Monday, July 29, 2019

Sense of Summer Slipping From Her




The light of summer lingers
Like raindrops gilding leaves
Like zephyr’s feather fingers
Soft-tracing memories

Sometimes the sense of summer
Is more than she can stand
Like girlhood slipping from her
Like Child from mother’s hand

Like Flower’s fading flourish
Like daughter’s restless sighs
Like echo-stars that nourish
The hunger in Her eyes

Like Time's tenuous tugging
Like sea-song’s unfurled fist
Like fishing-boats chug-chugging
Into the morning mist

As darling days of summer
Splish-splash against the dock
Something is slipping from Her
Like heartbeats from a clock

© Janet Martin

Though It Is Still July...

Not all of our family could be at the cottage this year 
and all of them needed to get back to work mid-week. 
Silence seemed exaggerated as the last steps thump-thumped 
up the stairs and away!


The sky seems near to tears
Moved by the word ‘good-bye’
And suddenly October nears
Though it is still July

A blur of Beauty hints
At summer passing by
October’s premonition tints
The green glints of July

I feel the heel of thrills
Leave imprints in each sigh
I reel; October’s aura chills
The foothills of July

Cricket cantata starts
And I cannot deny
October tugs at summer- hearts
Though it is still July

…where fullness of a day
Can drain a season dry
October hides in fields of hay
Though it is still July

© Janet Martin




Sunday, July 28, 2019

A Prayer






Lord, keen in us a hunger for more than this world can fill
Move us with gladsome wonder where earth’s founts and bowers spill
And keep Faith fixed beyond this place where fear and doubt could hound
Lord, help us help the the wayward who seek but still have not Found

Lord, drive us to our knees with pleas roused by love’s tender care
Let us not be appeased by ease that else might set a snare
But keep us kind and humble; if we stumble help us stand
And never dare to grumble; blessed and covered by Your hand

Lord, let us not lose heart but use our lives to honour You
Where change constantly estranges us from what we hold or view
But leaves us disappointed without You; Lord, let us move
With footsteps grounded firmly in the comfort of Your love

Lord, lead us for we cannot see beyond each gifted breath
But this we know; no one evades the Reaper's Scythe of Death
Then keen in us a hunger for more than this world can give
And draw us to more need of you in each day that we live


© Janet Martin

 Let us not become weary in doing good,
 for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Gal.6:9 



Friday, July 19, 2019

Little Blessings~


For all grand flings that man may boast
It's little things that charm us most...


...for nothing makes us feel like kings
Like life's best wealth; its little things!
Janet~

Like a Tap-Dancer (on a Leaf Xylophone)




Blushes on dawn’s yawning tarmac
Rouses bird-song, melts the veil
That soft-blanketed the landscape
Where the surging skylines pale
Tumbling, teeming, tick-tock thunder
Coursing through youth’s precious prime
Leaving in its wake fresh wonder
For the ancient ways of Time

Draws the laws of human-nature
Stalwart though its stance may be
To the place where face and stature
Proves mankind’s mortality
Leaping, steeping, sweeping torrent
Ever-ebbing in its surge
Meeting, melting in a moment
Where the past and future merge

Bathes the birth of day in Beauty
Earth and its fullness thereof
Tempers bonds of dream and duty
With the First Command; to love
Tests the best of bold bravado
And its jest, with gathered sheaves
Prancing, dancing like sun-shadow
On a xylophone of leaves

© Janet Martin



Thursday, July 18, 2019

To Know...


My sister-in-law now waits to see her dear mom again in 'land that is fairer than day'...
after they laid her to rest last week.
To live well is...
To know we did the best we could with kind humility
To know God works for our good no matter what may be
To know that soon we too will follow those whose footsteps cease
Into the faithful arms of God…to know this kind of peace
Brings courage to the harder parts that we are called to bear
Brings comfort to our heart of hearts and sweetness to the tear
Brings purpose to the passage that runs through the great unknown
Until we all will gather before God around His throne

© Janet Martin

2 Tim. 1: 12
…for I know whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that he is able 
to keep that which I have committed 
unto him against that day.