Summer's Embers...

“Have you ever given orders to the morning,
    or shown the dawn its place, 
 that it might take the earth by the edges
    and shake the wicked out of it? 
 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
    its features stand out like those of a garment.
Job 38:12-14 

Above us banks of clouds

Glow like a dying fire

Below the misty morn enshrouds

The stage of cricket-choir

A symphony of sound

From summer’s embers swell

Its rush of flower-hours bound

Like sheaves upon the fell

 

A tempest, still at bay

Rouses the heart to sense

Beyond the cricket’s rippling lay

The fireside’s recompense

Where now the gourd yet beams

Like lanterns from yon slope

Where now the faithful farmer gleans

The aftermath of hope

And trees toss glossy manes

And clap their leafy limbs

Before the stilling autumn rains

Strip woodlot of its hymns

And leaves life’s music strewn

Like little mementos

Of once upon an afternoon

And summer’s beaming rose

© Janet Martin

Life Is Precious, Serious Business

 Life is serious business~

Charles Stanley

 

Life is a precious business full of pressures, plans and cares

Its payoff drains our pockets, spills in teardrops, smiles and prayers

It seasons tides that rush and recede with sunrise and set

To wash away what is with what the morrow will beget

Life is a serious business no one can afford to waste

Time is more than mere moments moving through man’s touch and taste

It draws us through a Door that opens to Forevermore

Thus we should give more earnest heed to what none should ignore

Life is a gift; its business more than moneyed merchandise

Or hustle-bustle hold, let go, or hellos and goodbyes

And if God granted just one glimpse of what Death will achieve

Not one soul would be lost for all would repent and believe

Life is a sacred business; busyness for all its good

Should never be the reason for not seeking who we should

For Time is such a little place; and then, eternity

Oh, God forbid we think that life exists in what we see

© Janet Martin

Although I live in Canada our troubles are much the shameful same!

We live in foolish times...
Pondering Principles
by Dr. Alan K. Snyder

For The Summer That Was...Happy First Day of Fall

Instead of ice-cream with a cherry on top it's

sun-showers with a rainbow on top!

After the sun-sweet sweep of flower-hours fades and falls

Prey to time’s ways that treat our gaze to seasoned beck-and-calls

After warm lithesome laughter melts like waves upon the sand

Summer becomes an echo wafting soft across the land

The exodus of such a love should have a grand parade

To show appreciation for the memories we made

But somehow summer always seems to slip into thin air

While we are busy looking, running over here and there

Did she just drift up, up like thistle-seed and disappear

Or did she slip from earth’s cheek like a tiny, shiny tear

She is so much like family we wish that she would stay

But I guess her successor always brushes her away

Let’s give her, just for old time’s sake one more round of applause

Let’s blow a kiss and thank her for the fine summer that was

Then let’s be brave and buck up for what we know waits to be

All good things must come …oh! Look at that gorgeous autumn tree

© Janet Martin

There is no denying it...Autumn is making it's presence known in short order.

Colorful trees begin to catch our oohs and a-ahs off-guard
and captivate our reluctant pleasure...

tonight wears a chill as it tucks fall's first day beneath a wet wing.

We enjoyed a few rousing rounds of rainbows as well on this first fine fall day!

I Have Lived Long Enough To Learn A Little

 Oh, the pleasure and pain of being a housewife/homemaker and mother!

Yes, it will rain after we've decided that the rain is over
so we hang out the laundry
because the sun is beaming and the weather said
'clearing in the afternoon'
and then we are just ready to back out the lawn mower 

when we hear a strange sound...sudden downpour!

 So the plans to till the garden or dig potatoes
after lawn-mowing are put on hold as well...😐

I have lived

Long enough to reap

The rewards of selfishness

And unselfishness as well

I have uttered more prayers

And shed more tears

And smiled more smiles

Than a little poem can spell

I have learned

That motherhood

Is good

In spite of bad days

Now and then

And that hard work

As well as laughter

Is good medicine

I have lived

Long enough to see

That we reap

What we sow

That discipline

Or the lack thereof

Will eventually

Definitely show

I have learned that it can rain

While the sun shines

(Or does the sun shine

While it rains?)

That the truth comes out

Sooner or later

Though to hide it

We took great pains

I have learned

That we grow old

Much quicker

Than I thought

That life 

and people 

and plans change

But never God

I have learned

That He is patient

And loving and patient

And merciful

Through and through

And forgiving and patient

And kind and patient,

And therefore we should be too

© Janet Martin

We Are Who/What We Read...

 What/Who are you reading these days?

As I read this post by Dr. Alan K Snyder 

I was suddenly struck anew by how deeply we are influenced/affected by what we read!

 (or who we listen to, often reading/quoting what someone else wrote)

In Jesus' final prayer before He went to the cross He prayed,

 I have given them Your word and the world has hated them; 

for they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I am not asking that You take them out of the world, 

but that You keep them from the evil one. 

 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

"Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth."

As You sent Me into the world, I have also sent them into the world.

For them I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified by the truth.

I am not asking on behalf of them alone,
but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message,
that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. 

May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. 

 John 17:14-21

No matter how many books we collect and read...

 ...if we miss God's book we've missed it all!

They say so much; these teeny twists of ink turned into jot

They arrange on a barren page the images of thought

To touch the reader of the written word with much to tell

And just as ‘we are what we eat’ thus, what we read as well

The Moral Law of right and wrong instills a hounding need

To find, for sake of peace of mind, The Truth; and so we read

But all the greatest authors with The Latest Modern Whim

Can never change The First and Final Word written by Him

Debates of truth and reason fill many a musty tome

The living soul creates a Whole/hole, nay, mammoth astrodome

For Truth is Absolute; and till doubt’s dispute is destroyed

Nothing, no matter what we read or write will fill its void

Ah, wishful thinking seeks colleagues, when nursed to dogged thirst

God’s Truth is not a pillow concerned about comfort first

His Word is undeterred; though wheedling nature of mere men

Will try to barter with His truth through think-twists from a pen

…for the imagination is a wondrous, wily Force

It fosters the creation of many a fine discourse

And if we are not well-versed in the Truth, then, me oh my

We might exchange it for a well-dressed stranger’s valid lie

Hail, to the theologians and scholars; how much you read

The college of the mind is such a large classroom to feed

Yet fathoms of ‘sound knowledge’ cannot rearrange the Truth

And facts are stubborn subjects in spite of progressive youth

If we dismiss The One who holds the keys of death and hell

We miss it all; for God’s Word is a never-ending well

Where, after we believe, then Truth will affirm theory

For nothing else we read exceeds Supreme Author-ity

‘Without faith it is impossible to please Holy God’

Without His Word ignorance feasts on many a feckless fraud

But through His Word the evidence of things we cannot see

Nurtures man’s mustard seed-sized faith to a deep-rooted tree

They say so much; these teeny twists of ink turned into jot

They quicken, with written homage, the aptitude of thought

To fill the theater of Think, with much, so much to tell

And just as ‘we are what we eat’ thus, what we read as well

© Janet Martin

 Matthew 12:3 He answered, “Haven’t you read...?