Of Something Underlying...

 Finally the weather has decided to give its forecasters some credibility;-) It snowed last night!

Spice of wood-smoke seasons dusk

Nip of autumn spent

Pervades breezes blue and brusque

Frost-husked filament

Flowers on a faded range

Stripped by hours bent on change

Tender is the wending way

Of Nature’s decline

White plush blankets somber gray

Cloaks stoop-shouldered vine

Tucks the ash of autumn’s flare

In a benediction prayer

Bracken bends beneath a kiss

Soft as thistledown

Swaddles springtime’s genesis

In diamond-starred gown

Crowns the crook of brook and limb

With a hallelujah hymn

Stirs a dirge in seasoned hearts

Feathers fond farewells

Though the letting go still smarts

Snow-frothed hills and dells

Work their magic in the mind

Leaving grief of leaf behind

© Janet Martin

 

Regarding Raising Cuties...

Oh, you make me go against my better judgment, I say as they woo me with 'Mother, may I' eyes...

...and it matters little if they are innocent

... or not 

...the heart gets caught betwixt 'ought' and 'oh well'

(all my year-long resolutions and warnings about 'not buying much this Christmas' 
are going down the annual drain;-) 

Matt laughed when I told him I'm getting much less for everyone this year.

He reminded me that I've said that every year for as long as he can remember:

A-a-a-rgh! It's true.) 
...but I justify it with getting things they need, not merely want.

You look at me and I lose sight of all my common senses

Something about your blue-eyed love undoes my best defenses

I say yes when I should say no

And I guess love will always be so

A heart-against-what head said, oh

In spite recompenses

I look at you and flippety, my heart is like a puddle

A skip-a-beat puppet, my sweet, a darling cuddle-muddle

And what I said I’d never do

I do without excuse for you

Know how to pull the wool, and woo

Well-laid will all a-fuddle

Oh, bless my soul and bless the whole wide world so full of beauty

I’m glad love makes us more than soldiers enlisted for Duty

Where pride will fall prey to its ways

And stride will fall prey to its gaze

In spite of what the hand-book says

Regarding raising cuties

© Janet Martin

'Not For You'

 I laughed out loud the other day when I found this tucked away in the back of the refrigerator.

(lest we mistakenly think it should be)

Why do we lust and forfeit trust

Straining for out-of-reach-ado

When it is very clear, my dear

That What we want is ‘not for you’

Why do we waste time’s touch and taste

Succumbing to the fruitless rue

Of pining for a soldered door

Signed in bold letters ‘not for you’

Why do we thirst, mad, hunger-cursed

For slice of sky-pie’s what-but-who

And sadly miss the tender kiss

That whispers this; ‘this is for you’

© Janet Martin

This Place of Grace...

 Inspired in part by today's devotion

  from this book

This place of grace where loaner loans

And wind moans blue through winter’s bones

And nothing but the love of God

For right and wrong this fight atones

This place of forecasts, often wrong

Of fumbling faith and off-key song

Of think-I-cans  and change of plans

And far too soon sudden 'so-long'

Where want and need are intertwined

Like bloom and seed or heart and mind

And we are all part of The Fall

That should make us more meek and kind

…and blinder to each other’s fault

As we scavenge time’s common vault

Of aches and pains and daisy-lanes

And lesser gods we oft exalt

Where we of mercy’s patient lease

Oft rob ourselves of perfect peace

For we forget the awesome debt

Paid so that life will never cease

This place of grace and needy needs

Where warrior wars and pray-er pleads

Is held by He of sound decree  

Whose boundless love nothing exceeds

© Janet Martin

Romans 8:35-39

 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

 Shall trouble or distress or persecution

 or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written:

“For Your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor principalities, 

neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God 

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Isa.55:8-9

 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord. 

 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

An Urgent Evaluation

These ties that bind time’s age to skin

Will break; its cage-bars melt within

Where Soul abides, when eventides

And morning skies will cease

Then feud with foe and feast with friend

With life’s final exhale will end

Ah, who can dare to face death’s lair

Without Salvation’s peace?

This born-of-woman, full-of-care

This need and greed anointed stair

Lest we forget leads to the Yet

That no one can refuse

When all we have will disappear

Save the Account of Days Spent Here

Then why not live to give-give-give

For what have we to lose?

When we no longer bow the head

To thank the Lord for daily bread

When hope and trust and dust-to-dust

Must’s destiny unveils

Then, as these earth-ties deliquesce

Into Forever’s endlessness

Pray we don’t wait to call too late

On love that never fails

© Janet Martin

Do you ever stop to wonder how it will be

When face to face, we shall see?!!

 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully,
 even as I am fully known.

1 Cor.13:12