No Mere Existence, This!

 Josh Turner's breath-stealing rendition of this song  reminds us to make certain of our salvation!

  

While I was writing this we received awful news; 

the 16 yr. old son of someone my husband knows very well 

was killed this morning in a snowmobile accident!

Please pray for Wayne and Doreen Gingrich and family!

He leaves behind three older brothers.

No mere existence, this; the sacred fount

That grants each day of grace runs full and free

Before the call when all will give account

And who knows when that solemn Then will be

Where bold, cold boast of Unbelief will fail

As it beholds the truth of Satan’s lies

While mysteries of faith will rend the veil

That tortures sight with agonizing ‘whys’

No mere existence, this; no trite tick-tocks

Though they might lull us into apathy

If we ignore the door that death both locks

And flings wide into vast eternity

The Giver of the spring that fills Time’s This

That spills into a new Today of Grace

Is not willing that any soul should miss

The gift He came to give to human race

Bethlehem’s babe became Calvary’s Lamb

To satisfy the wrath of God; God’s son

Became once and for all, pardon’s I AM

And saves us from the wrath that is to come

No mere existence this; each sacred breath

Draws us nearer to Soul’s Forevermore

No mere existence this; where body’s death

Closes and opens a most awesome Door

© Janet Martin

Master Maestro (#2)

 I pulled over to take a few snow-shots at a local old-order Mennonite church
when from behind the church came a tractor with snow-blower . 

 The driver encouraged me to feel free to go behind the church to see the beautiful snow on pines...

 The pines framed the resting place of those gone before, with a holy hush....

This poem is a spin-off of the previous poem...(See Master Maestro #1 here) 

Time’s age-old arrangement begets

Estrangement; pink-gold pirouettes

Fall like snowflakes that melt and set

-tle echoes on the air

‘Hello, my love’, New day cajoles

Then spills its farewell-sugared bowls

Through gloves once new, now full of holes

From living’s wear and tear

Darkness recedes, unveils the ‘yet’

That forms what soon shapes retrospect

While slowly we gain new respect

For ways as old as time

Where time is like a Father, kind

Though he can never change his mind

About a song soon left behind

Like a gong’s fading chime

This birthplace laced with guilt and grace

Brushes days like tears from a face

As hungry arms reach and embrace

The matrix of joy; grief

It leads to where soft wind-song moans

Across a plot of rotting bones

Stippled with cold name-engraved stones

Testifying time’s Chief

Come, come, futile to stand and stare

At what we think we cannot bear

The Giver of time's who-what-where

Cradles its fragile nod

Look, look, night fades. We are immersed

In more than it may seem at first

The death to which this flesh is cursed

Opens the gate to God

 ©Janet Martin

Master Maestro (#1)

Time’s age-old arrangement begets

With chimes of sunrises and sets

O’er climes of sculpted silhouettes

Etched on ether pink-gold

…a mockery of much we knew

And thought that we were privy to

Where tick by tock’s subtle ado

Turns everybody old

Darkness recedes and then the day

Bleeds colors to earth’s charcoal tray

Once heedless we caroused ‘hey-hey’

Aroused by youth’s hurrah

Glibly enthralled by sky-wide reams

Too small to hold our hopes and dreams

We lollygagged and roared through streams

That drew us to ‘aha’

...and commanded new love for life

These sands beneath our feet run rife

With lands asleep, felled by a knife

Of subtle ticks and tocks

Where They, once arrogant and loud

Fell prey to oracles, head bowed

And took their places in a crowd

Crowned by the kiss of clocks

(last verse, optional)

Come, come, soon this plain such-and such

Will strum heartstrings with tender touch

The sum of music-sheets we clutch

Succumbs to Bygone’s grave

Look, look, night fades, earth is immersed

In shades that rouse a poet’s thirst

Whereby we are both blessed and cursed

With what dust-minstrels crave

© Janet Martin

(See Master-Maestro #2 here)

Elemental Evaluation

 I was going to rave about the cold til I remembered the girl I talked to on Sunday from Red Lake who used to live here and she told me one gets used to the cold unless its 30 below!

She said there's just no getting used to those temps!

But then I thought of friends quite far south of us and how they would view our weather as frigid so...it all comes back to the elementary synopsis of how major something is 

depends on what we compare it to!

There is always someone with less

There is always someone with more

There is always someone whose happiness

Leaves someone else quite sore

So we should just be glad

With what life lends and grants

Because, ‘Have’ always turns to ‘Had’

And echoes of a dance

And we should never boast

Because there’s always those

Who laugh at us justly because

We’re standing on their toes

© Janet Martin

When The Sigh That Seals Goodbye Is Breathed

 Have you begun yet...the evaluation of The Old,

The Resolution of The New?

If when the sigh that seals my cry is cast

And all accomplishment and charge is past

If, when the Author of life snuffs its wick

Like puff of wind across a candlestick

If, when the ebbing toll of day to day

Steals all but Intangible Soul away

If, when this speck of dust I trek and till

Is heaped up like a mole-hill, cold and still

If when the promises I vow to keep

And avid resolutions lie asleep

And all the happiness I held and sought

Is nothing more than someone else’s lot

If, when this glorious task of here and now

Is caught up in That Holy Undertow

Its fragments left with those I leave behind

To gather severed ends of ties that bind

If,when Time's Circumstantial Evidence

Has nothing left to show but recompense

After the Inevitable takes place

And plays its tear-notes on love’s downcast face

Please, may the groundwork where my footsteps fell

Serve those who follow then, and serve them well

May where I worked and wished and hoped and prayed

Be more than just a lot of lost noise made

And when the sigh that seals good-bye is breathed

I pray I leave love's noble Best bequeathed

When the ship called Forever hoists its mast

And seals the sigh that holds my farewell fast

© Janet Martin