On Thresholds To...

As long as God ordains the sky

With light, my love, then you and I

Must fight the fight; we dare not quit

Until our Master orders it

For soon the night returns to sweep

The roof of earth with starry deep

And this is Time; it paints the sod

With stepping stones that lead to God

The morning like a bloom unfolds

Breaking through dark in pink-rose- golds

What this day holds; only God knows

Some doors fling wide; some curtains close

…and we who live above the grave

Should do our best with what we have

While light of day and grace implore

On thresholds to...

 Forevermore

© Janet Martin

Glory-scape

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Ps.19:1 

 It was an all-day-long proclamation of God's glory today...

The heavens declare His glory

Over earth’s four-season span

Masterpiece succeeds master-piece

Like only the work of God can

From ground-level lane-plain grandstands

Our humble hands applaud

For all one needs is to look up

To witness the glory of God

© Janet Martin

Of He or She Who Hears It...

A slope soft-snowed with daisies and a lazy brook beneath

A summer-stroll while bitter cold strews stars on winter’s heath

A tempest, primed and potent in the steady, ready eyes

Of he or she who dares to dip a quill into thought’s sighs

A truth too keen to utter in the noise of stuttered speech

A hill soft-green where winter’s lean, blue late-day shadows reach

A world not fully fashioned yet within the stalwart gaze

Of he or she who dares to probe thought’s spark into full blaze

The baritone of low-flung cloud above mist-shrouded dell

And, oh my love, the telling of a tear that stilly fell

Where the hand is a Maestro and the silence like a sea

In he or she who wills the quill to spill in poetry

Who knows what touch will render; ah, a pen holds more than ink

As it corrals the splendor of thought-pictures, bronze-gray-pink

Where what is not yet written presses hard against the bones

Of he or she who bears a dam of waiting-to-be poems 

© Janet Martin

...to survive the ages; to be the little, brittle but dearly-loved book,
takes time.
A dream that did not die, birthed into book!
so, to the would-be-book-builder, don't give up!

But For The Beauty

Life’s disappointments would break us

Strip our laughter away

But for the beauty of morning

Bringing with it, brand new day

Sorrow would be too heavy

Winter would be too long

But for the beauty of knowing

Spring waits in earth full of song

Love would be nothing but longing

Hope but a dim-lit ray

But for the beauty of God’s grace

Washing our guilt away

Dreary would be life’s struggle

Doleful, this soul-spun bark

But for the beauty of God’s love

Lighting the darkest dark

How cursed, would be our hunger

How resolute our doom

But for the beauty of Heaven

Glimpsed in new morning’s first bloom

© Janet Martin

Twilight's Bluer Blue...

Dusk splays a blanket, blue and soft

Over the sweep of wood and croft

A winter- afternoon adheres

To bluer blue, then disappears

Its blushing, rushing moments meld

Into the hush of briefly held

Appointments, before bluer blue

Bid us whisper, adieu, adieu

Day sets and begets silver stars

Where deep then deeper dusk unbars

A far-off wish-and-wonder world

That twilight’s bluer blue unfurled

Dusk breathes a benediction then 

Lowers a gossamer curtain

Where winter afternoon adheres

To bluer blue and disappears

© Janet Martin