Tuesday, February 2, 2016

In This Breaking of Time's Bread...





Take, eat, pleads the One
Who breaks yon sky in two
Dawn is holy bread
That I hold out to you

Take, eat and be filled
Not by want’s hungry gall
But by perfect love
That I offer to all

Take, eat ere night falls
And closes the fist
That holds out the bread
Of Time’s morsel of mist

© Janet Martin

 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. 
What is your life? 
You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:14

Learning to Love





Try as we may, love
Try as we might, 
I know we will never
Get this whole love-thing right 
Still…
This cage of skin
With its fumbling and fight
Its mumbling and might
Its stumbling insight
Holds a voracious
Love-appetite
So, 
In love's give and take
We won't give up or in
But take each new day
As love's try, try again

© Janet Martin

Hallelujah Medley




 click, click, went the camera shutter in an attempt to capture earth's hallelujah song...

All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing the praises of your name."
Ps.66:4

Hallelujah sings dusk’s heaven
Hallelujah, laughs the lad
Splashing through blue sky beneath him
Hallelujah, grins his dad

Hallelujah, cheeps the sparrow
Hallelujah sweeps yon mead
Where the color-schemes of vesper
Run askew in pink-gold-red

Hallelujah, shouts the hour
Green with possibility
Hallelujah, prays the mother
…God holds what she cannot see

Hallelujah, raves the river
Rushing yet not running dry
Hallelujah, sighs the lover
Reaching for a dream-dazed sky

Hallelujah, beams the flower
Hallelujah streams the sun
Strumming springtime’s slumbr’ing bower
With hope’s hallelujah-song

Hallelujah, cheers the morning
Hallelujah rings through trees
Hallelujah joins the heart who
Knows that God arranges these

© Janet Martin

Monday, February 1, 2016

An Analysis on The Order of Things...





At the end of daylight we find nightfall
At the end of nightfall, new day
Then, as the end of an hour evolves
We find another, hooray!


At the end of a bud we find flowers
At the end of its bloom, a pod
Then at the end of its emptying
We find fresh seed in earth’s sod


At the end of childhood we find Duty
At the end of Duty, we rest
Then, at the end of rest’s slumber we find
The return to Duty’s quest



At the end of self-will we find wanting
At the end of self’s want, pride’s laud
Then, at the end of pride’s self at last
We are prepared to find God

© Janet Martin

As Surely As Sparks Fly Upward...



Happy Feb. 1st!


Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.
Job 5:7

Troubled by sorrows that fetter our gaze
Buoyed by hope of morrow’s better days
Weakness and strength juxtapose ‘neath our skin
For where one ends the other will begin
One born of faith and the other of fear
Heart-wars beheld by One Wise Overseer
Ah, here is comfort, both Solace and Rod
Grappling with guesses while clinging to God

Up from the skyline a new day adheres
(Not to fate, for Divine God commandeers)
But to extensions of His saving grace
Kind intervention of Light bleeds through space
Where we, in likeness of His image made
Return to suffer the tools of love’s trade
Second mile servicemen breaking Time’s sod
Dying to self so we can live for God

We cannot know the synopsis of ‘why’?
Only, ‘there is more than what meets the eye’
Action and consequence ever deploy
Intimate heartbreak or outburst of joy
Here on time’s battle-ground, warriors we
Bearing the weapons that bind or set free
Leaning or leaping, wake-sleeping we plod
Where Love lays stepping-stones leading to God

© Janet Martin