Commemoration AND Expectation!

I began a load of laundry and other house-holdish chores when rat-a-tat-tat, 

somewhere beneath my ribs and in my head a song began to beg Existence!

Night's noose of dread and weariness is cut loose by Morning's Star!

Hallelujah!

 

Rejoice, hope's celebration

Is more than we can see

Sacred commemoration

Joined with expectancy

Hope, heaven’s holy hunger

Hope, hunger’s holy prayer

It fills the heart with wonder

In spite of earthy care

It keeps us looking forward

Whilst still remembering

It mingles joy with sorrow

And paupers with a King

Come join the celebration

Where hope, true joy imparts

The candle of the nation

Resides in human hearts

As Love convicts the sinner

Yet sets its captive free

For Love sent a deliverer

To ransom you and me

So now Commemoration

And Expectation meet

In joyful celebration

Before we kiss Love’s feet

© Janet Martin

With Faces Turned From Fear...Advent Hymn

And I’m telling you: When we dash one person’s light — we dash a world of light,

 because we tend to pass on our pain, instead of passing the peace.

Ann Voskamp

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: 

for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; 

he also is become my salvation.

Isa.12:2

...and here Hope begins!

The Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” 

perfectly represents the church’s cry during the Advent season:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

While Israel would have sung the song in expectation of Christ’s first coming,
the church now sings the song in commemoration of that first coming
and in expectation of the second coming in the future. 

excerpt from What is Advent

With faces turned from fear

To Bethlehem they sped

There shepherds beheld Hope so dear

Laid in a manger-bed

With faces turned from fear

Repentance and belief

Bestow the joy of Jesus here

To comfort pain-shame-grief

With faces turned from fear

To Bethlehem we turn

Where hope abides to gently cheer

And grant what none can earn

With faces turned from fear

Toward Hope’s glorious Light

Salvation sweetens sorrow's tear

Until faith becomes sight  

With faces turned from fear

Though evil’s army seethes

It cannot conquer Peace so near

That Hope in God bequeaths

With faces turned from fear

Toward Hope’s glorious Door

‘til Jesus Christ will re-appear

And reign forevermore

© Janet Martin

Why I Am Still Awake...

Too much to tell before the bell of midnight chimes time's solemn toll

And all the walls that wore thin shawls of noonday skin are black as coal

And all the days of golden haze and green-grass chaise and gorgeous bloom

Have fallen prey to charcoal gray and strewn like ash to Bygone’s tomb

Too much to do before the hue of aural blue turns velvet black

Before the sweep that always keeps the moments scattered in its track

Before the door to Nevermore swings shut and turns what is to naught

And all we hear of This, my dear, is echoes in a world of thought

Too much to touch and taste and see where daylight dims too soon, it seems

And most of what we have and hold is tendered to yesterday’s dreams

And places too far-off to reach because of midnight’s soulful knell

As tomorrow becomes today and today turns into farewell

Too much to learn and teach and earn and preach and praise and warn and pray
...before the dusk is like a husk after morn-noon is shucked from day
Too much to live-laugh-love and let go, before oh, the hug-tug-war
Where soon the air will wear the whispers of what was but is no more

© Janet Martin

One More November Poem...

This is the one time of year when hubby is RIDICULOUSLY optimistic!

"only 21 more days til they start getting longer again" he exulted tonight on the phone!

(for new readers, hubby is a truck-driver and gone most of the time)

Late mornings and early twilight make for a lot more driving in the dark so I don't blame him for being glad but I love November's sparsely-clad countrysides, sere sweeps  

and supper-hour's navy-brusque dusk!

This poem is a good-bye to Sweet November...

Who takes you by your brooding sigh

To usher you across the field

And through the line where earth and sky

No day-gone-by hath yet repealed?

Who, duty-sound and honor-bound

Must undertake the tender due

Of severing the ties that crowned

The countryside with brooding blue

Who draws ajar the star-hinged sphere

Who bestows your final good-byes

Who blows a kiss, who sheds a tear

Before midnight tolls your demise

© Janet Martin

One More November, Please

PAD Challenge day 30! Oh my, time flies when we're having poem-fun. 

Can't believe another Chapbook challenge is done!

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “One More (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “One More Time,” “One More Night,” or “One More Piece of Chocolate.” 

I hope you have one more poem in you.

I told the mom I babysit for the other day that Victoria and I feel November-ripped-off!

So much SNOW!

We always look forward to its bleak landscapes and shades of bronze, browns and smoky blues...

I'll take one more November, if you please???

(this photo was last year)

I’d take another one of you

To drink your ache of bronze and brown

To marvel at your modest gown

Your halo, sullen, smoky blue

I’d take one more; your robe of white

With all its sequins, stars and such

Feels far too cold beneath my touch

It doesn’t fit or feel quite right

I’d take you dressed in dreary gray

Bereft of leaf and field of flow’r

I’d revel in your barren bow’r

I’d dance your dreariness away

I’d paint your picture on my heart

A masterpiece of aftermath

Where autumn’s flame etches each path

In quaint and quiet works of art

I’d take one more November, please

And tell winter to wait its turn

While we trace frost-embellished fern

And dark, stark limbs of leafless trees

© Janet Martin