Of Logic and Love

 

Logic and love (aka head and heart)

Can be at constant odds

until we humbly strive to start

to serve no other gods

Until we love the Lord our God

with heart, soul, strength and mind

We cannot be all that we ought

For we are God designed

In writing there is the constant battle 

of blending both heart and head.

To write with only the heart we tend to end up with Beauty

but not always truth. 

To write with only our heads may spout wisdom's facts and truth

but without beauty!

When we parent/love with only our heads 

we are at the risk of being too harsh.

When we parent/love with only our hearts 

we risk being too soft!

Lord, as new day dissolves the dark

and we embark anew

Lord, birth in both our heads and hearts

fresh awareness of You

By the direction of Your Word

To seek You with faith undeterred

The head hosts logic’s hot debates

The heart, the part that loves and hates

The head can wield a rigid rod

The heart, the part that yields to God

The heart is vile without God’s voice

To reconcile the guile of choice

The head holds the tower of thought

The heart holds God’s power, or not

Until the head and heart align

And one to the other resign

The head will be the part that fools

The heart with logic's art of rules

© Janet Martin

 “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart 

and with all your soul 

and with all your strength 

and with all your mind’ 

and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Luke 10:27

The heart is deceitful above all things, 

and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Jer.17:9

Ah, Summer

 Ah, hands laden with garden-fare...

ah, sand between our toes...

Ah, silver-sequined taper melting moments dearly prized

You strew to past’s cast paper joy and sorrow synchronized

Scents of your passage mingle in incense of dust and dew

As our senses tingle with the awareness of you

Ah, eager expectation meshed with echo-aftermath

Shards of dashed celebration deck impressions of a path

That wends and winds its way from where we were to where we are

Fresh from a world of yesterdays we leap from star to star

Ah, land of lengthened daylight before night draws down its bars

And scatters flowers, silver-white in bowers bent with stars

Ah, grand cathedral brimming with winter’s bloom-dreams come true

While sight is barely skimming the fringe of what God can do

Ah, hands laden with garden-fare, ah, sand between our toes

Arbors flowing with silken, sunny honeysuckle prose

Ah, hill and hollow frilled with skeins and skeins of Queen Ann’s lace

Ah, lily-tallow spilled and willed to life’s last resting place

Ah, petal-tear ellipses, bit o’ salt, a bit o’ sweet

Where auburn soon eclipses gold and green of corn and wheat

Where late-day diamonds dancing on a bit o’ lake-lent hue

Crown points of exclamation with love’s stinging residue

Ah summer; soulful salutation of blooms and bare feet

Of heat-waves rolling over shores where earth and heaven meet

Of longing's gaping canyon overflowing with your hymn

Ah summer, full of reasons to be glad and sing and sing

© Janet Martin

Where late-day diamonds dancing on a bit o’ lake-lent hue

Crown points of exclamation with love’s stinging residue...

Of Dwindling Kindling

 

Because winter fireplaces/woodstoves take a lot of kindling 

we are already on the look-out at the end of people's driveways 

where camp-fire wood is for sale.

Reminds me of a different kind of kindling, 

always dwindling far too fast...

This hour where the flower bluffs

On beauty’s candlestick

Cannot escape the hand that snuffs

Its flicker from the wick

Now frets upon heart’s deep desire

A fond, intoning knell

Where joys that kindled friendship’s fire

Have dwindled to farewell

The dying embers on a hearth

Where round we gathered, oft

Wakens in us the dusk of mirth

In footsteps, keen yet soft

…where pain bends pleasure’s maiden form

In pangs of sweet refrain

To take the tender heart by storm

With ‘till we meet again’

…until in some morrow’s delight

While wounds of parting heal

We’ll tend the echoes that ignite

What farewell cannot steal

P-s-s-s-t! ash to ash and dust to dust

The quickened pulse will fell

Death veils frail trails of wanderlust

With whispers of farewell

This hour where the flower bluffs

On beauty’s candlestick

Cannot escape the hand that snuffs

Its flicker from the wick

Then cherish well heart's deep desire

Beneath high-noon's blue bell

Where joys that kindle friendship's fire

Are dwindling to farewell

© Janet Martin

Manifest Evidence

 

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; 

as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 

 By this all will know that you are My disciples, 

if you have love for one another.” 

John 13:34-35

With the abundant rain we've been blessed with

in southern Ontario, Canada,

fields and gardens beam 

with Nature's/Mercy's opulent pleasure!

The most beautiful bloom 

in the garden of life

is love

Love is patient and kind...

1 Cor.13:4

Not by grand pomp and show

Or flourish of fine word

But by our love, others will know

That we follow the Lord

…not by the high or low

Of status, color, creed

But by our love, others will know

That we are Christ’s, in deed

Not for glory or praise

Or Duty’s rigid bent

But by compassion’s gentle ways

Love’s grace is evident

Not to create a throne

For self-indulgent pride

But by our love, God’s love is shown

His glory magnified

© Janet Martin

The Music of the Heart

As long as God writes the melody

the heart will never weary

of trying to set it free...

So much beauty to set the heart on fire!

A song can never spill the whole

of a heart’s melody

No bard as yet can bare the soul’s

full hymn in poetry

In the depths of the commonplace

Swirled worlds of splendor span

Like stars in the eternal space

Beyond the lens of man

Then, while we grapple with the surge

Of wonder’s splurge and laud

May whisper and desire merge

In pure worship to God

Pray we may never cease to thrill

to do our humble part

As we are awed by God, to spill

the music of the heart

© Janet Martin

I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; 

I will glorify your name forever.

Psalm 86:12

Psalm 9:1
I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; 

I will recount all Your wonders.

How Lovely Flow The Hours of a Lakeside Afternoon

 

How lovely flow the hours of a lakeside afternoon

While bobbing on the tempo of an ebb and flowing tune

While bearing the awareness of a tugboat chugging where

A lovely lakeside afternoon soon dissolves to thin air

How utter run the moments that compose days into years

As smooth as butter, bittersweet each sparkle disappears

While granting an enchanting awe, because lo and behold

A day no one has ever seen breaks midnight’s darksome mold

How softly seep the seasons starred and scarred with joy and strife

While we learn who to lean on through the calm and storms of life

While wearing the un-baring, sacred-subtle, of the soul

That steals away the seasons until God reveals the whole

© Janet Martin

After-Holiday Happiness

 

I scribbled this one on the way home today as I realized our comments

breaking little stretches of silence 

were either retrospect or looking ahead...

A toss-up between retrospect

And wondering what will be

A tug twixt heart-string dialect

And half-penned poetry

A futile fight, of holding tight

And gently letting go

Reeling from the brunt of delight

In drifts of echo-snow

…and sensing Time's searing caress

No bargain can defeat

After-holiday happiness

Is always bittersweet

© Janet Martin

Summer Siesta

 

A bit of sun and sand and sea

And being lulled by lap of lake

And chilling out with family

A bit of memories to make

In the kind company of love

And laughter’s sweet and sanguine wage

And losing count of places lived

Vicariously in turn of page

And coffees sipped unhurriedly

And vines designed by scrabble-tiles

And walks without a destiny

Along the beach, through wooded isles

A bit of gently losing touch

A ‘sit’ at the end of the dock

A lot of BBQ and such

And never looking at a clock

And ever being mindful of

The changes that each year imparts

And cherishing life’s gifts of love

And thanking God with humble hearts

 

© Janet Martin

Sea you in a week or two😎😊!