By The Sickle From a Trickle...

I am so thankful I didn't yield to the impulse a month ago 

to tear the blight and bug-stricken dahlias from the flower-garden! 

They seem to have survived and oh, SO worth the wait...

where each hour is like a flower that will never bloom again!

So let's get out there and make the most of today's 'flower/hour-garden'!

 My heart almost stopped this morning when at first I thought the crickets were gone. 

Then hallelujah, a plucky little minstrel started cheeping, 

assuring me that this sudden cool snap we are in is not the end of summer yet!

 

Cricket quaver starts to waver, dropping hints of Frosted Jack
Field and fallow fringed with mallow and golden rod bric-a-brac
Hill and hollow drip like tallow from a candle burning low
Where the flower of the hour weans the bower of its show

Hope and heartache war and partake of the Whisper deep within
Where a Fountain rends the mountain that would break these barks of skin
As the Giver of a river that runs rife with Reasoned Grace
Offers treasure in the measure of life’s Mercy-seasoned chase

Where the murmur that Was Summer sparks a sudden wonder-storm
Wakes a quiet kind of riot in Want’s dust-and-dream bent form
Keens elation’s revelations with a somber undertow
To remind us that behind us lie the subtle seeds we sow

Fall’s wild purple starts to sparkle along summer’s beaten path
We are always in the hallways of tomorrow’s aftermath
Where the hour is a flower, moments like petals that drip
From the spigot of a frigate laden with Time’s maiden trip

Dust soon settles ‘neath the nettles that roused rose-delighted trance
Wish and worry cannot hurry or restrain time’s song and dance
Let’s be grateful for the plateful that Mercy and goodness grant
Where each hour is a flower that falls from life’s sacred plant

Do not borrow from tomorrow, sorrow not yet yours or mine
Cricket quaver starts to waver; let’s drink Farewell like fine wine
And be thankful for the bank full of wild flowers gently felled
By the sickle from a trickle where what Was and Will Be meld

© Janet Martin

 

 

Of Hard Heart-knocks...

Let's overthrow evil today with
the one and only name whereby man can be saved; Jesus!

Acts 4:11-12
This Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ 

 Salvation exists in no one else,

For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

Matthew 1:21
She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus,
because He will save His people from their sins."

 

I saw a man...Johnny Cash 

 

 

It's hard to trust enough to pray for hard knocks to get ours or a loved ones

 'drifting attention/devotion' back on track...

Sometimes it takes a hard heart-knock for God to get our ears to hear
Because sometimes we balk at what we sense He longs to commandeer 

But, as a mother hen who draws her wings around her chicks, He yearns
To draw His children close; lest one be lost among life’s twists and turns

Behold, what love compels the One who stokes the night with one more Day
And leaves the Ninety-nine to search for the sheep that have gone astray
And like the father who beheld his long-lost son come from afar
When we are still a long way off He runs to meet us where we are

Sometimes we are deceived because we doubt when we ought to believe
Pride goes before the fall that arrogance and stubbornness achieve
But God, so rich in mercy does not leave us without hope and grace
He bends with gentle hands outstretched, if we reach up in humble faith

A Deadly Foe roams to and fro, seeking to draw eyes from The Prize
Without pity he sets a snare and decorates his lair with lies
And many fall prey to enticements, lured by Pleasure’s poisoned charm
Only God’s Word a lamp to light the way, can direct us from harm

Blessed are those who thirst and hunger after righteousness and truth
And blessed are the pure in heart; the meek will inherit the earth
Then, though sometimes the hard, heart-knock seems harsh, Love’s ways and means are just
And He will do what must be done to get the erring one to trust

© Janet Martin 

19Those I love, I rebuke and discipline.  Therefore be earnest and repent.
20Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me. 21To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Rev.3:19-20

Season of Sweet Discontent

 

Summer pleasures are like flowers
Timed treasures that soon depart
Strewing petal-measured hours
Over gardens of the heart

Summer slips through our defenses
Weaves sheer wonder with its loom
While vexing and soothing senses
Leaf by leaf and plume by plume

Summer is a rush of roses
Rousing sorrow from its joy
As its dance of days composes
Longing’s dissonant alloy

Summer, sweet, ripe and delicious
Season of fulfilled desire
What then are these wayward wishes
In the embers of its fire

Ah yes, these are called September
Season of sweet discontent
As we wonder and remember
Where another summer went

© Janet Martin

Of Confidence and Trust Well-placed

Nothing quite compares to the pain of realizing 

the trust we put in someone is betrayed
and our confidence shaken/mistaken!
But that's the way we are
especially when driven by our mortal bent;
we disappoint each other!

For all that comes and goes where nothing stays the same for long
Where learning bends with heavy blows and Mercy lends a song
We find this romancing of dust a futile quest until
Our confidence and trust is yielded to the Giver’s will

The greatest loss that man endures is loss of faith in He
Who our deathless soul secures for all eternity
Where in the race of dreams we chase and wars of love and lust
We need someone in which to place our confidence and trust

We cannot lose when we choose to put utter faith in God
Though we cannot explain the ways and means of Mercy’s rod
He will not disappoint; but only if we fully place
Our trust and confidence into His law of love and grace

My, my man’s stubborn selfishness can wreak havoc with hearts
And wound the tender trust of others with pride’s verbal darts
How often we should look into the mirror of God’s word
He helps us see far clearer what our mortal bent has blurred

Then, by His all sufficient grace our weakness is made strong
In this old world where nothing stays the same for very long
He does not change; He will not fail, He knows we are but dust
And His love will never betray our confidence and trust

© Janet Martin 

Psalm 71:1

In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: 

let me never be put to confusion.

The Sound of Seas

Don’t scoff
And write me off just yet
As some rhyme-hyped-up maniac
I can’t explain
The need to rein
In, into ink life’s bric-a-brac
Of highs and lows
Wide smiles, oh-no’s
Good-byes, hellos,
Oh mercy me
This life, it seems
Runs rife with streams
Gleaming with would-be poetry
Don’t ask
And judge my ‘task’ at hand
While standing in your
Gifted Skin... 

I cannot ease
Or fully appease
The Sound of Seas
That roars within 

...But by the grace

That grants our days

I'll endeavor to

Taste and see

The goodness of

Mercy and love

And capture it in poetry

© Janet Martin

 

and because of these 'seas' my floor is STILL unmopped!! lol

. I WILL do it now she said,

I will. 

I will!

(while a would-be poem wriggles in her head)

In September...

Sometimes the last stanza or even the last line of a poem
takes longer than all of the verses preceding.
Such was the case this morning, then my sister posted a photo on Facebook
that inspired the Finishing Touch
This photo is used by permission and courtesy of Lucy Martin
Her back yard...

This poem is about September literally and metaphorically.

Is the decade of the 50's the one where we most grapple with the

slap grace of getting older??

or does it get worse better from then on? 

All by God's grace right? in thankful faith we go!!

 

It seeps into our skin with fading cricket hymns where sun-kissed sighs
Ripple purple alfalfa fields dappled with yellow butterflies
It rushes through shadow-blue dells and fells stippled with petal-stars
It sweetens our gaze with hazel sweeps and heaven’s cloud-heaped bars

In September we sense the embers of summer begin to glow
It broods in woods poised on the brink of gorgeous green’s undoing, oh
As tree-tops flare and impress stares captured by nature’s scarlet sash
Before the hill is flecked, then decked with summer’s bronze and russet ash

It teases us with breezes seasoned with Reason’s conflicting tides
Where holding on and letting go duels as joy and grief collides
Because the Beauty of What Was fills parting with bittersweet pangs
As we both mourn and celebrate love’s dusky Musts and musky twangs

It plays an instrument; heartstrings, and enthralls both the old and young
The orchard bent with bounty authors lyrics of a universal tongue
Where far and wide the countryside is at the mercy of a brush
That stirs a blur of thistle-seed and washes slopes with coral flush

It blends aromas, spicy, pungent, fuses flavours malt and lime
Somehow, now dawn feels like a cruet pouring ballads steeped in Time
It threads the gossamer of webs with liquid diamonds none can steal
And heals the wounds of ‘having held’ with wonderment’s relentless zeal

In September we reconcile the oceans cupped in shores of skin
Take of our shoes and wade through waters near and dearly gathered in
Where gardens laugh and weep as we collect a treasure-surge of loot
While we revel in the disheveled happiness of blooms and fruit

In September, life feels like a harbour where memories are moored
Or like an arbour traced with tendrils to the Mast of Past secured
In September we remember once again, summer’s hurried stride
Dropping notes to a love-song, like rose-petals strewn before a bride

© Janet Martin

Because of Soul-diers in Training

Because we are training a whole new generation of Soul-diers

we ought to give earnest heed to what we teach and the resources/

Real Source we trust!

 

 

 After a bit of a domestic 'kerfuffle' 😛

(because the end of Eph.5:33 is not a suggestion)

and after coming to a peaceful understanding

I am re-linking to the article 

I think so very worth our reading-while

regardless what our political views are!

Read it here

(Because the Symptom that causes Downfall is universal!)

 

It seems these days man casts aside without much thought at all
The Truth that sets us free to which all are accountable
Ignorance dares to spit at God and trust in what they see
While blaming Him for consequence of cold, bold apathy

These days Stupidity masquerades as intelligence
Discernment has no Foothold therefore cannot influence
The high regard we ought to give to Wisdom, most deny
(Though it is nothing new to exchange the Truth for a lie)

Adam and Eve in Eden doubted God and were deceived
Desire saw the fruit looked good to eat, and disbelieved
And conceived sin; and sin when it is finished brings forth death
These days it seems that few revere that Gate of Final Breath

These days it seems the masses deem Goodness without a Source
As if the pinnacle of This was Some Thing/king they enforce
Not knowing God chose foolish things to shame the worldly-wise
the weak to shame the strong; He loves the things that they despise

These days the epidemic of Soul-sickness rages wild
Without diagnosis; without fear of God reconciled
Where hope is a delusion and justice a mockery
The Obvious ignored by those who praise depravity



1 Cor.1:20-21 BSB


Where is the wise man? 

Where is the scribe? 

Where is the philosopher of this age? 

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, 

God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.