casablanca;-)

Soft, a Summer of Moments Slips...

Soft, a summer of moments slips to the Empire of Past

No flower has the power to grip petals ever fast

Or usurp the authority that aggravates a fool

…all must succumb to the hierarchy of a higher rule

Impassioned views of Youth meets Truth; a brick upon the air

Then we grow old, no longer bold enough to double-dare

Or wrench fare from the gentle Hand from whence all blessing flows

For we have come to recognize the disguise of the rose

All that we ask is for a task that is noble and pure

All that we need is less of greed and more of what endures

The gravity of Brevity teaches us to revere

The bloom we hold before it folds its gold in russet tear

Soft, a summer of moments flows toward the close of day

Soft, like the climax of a rose it gently fades away

No flower finds the power to preserve its verve of prime

No hour finds a bower to escape the Hand of Time

Then God, I pray that we may not wrestle with The Ordained

Yet wring from it the full of it in fervor unrestrained

And take what is and cherish it with thankful zeal because

Soft, a summer of moments becomes everything that was

© Janet Martin

Reveling in the Bloom Of It these days...

 

Later we'll stroll through the Zinnias and marigolds, shall we?:)
Happy God-granted Friday!

The Impact of Imminence

Do you ever wake with a keen impression of Imminence? 

Last night the sky was like a gate that closed over the landscape, stealing in its deftness another day, drawing us ever closer to the Unknowns that yet wait...

The presence of an essence that we cannot full descry

Invades and intercepts the hellos of life with good-bye

For what we cannot know or see could be life’s best or worst

Thus, at the mercy of its mystery we are blessed-cursed

The paradise that wanton lies beyond thought’s thin caress

Soft-tests the air where wistful sighs ignite the quietness

And we are starved half-beggars of that thing we cannot see

Yet spared a constant sorrow by the hope of what might be

Come darling, we should slow dance where the impact of Unknown

Plays darkness like a violin; no one should dance alone

Where Imminence is Maestro, and the music that awaits

Would leave us breathless save for Now, the bow on Unknown’s gates

© Janet Martin

Of Home's Humble Happiness

After dropping my daughter's friend off at her home tonight and picking up groceries I returned to stare at my CHAOTIC kitchen to tidy up, mop floors, do dishes...and leave the rest for another day after a big day of peach-canning! In spite of all its short-comings,still home is the best place in the world, isn't it?

Shielded from eyes that would criticize

Home is a God-granted paradise

Here in the comfort of domestic mirth

God opens windows of heaven to earth

Safe from the hurrying, worrying throng

Home is a haven of laughter and song

Wealth gleams in piles of soiled laundry and such

Here children learn beneath mother’s soft touch

…and midst the clatter of everyday noise

Women and men emerge from girls and boys

Here, though the cares of life must have their way

Home is an alter where we bow to pray

…pray we remember Whose hands kindly bless

And thank Him for home’s humble happiness

© Janet Martin

But I'm A...

...here we can throw in whatever word we choose…Canadian, Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, American, Muslim, Amish, Jew, Dutch, atheist, Mennonite, Buddhist, Communist, Irishman, Englishman, …the list could be endless but the whole world over, from jungle-tribe to king or scribe The Way to become one of His is The Same…

It’s not our name or fame or lack thereof

Ethnicity, culture or breed

Or circumstance or parents, or the valor of

Some saintly deed

That saves us, no, it is by grace

And that a gift purchased with blood

…shed blood of Christ, The Only Way

Into the family of God

© Janet Martin

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal.3:27-28

If we are sinners saved by grace then we are saints saved by grace! Are we living like it?!