Lo, What Through Yonder Heaven Breaks?

Lo, what through yonder belfry breaks?

To light Time’s gifted way

What Beacon of vast visage wakes

The wonder of new day

What grounds the pedestal where from

The roll of ages tolls

Where season’s sacred pendulum

Sets reason’s naked goals

What bends the deep with Imminence?

What tends this sweep of hours?

What probes inception’s innocence

And rends its robe with flow’rs

What grants the grace of second chance

To mankind’s foolish schemes

Where even in night’s dark expanse

Its faithful fathom beams

What, without fail evokes the dawn

And stokes the furrowed crest

And looks upon the fox, the fawn

And eaglet in its nest

Lo, what through yonder portal breaks?

What wakes this mortal sod?

What lights the world with gleaming lakes?

It is the love of God

© Janet Martin

Constant Comfort

What constant comfort undeterred

Doth God to man impart

He heals with His anointed word

The hunger of the heart

How oft we reach from earthy globe

With humble gratitude

To touch the hemline of His robe

And feel our strength renewed

No void can worldly gods atone

Though they may boast of such

True joy is found in Christ alone

True healing in His touch

What hope to feel His power flow

To hear these words console

“Dear daughter, go in peace, for oh

Thy faith has made thee whole

© Janet Martin

Time's Touch

I don't know about you, 

but for me this summer has been a blur of busy-ness 

with little boys,

blooms 

and the bustle of Becoming... 

This blink of blue

This drink of dew

This pink prelude

To night

This hip-hooray

Of yea and nay’s

Voracious appetite

This shred of silk

This bread and milk

This threaded ilk

Of awe

This weight of care

A gate to prayer

This grin-and-bear

Guffaw

This blur of youth

Him, her, lies, truth

This wise or uncouth

Leap

This dream-come-true

This how-are-you

I love you too

Wake-sleep

This hold-let-go

This high and low

This bye-hello

Ado

This fret and fuss

And bless and cuss

That vexes

Me and you

This brief alloy

Of grief and joy

Of leaf-ahoy

And such

Of that and this

Is like a kiss

We dare not miss

….time’s touch

© Janet Martin

Silk Slipper

A few Petals snared where summer, silk-slippered, tiptoes through our stare...

Blush beacon breaks through plush of slumber-land’s mist-hushed reprieve

Obscurity thins like the skin of Time revealing truth

Daylight dissolves the walls that veiled a world of make-believe

Earth sprawls beneath both tender touch and brawls of the uncouth

Courage and cowardice, rivals since Eden barred its gates

Proceed into the battlefield where no one knows what waits

A scarf of diamonds decks the place where grace and malice spar

Dread and delight finds footholds in the fathoms of the mind

Today unfolds its gray and gold to young and old; Time’s war

Wakens weapons of word and will with intent ill or kind

While all the while earth's smile, in spite of guile and gall of man

Bleeds flowers to flushed bowers bent with God’s cemented plan

Ripe raspberries, like clustered rubies stain fingers and lips

Summer’s sleek, silk-spun sea-song rushes over hill and dale

A shiny lake that breaks into a tidal-waved eclipse

While pioneers of progress salvage petals in a pail

Of little leaf, of singing brook, love’s afternoon soft-pressed

Between the pages of a book bound in the human breast

© Janet Martin

Heaven on Earth Must Be July...and latest Dave update!

Have you nigh-buckled ‘neath the weight of gladness in your breast

Where heath is steeped with shades of wheat touching halcyon sky

And gardens flow through fence-rows feathered with wild-flower zest

Like signatures of summer on earth’s heaven-glimpse; July

Have you been struck with wonder at the plunder of a bud

And like a child gazed long and deep into its mystic eye

Where green and gold gently enfold nature’s mosaic flood

In the thing nearest to heaven on earth; middle July

Have you looked up to drink sea-song from boughs laden with soul?

Where heat is sweet as honeysuckle dripping from its sigh

And Queen Ann’s lace fringes the places that we like to loll

We want for naught when heaven ruffles earth with mid-July

Have you let noon run blue through lips stained with raspberry pink?

And let the cloak of dappled shadow clothe you where you lie?

Have you nigh-buckled ‘neath the weight of summer’s poem-ink

Where surely heaven’s poetry on earth must be July

© Janet Martin

Sorry for missing the last few updates. (Some hectic days)We are thankful that everything keeps going forward even if it seems slower now. Healing takes one thing; Time...actually two! Karen reminds us that it also takes patience.

Hi Everyone

Dave is still improving every day. Not noticing as much change as we did before except not resting as much during the day. He is busy doing his exercises from the therapist. They will be coming 4 times this week and I think 3 times next week. Next week he has two doctor appointments as well.
He is back in bed sleeping but still gets up during the night for pain pills and is usually back in his chair about 6:00 a.m.. I think the days are getting little longer for him now so he is up to visitors if you want to drop by, even for a few minutes to help pass his day.
Please continue with the prayers as I know it is hard for him, especially since we know what is wrong with his right arm; 2 torn tendons and 2 partial tears that will take a long time to heal! He is figuring out how to do the daily routine but it is a lot of work for him and it tires him out.
Prayer for patience appreciated. Thank-you!