In Spite of Trouble's Test... or Morning-tide and Man

 From the sunset last night...

 ...to the sunrise this morning

 ...the heavens declare His glory

The sunrise melts the dark

Ethereal tangerine

Obliterates the starry arc

Where slumber’s light had been

As beaming break of day

Soft-snuffs kajillion flares

And we are met with hope’s heaped tray

From He who hears our prayers

While trouble’s test abides

And common cares oppress

The faithful love of God provides

Man’s means to happiness

In greater portion pours

His goodness and His grace

The hope we have through Him restores

Glad purpose to life’s race

Impulse is sure to err

The master of regret

Darling, then let’s fold into prayer

Those things that make us fret

Because the countryside

In spite of trouble’s test

Is a poem of morning tide

To man, supremely blessed

© Janet Martin

There's SO much we could potentially fret about...

 Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
    when they carry out their wicked schemes.

⁸ Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
    do not fret—it leads only to evil.
⁹ For those who are evil will be destroyed,
    but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.

Psalm 37:7-9

Faithful Fountain

 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Psalm 36:9

 This fountain simply waters plants...

I can stand under it all day but its spray can never penetrate my skin!

Hark! What flows beneath our heartache

Larger than life’s low’ring blows

Greater than the disappointments

That the hand of time bestows

Look! What gleams to pierce the darkness

Shattering its would-be gloom

Like a gentle, golden halo

Driving shadows from the room

Ah, what wields hope’s wave of wonder

Washing wounded spirits clean

Billow of unrivaled grandeur

Turning dormant gardens green

Hark! What rushes through our bearing

While we suffer trouble’s rod

Like a fountain filled with healing

Why, it is the love of God

© Janet Martin

July Origami

I have been found wanting

Where the blossom drips

Where hope and uncertainty

Kindles fellowships

Where the wind lies dormant

On a summer’s morn

Where the death of one day leads

To another born

Where the land is folded

From first green to gold

July origami

Subtle and yet bold

Where wow’s wave of wonder

Flares, then fades beneath

Fragile colour-thunder

Stealing our breath

Crimping with deft fingers

That which will become

From this present shimmer

Past’s momentous sum

Where the sail of summer

Hoists a fresh ahoy

I have been found wanting

While I weep for joy

© Janet Martin

Here We Are!

 'The brunt of seasoned strains entwined with what yet waits to be'...

Where we have turned the other cheek and thereby earned its scars

Where Time is dwindling day to week through flues of kindled stars

Where what we have is always the prelude to what we had

A test to longing’s uttermost to rejoice and be glad

Where we are always on the verge where dawn’s splurge came and went

To surge between yesterday’s loss  and tomorrow’s advent

And try the ties that bind while we find life’s best things are free

The brunt of seasoned strains entwined with what yet waits to be

Where we are never exempt from love’s two greatest commands

Where ‘as a man thinketh’ he proves with his mouth, feet and hands

Where Time is like a schooner on a morning-noon-night sea

One shoreline is a moment, the other eternity

Where none of us are certain of whom next will disembark

To rend death’s ether curtain without so much as a mark

Where we are torn twixt woe is me and wishing on a star

Where you are you and I am me and look! Ah, here we are…  

…Where we have turned the other cheek and thereby earned its scars

Where Time is dwindling day to week through flues of kindled stars

Where what we have is always the prelude to what we had

A test to longing’s uttermost to rejoice and be glad

© Janet Martin

Inexorable Entitlements...

The bitter and the sweet compete; oh, why must it be so

To hold is to suffer love’s precious pangs of letting go

Today is always placed over echoes and weathered treads

And joy is always interlaced with sorrow’s tender threads

To recognize and prize the highs we must undergo lows

And brace ourselves, where fond goodbyes follow happy hellos

The good against the ill is always finely juxtaposed

And oft night’s soft silences spill with what day’s noise composed 

The flower is the preface to shower of petals felled

The present is always the place where past and future meld

The flight to getting older soldered to laughter and tears

Regret's gut-wrenching gutters and triumph's capstone of cheers

The loveliness and ugliness of bare matters of fact

Kindles heartache and happiness; both never left intact

Where the longer we live the less it seems we truly know

And all we keep is what we give; oh, why must it be so

© Janet Martin