Today The Artist Chooses Gray...

Yesterday grinned like a giddy November flower

 Today drips from heaven's eaves and strips gaze of its bower

It lolls, a listless lake in leafless limbs stripped of cajole

It drapes a shapeless cape across croft, coppice, creek and knoll

It hangs a hood on brooding woods and veils the face of day

A weightless, widespread weight agape in gray on gray on gray

It muffles manmade mayhem in a diadem of fog

The car we hear but cannot see, the neighbor’s barking dog

A velvet vroom gone viral, it obliterates the view

And makes the small man reckon he is smaller than he knew

The Artist of this Masterpiece mutes colors giddy-gay

He murmurs ‘it is good’ and moves his brush through welkin tray 

He, Whisperer of spheres metes more than meets man’s naked eyes

Today He chooses gray; plush hush shrouds Expectation’s prize

© Janet Martin

Hold To The Hand...a repost

For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, 

Do not fear; I will help you. 

Isa.41:13

Hold to the hand that holds the sand that trickles through time’s glass

The Keeper of His promises knows what will come to pass

Then should the fight be hard and night reach far into the day

Still, hold the hand that holds us in each untold come-what-may

Hold to the hand that holds the land and sea in folds of blue

He parts the waters of the deep so that we may pass through

And should the way that he allows seem foreign to our want

Still, hold the hand that holds us close where fear and worry taunt

Hold to the hand that will not fail though oft it seems, we must

Yet, if we never failed then would we ever truly trust?

His hands are rich with mercy, granting courage for this strife

Hold to the hand that holds us in the gray and gold of life

Hold to the hand that holds the plans for every one of us

And wore the nails and bore the cross for our sin; Jesus

Hold to His hand, He understands what we can never know

Hold to the hand that holds us near and never lets us go

© Janet Martin

rerun time:) 

6 kiddos coming today, two in a few minutes so no writing time for now:)

Hope we all have a  hold-to-His-Hand kind of day!

God Bless.

Dear World...

PAD Challenge day 16;For today’s prompt, write a poem to the world

Yesterday morning...

  

...this morning

Different colours, same Creator!

Dear World,

We are all in this together

the rich with the poor,

The strong with the sick,

the beautiful with the ugly

we all weather the same weather

breathe the same air

bear kindred care

that love inspires 

By the grace of the Same God

we go, to and fro

giving and taking

making promises

we don't always keep

we wake

we sleep

so much in common

so, come on

...let's love one another instead of hate

for we are all kindred

sister and brother

and no one is greater than love

or its Creator

Dear World, 

we are all in this together

so, let's weather

whatever the weather

...with kindness

and patience

and love

Janet~

Imagine if we actually put in action the love described below!!

 Love is patient, 

love is kind. 

It does not envy, 

it does not boast, 

it is not proud. 

It does not dishonor others, 

it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs.  

 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  

 It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

 Love never fails. 

1 Cor.13:4-8

Sole Survivor Sonnet

Poetics Aside PAD Challenge day 14:

It’s time for our second Two-for-Tuesday prompt. If you’re new to these challenges, you can pick either one prompt or the other. Or decide to do both. Your choice.

For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

1. Write a sonnet or other traditional form poem. I specifically mention the sonnet, because it’s day 14 and the sonnet traditionally has 14 lines. But any other traditional form (villanelle, triolet, sestina, etc.) would work as well.
2. Write an anti-sonnet or other traditional form poem. If you’re anti-form, good news! You can vent about it in a poem–or just write a poem that attacks form and structure of any kind (even beyond poetics). Anarchy poems?

Go!

Busyness, sick kids and a half-sick me took priority over poetry:)
A little catching up to do!

Some of my friends love the show Survivor.
I have never watched it but
the gist of it is a competition to be, at the finish, the sole survivor?

Southward and northward and eastward and west

Scatter the peoples of earthy conquest

Faith-fear, joy-sorrow wrest, test and applaud

Upward and upward and upward to God

Trust, ah, we must but man’s dust is not eased

Into this Solace where Heart is appeased

Tender surrender spars with stubborn pride

Self like a monarch not meekly denied

Over the crest of the grave footsteps pound

Man is not slave to a hole in the ground

Southward or northward, east, west though we trod

Mortal moves forward, upward toward God

Knowledge and ignorance dance, lover-blind

Faith the sole soul-survivor, God-designed

© Janet Martin

 For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?

 His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Isa.14:27

A Simple Thank-you for Simple This...(and a prayer request)

 Thinking of my brother Dave today(see below) as I survey a mountain of 'mundaneness'
I can lift the laundry up to the clothesline without second thought or pain!

Thank God for the plainness of common mundaneness

The beauty of duty that puts us to work

It saves us from sorrow of trouble we borrow

When idle mind dawdle where demon-lords lurk

Thank God for the wealth of good health, strength and hunger

Driving us to toil with more purposed pursuit

Wild wolf at the door, love, moves us ‘cross the floor of

Plain planting and pruning before gripping fruit

Pity the lazy, lackadaisical dreamer

Weighed with wanton taunt and fat-cat attitude

Thank God for life’s labor and toil’s simple saber

It keens with kind favor, humble gratitude

Thank God for the glamor of swinging a hammer
And pray for those who dearly wish that they could
Thank God for the plainness of common mundaneness
And never forget... it is good, it is good

© Janet Martin

Please continue to pray for my brother Dave and Karen's encouragement. 

(click link for previous update posts)

Dave still has very limited use of his arms and shoulders and is then, unable to work...a true trial! 

They really appreciate continued prayer!

This Blink of 'Ink' (because we are all poets of a sort)

Oft the heart balks, the head smooth-talks

And tries to set at ease

The little nudge when we won’t budge

Second miles to appease

The poetry that people see

Shouts loud; it crowds the street

Its magnum opus simple as

A gift of bread and meat

The rift between Is and Has Been

Is subtle, like a blink

The page that wears what thought unbares

Holds far, far more than ink

Hollow, the poems in sundry tomes

 Of volumes cover-bound

Until the Word that leaves souls stirred

Hope's rightful place has found

...for human race will soon embrace

The cold, hard facts of sod

Futile the guile of painted smile

Before the face of God

How awe-full then, when sons of men

Witness His Majesty

And see the scars that broke the bars

That sets sin’s convicts free

Oft the heart balks, the head smooth-talks

The feet from second miles

Until we think upon the ink

That outlives short-lived whiles

© Janet Martin

 This is the plan determined for the whole world;
    this is the hand stretched out over all nations. 

 For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
    His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

Isa.14: 26-27

 All you people of the world,
    you who live on the earth,
when a banner is raised on the mountains,
    you will see it,
and when a trumpet sounds,
    you will hear it.

Isa.18:3

By the word of the Lord, we declare to you that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. 

And so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thess. 4: 15-17 

Have you claimed hope's promise of Forever with the Lord?!
If your answer is yes, praise the Lord!
If it is no, what are you waiting for?
Tomorrow might be too late to prepare for forever and ever, Amen.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, 

the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. 

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rom.6:22-23 

"Ask and it will be given to you; 
seek and you will find; 
knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matt.7:7

(ever notice how the first letters in the above sentences spell 'ask'?)