Precious Gold

 We spent a whole Precious-gold day in the garden; its moments a perpetual falling away into Yesterday

On its trapeze the sun with ease swung over trees to lowered west

And there it fell, the air a bell where echoes toll in human breast

For as it pealed it softly sealed the Here and Now beneath a brim

Of mist and musk and dew and dusk, its slumber swathed in vesper-hymn

Beyond the fond remembrances where dawn dissolved what evolved, veiled

Then filtered through man’s say-and-do on avenues with grace regaled

The cup filled up with Mystery spilled; History expands its fold

On far-off bars soldered with stars we gazed at remnant splays of gold

That No Man’s Land is fraught with thought, yet we cannot linger too long

For soon the sun on its trapeze will tease dark seas with morning-song

Where a new stage is set, time’s page from age to age mercy-renewed

Yesterday will not pass again but strums the dark with dawn’s prelude

© Janet Martin

 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb. 13:8

Mastering Marriage (A re-run:)

In the on-going art of learning to co-exist I have learned that hubby will hang his hat where-so-ever he pleases, and he will ever-so-thoroughly enjoy every evil eye I toss his way as I return it to the hooks inside the door intended for...HATS!

Love’s culmination of differences

Must learn to co-exist

Its Mr.’s and its Mrs.’s

Experiments of risk

Back when we knew it all; naive

To all we didn’t know

It was so easy to believe

In what we thought was so

But Time rolls out its welcome mat

Where love cannot pretend

So love becomes an acrobat

Learning to stretch and bend

And love becomes forgetful

For how else can it usurp

With heavy heart and head full

Of its insult and its hurt?

Back on youth’s dream-paved Easy streets

Answers exceeded years

Before we bore selfish defeats

And wore a lover’s tears

Before we understood that we

Will never understand

Each other quite as perfectly

As once, perhaps, we planned

…so love culminates differences

And learns to co-exist

Its Mr.’s and its Mrs.’s

Willing to take its risk

© Janet Martin

Happy 52nd Anniversary to my parents.

Happy Wedding Day to my nephew!

Here comes the bride

All starry-eyed

Oh, pray God spills time's jars

In many

years of happiness

And never snuffs love's stars

Of Daybreaks and Nightfalls...

The fabric of new day unfolds from heaven’s waning hem

And teases the dark edge of night with gold; its diadem

Dissolves where morning crowns the infancy of what will be

On morrow’s birth, Lord willing, yesterday and History

We, offspring of God’s mercy, (though it seems we oft forget)

Traverse its tide of moments and we cannot rush ahead

Or decline invitations hung upon dawn’s beaming tress

Day breaks, night falls; we rend time’s halls for hope and happiness

The rubric of a lifetime fits in these two elements

The quadrille of seasons entices us to brave its dance

Day breaks, night falls, and in between the birth and death of dates

We push against the odds, pursuing what love celebrates

Time traipses through the stars then falls beneath our learning touch

Fear-stricken and love-smitten we admit there is too much

That we cannot control so we console the circuit of

Daybreak-nightfall with prayer then hold the hands of those we love

Day breaks the sky with what has never been like this before

A virgin sheaf of moments spills from God's will to earth's shore

And (though it seems we oft forget) Time begets holy calls

That we should answer full and well before night's dark cloth falls

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts (and Shots) on Moments

These are no mere moments

That waft silk-soft adrift

These nuggets sifting through God’s hands

Shape Time; an awesome gift

These are no mere moments

Slip-slipping one by one

No, these are stepping stones that lead

To God when life is done

These are no mere moments

…small smatterings of air

No, these are living testaments

Of God’s kind love and care

These are no mere moments

Binding the years that haste

No, these are tick-tock treasures

Testing thought, touch and taste

These are no mere moments

Of bloom and butterfly

This is the day the Lord has made

Granted to you and I

© Janet Martin

So how were your moments today?

Mine included much laundry...again!!

 

a bit of canning...

 a bit of fall decorating...

...what's left on the to-do list?
Supper then dishes, wash van and mop floors!
Maybe I'll wash the sidewalk too;-)

Lord, Help Us See

Lord, help us view our day-to-day

Not through a lens of fret-and-fuss

But in its ordained come-what-may

Help us to see Your love for us

Lord, help us see beyond the glance

That fixates on what sight can rue

For life is more than circumstance

It is a gift of love from You

Lord, stir us to reverent awe

Jar our half-hearts of apathy

And wake in us Your sacred law

The law of love, Lord, help us see

© Janet Martin

What is inspired this? a few bits and pieces over that last # of hours.

 

Last night I invited Rob and Emily over for supper because Melissa was home, and to watch the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees play ball. (yes, Jay's fever is running wild all over the place!!!) Our TV on the main floor is small and I mentioned how sometimes I think we should replace it but then I see pictures of refugees and it puts things in perspective really fast! 

Emily agreed how the fact that we can sit, sip coffee and cheer on our favorite teams suddenly fills us with awe as we think about what we easily take for granted...we love without second thought. 

Melissa left, she thought in time to get home for a good night's sleep. She got home at 3:00 a.m because someone ended their life under the train-car she was on...

I pray today that we may see the love God has for us no matter who or where we are, our circumstances do not define God's love for us...the love that caused Him to send His only Son, Jesus, to die, a once-for-all atonement for sin. This is the love that He offers us...

If Time Stood Still...

Sometimes I'm tempted to wish time would stand still when the late flower-blooms are as perfect as the flawless sky,

...or on days like this when, as the weatherman said, 'the calendar says fall but the thermometer says summer' 

but...

 

If Time stood still then we would never meet again; Farewell

Would be a deafening and never-ending tolling knell

Hello would slip from lips without a skip-a- heartbeat thrill

And we would cherish nothing, oh my love, if time stood still

If Time stood still then we would weary of even love’s best

Our laughter would be empty, void of joy or sorrow’s zest

This hunger that we toy with would wail, stripped of hope to fill

Its ill with something better, oh my love, if Time stood still

If Time stood still the lifeblood of daydreams would ebb away

Darling, there would be nothing to live for but yesterday

As we would mourn the loss of haste where wide-eyed seasons spill

And life would be a wasteland, oh my love, if Time stood still

© Janet Martin