Motherhood

 She was only gone for a week to help at a kid's summer camp but it felt a lot longer for mother...

Life feels 'right-er' with her here:)

 Oh! The constant bitter-sweet surprises of motherhood...

It wakes heart-    tender splendor

As it aches and breaks and heals and reels with

Breathless grandeur of a love that wounds and heals

It burns with yearning fervor as it earns its seal of scars

As it learns that tears and laughter turn to years 

Scattered like shattered stars; it surrenders vain

  Ambition for the gain of girl or boy

Love lifts a heart-shaped

Cup that over-

 Flows with

Sorrow-

Joy

© Janet Martin

Of Another Summer

Happy August 2016!

These are the days of harvest

The gathering of hours

As summer fills and drains the trove

Of fields and trees and flowers

These are the days of labor

The tending of a plot

Where soon the wave of summer wanes

To graves of afterthought

These are the days of glory

Childhood is unrestrained

Upon the verge of history

Its splurge of bloom is chained

These are the days of learning

That Time will wait for none

A shimmer snuffed where outstretched hands

Sift seasons swiftly spun

These are the days of travel

Pursuit and retreat mesh

Beneath the gavel of blue skies

Time tries the trust of flesh

These are the days of summer

A haze of color weaned

To pages filled with poems of

Another summer gleaned

© Janet Martin

Summer Or Is It Just the Wind?

It moves, a green tide through blue-dappled leaf arches

It rolls, a gold glimmer through barley and wheat

It sweeps like a southern belle through open porches

It chases the tumble-weed, tickles bare feet

Now rising, now falling, now sighing and moaning

Nature’s formless vagabond roams land and sea

Teasing and seizing, cajoling and honing

Each summer-sweet morning into history

© Janet Martin

Where and how did July go in a such a flash ?! 

Ah yes,

Flower by flower, 

ebb by flow, 

 

splish by...

splash...

Aren't Ya' Glad

When it looks 

like you got 

nothin’ Much 

to offer But 

you know you do

And when you 

are prey to scoffers

For what you know IS True

When the world cries ‘the sky is fallin’ And you don’t fall for their fear

And when the papers are full of ‘The end of life as we knew it is here’

And when it looks like Happiness is somethin' lost to days lost to circumstance

And the Faith of our Fathers falters and is trampled by ignorance

When it looks 

like hope is nothin’

More than fancy’s 

child run wild

And most treat 

life like a gamble

Of luck defiled

Oh, aren’t  ya’ glad

You know the One

Who Abides

Changeless and true

Aren’t you glad 

Aren't you glad

You know Him?

Oh, I sure hope,

Sure hope

You do

An' if ya' don't

It's not too late

To get to 

know Him

Too 

Janet~

 Though you have not seen him, 

you love him; 

and even though you do not see him now, 

you believe in him 

and are filled 

with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

1 Pet.1:8

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matt. 11:28

The Weaver's Song

The Weaver of earth’s wonders fills

His loom with color, then it spills

To we, spectators on a pew

Of violet-gold-green-crimson-blue

Where everywhere we turn, we see

Inscriptions of God's Majesty

How faultless every tint and blend

Sunrise, sunset; threads wed and wend

To weave a tapestry of days

Where oft we pause, dumb-struck, amazed

To be refilled with awe once more

At what we thought we saw before

Mortality's voracious bent

Drinks up each hour, heaven-lent 

And often without thought of love

Tramples upon the art He wove

But still The Weaver does not pause

But fills His loom with Mercy's gauze

...where days are like The Weaver’s Song

And nothing stays the same for long

As seasons bloom then fade into

The loom that turns the old to new

And ever recaptures the gaze

Of spectators refilled with praise

© Janet Martin

 

The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

Ps.24:1

Father of earth,

You know this dust

Then teach her to

Believe and trust 

Deception's vice

Entices, wild

Father, I pray

Protect Thy child

...and let her not

Succumb to doubt

Or fear, Lord cast

These demons out

Father of earth

Help her resign

And reconcile

Her will to Thine

Janet