For July-lovers

Ahoy! The joy that thwarts life’s hunger-pangs for what is not

Is July-colored, darling; spilling from clay flower-pots

And winding beneath blue sky promises fulfilled; earth’s seams

Brimming with faith’s unfolded wings where hope of harvest beams

Ho-ho! The woe we know too well wears pretty pink, my dear

The happiness we dreamed about when winter howled is here

The jars that harbour flower-stars and cricket-songs and such

Tip and begin to pour the grin of Heaven through our touch

Aha! The law of love lavishes lanes with chamomile

The awe of nature’s treasure trove refurbishes our smile

Where we are all too willing to be beguiled without guilt

Ere petals strew the path with aftermath of season spilt

Hooray! Today we traipse the thoroughfare of green-gold-tan

A gallery of masterpieces charms the bare-foot fan

Where Queen Ann’s lace and chicory and vine-embellished clime

Tickles the lea with sweet July in good, old summertime

© Janet Martin

Momentous Tids and Bits

This neighbour, who plows my garden every fall and does the first till every spring 

laid his wife of 42 years, to rest on Saturday.

"The verse that keeps coming to my heart for him", I remarked to Victoria on our way home from the funeral visitation last week (as we both were struck by his utterly bereaved countenance)

 is,'Blessed are those who mourn' "

Here is a man who took care of his suffering/bed-ridden wife for many years!

yet even so, death came unexpectedly...

(This was the 2nd Saturday in a row that I attended a funeral at the church of my childhood.
plus a few visitations during the week...
a sign that I'm getting older and nearer to the 'outer ripples' of this generation?:)

....then there was Canada Day...already again!

A year beginning to feel a little like a firework fizzle...flare and fade!

...or like a sun-sparkle on sea and sand; we stare amazed, reach but can never grasp

its shimmer through our fingers!

Ah, ache we cannot quell where well we know what moments mete

The breaking and the binding of its swell like fields of wheat

Where seasons sprout; the clout of teeny tick by tock supreme

Whilst death reminds us to regard moments with high esteem

Ah, beauty meets the eye and poets sigh and farmers grin

For seed begets the fruit where soon the harvest will begin

The quest for satisfaction a thirst nothing can fulfill

Unless we recognize the prize that moments cup and spill

Ah, tender troubadour, you tease us with your give and take

Meandering through gardens weaving echoes in your wake

Where we cannot afford to miss one glorious syllable

Of summer’s silver-speckled sea-song’s ‘so-long canticle’

We grasp and clasp dawn’s fading flow’r; a wonder full of woes

Dismantles moments of an hour like petals from a rose

The sway of night to day murmurs summer’s sweet green to gold

Compelling us to look closer at moments in our hold

Ah, happiness, to find you is no secret if we see

That you are here and now; not an elusive destiny 

The laughter of a child, a garden flower-wild, a brook

A you-and-me that makes the 'we', we dare not overlook

© Janet Martin

One of the little guys I babysit was delighted when I told him he may pick the green grapes to put in his loader because first-year vines need to put all their energy into the plant!

Heat-wave Poem With a Grave Warning!

note; this poem is written with utmost respect for roofers, road-crews, 

and farmers who still stack hay-bales in a haymow!

The green leaf droops where the keen breezes fall

The perky petunia wilts in its pot

The old milk cow won’t ‘co’ boss’ when we call

Where we all have one thing in common; it’s hot

Far away turquoise sea-song monotone

Lures, while we swab salty streams from our necks

Morning-mist melts like a mint ice-cream cone

And high-noon rip-ripples across streets and decks

Sweet tea poured slowly on ice, crackle-pops

Lemonade luster winks in frosted glass

Shadows pool dark and deep where sun-sweep stops

And we seek sweet cool in its shallows of grass

Sprinklers toss two-second diamonds for tots

While brave youngsters shriek and dogs leap and bark

And sidewalks sport red and pink polka-dots

Where popsicles follow us home from the park

…and willows hang limp in the heat of mid-day

And lunch salad crunch is a fork full of bliss

We linger in its mini-holiday

To tickle wee toes and noses with a kiss

Cloud schooners sail by on high seas summer-blue

Time is a fellow, mellower it seems

Where joy is a little boy half-past two

With garden-dirt clinging to bare feet and dreams

Stars slide from heavens to land in our eyes

Stinging us as we heave-ho if we must

The wind finds a foothold and dips and dives

Stirring up dizzying spirals of dust

Some crank up ‘the air’, others turn on fans

Some soak in splashes of laughter and lakes

Some just keep going and don’t change their plans

While others do as little as it takes

Whatever you fancy when a heatwave hits

Whatever your work-wish-swim-fish-treat-drink

Make the most of its sticky, icky bits

‘Cause winter is not as far off as you think

© Janet Martin

Heaven's Foothills

The sky is full of blue

The earth is full of green

With every other glorious hue

Tucked grandly in between

© Janet Martin

For Prayer and Highway-to-Heaven Warriors

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Eph.6:12

  For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.   

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. 

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.   

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, 

and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 

And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

2 Cor.10:3-6 

Fear trains an army filled with fame but falters when we pray

Corruption keens a cavalcade that Kindness keeps at bay

Temptation taunts and flaunts but cannot compete with The Prize

That faith fixes its gaze upon; a promise in the skies

Despair would drown us without the life-rope of Hope secured

Within Hands scarred where hatred sparred with Love, and love endured

And we would all wander like sheep without a Shepherd's Voice

But for His Word of Truth to guide us through a world of Choice

© Janet Martin