November Ballad

A few frames of the first four days of November...

I penned the first stanza on Monday, a blustery, rainy harbinger

to a gorgeous, sunny week that somehow 

*pulled its carpet out from under me before 

I had a chance to return to assemble the lines playing a ballad in my heart!

Instead of its original intent of October farewell

it turned into a November welcome!

below, a few 'carpet-tatters'😅

Leaf-decoupage decks rain-washed walks and lanes

Yard is a bed with crinkled counterpanes

Hearth is aflicker with fizzles and sputs 

Blue jay-bullies bicker, squirrel gathers nuts

And on yonder slope where corn tassels tossed

Umber furrows glisten with tinsel of frost

Garden-plots slumber until it is spring

Last squash and pumpkins are all gathered in

Shiny red chestnuts shed prickly, brown coats

River is dappled with fleets of leaf boats

Woodland is winnowed of whisper and sigh

Leaf awnings lower to let in the sky

Day breaks through molds of gold and amethyst

Landscapes are lavished with murmurs of mist

Wind choreographs lone-leaf pirouettes

Dusk, a brusque backdrop for stark silhouettes

Etched on a skyline of shiver and brr

Earth, like a deserted amphitheater

…After the crowds saw what they came to see

Quietness thunders with chick-a-dee-dee

After the rustling and rushing of feet

Silence amplifies echoes, bittersweet

As if a season of laughter and play

Was raked into heaps and trundled away

...while new generations learn toil's ethics 

Simple as helping to load leaves and sticks

Feeling the fervor of favor's delight

Of honest labor's hearty appetite 

Earning the happiness of high fives won (or in this case, jelly beans)

Tasting the sweetness of a job well done

November nips at hearts, noses and ears

While we come to grips with the blip of years

Tuning a tug of war, hold-and-release

Painting a minimalist’s masterpiece

After a palette of color, windblown

November showcases russet and brown

© Janet Martin

my childcare-tots inspired this stanza.... they were SO happy to help!

...while new generations learn toil's ethics 

Simple as helping to load leaves and sticks

Feeling the fervor of favor's delight

Of honest labor's hearty appetite 

Earning the happiness of high fives won

Tasting the sweetness of a job well done

I lamented to Little Lad about how

we were raking up one of my very favorite sounds in the world...

the rustle of leaves under feet!

So, he accommodated my suggestion of 'saving the sound'💖

Three Word Wonderment

Lest we get consumed by doom and gloom headlines...

by dread and doubt,

A reminder of everlasting truth inspiring utter thankfulness

 The Ray that rends night's sky...

This is no vain cliché

Of insignificance

This washes our sins away

With sacred sufferance

This is ‘Never Alone’

The anchor for the soul

Goodness and mercy’s cornerstone

For faith to be made whole

This is no common phrase

To hear then disregard

This is the strength for our days

Through Hands, faithful and scarred

This is God's kiss unfurled

Salvation’s origin

This is life to a dying world

To break the curse of sin

This is no utterance

Of meritless acclaim

This is creation’s countenance

The power in God’s name

Beauty that never dies

Wonder that cannot cease

The covenant that satisfies

The crux of perfect peace

The shelter of a Wing

While wild, time’s tempests toss

The comfort in our suffering

The glory of the cross

The bedrock of belief

Courage to face the foe

The solace in our pain and grief

The grace whereby we go

The sweetness in our song

The dawning of delight

The happiness when things go wrong

The armor for the fight

That which does not forsake

To cheer us on and up

The worth in every breath we take

The sparkle in life’s cup

The Ray that rends night's sky

The Voice that calms our dread

The Law no law can nullify

The scapegoat in our stead

This is our joy complete 

No void of want contends

This is Enough for all we meet

Nothing this Truth transcends

This is no trite maxim

No hollow platitude

This is a Light that cannot dim

The heart of gratitude

A boundless sympathy

Beneath, around, above

The hope of all humanity

In three words ‘God is love’

© Janet Martin

Because God is love

1 John 4:8  

Happy 80th birthday, Mom

 

With the circle still unbroken,

(Mom and Dad and all ten children with our spouses,)

our 80th birthday celebration for dear Mother on Sunday

was precious indeed!

Numbers 6:24-26

The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:

25The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:

26The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace.

The laundry lines you filled would reach up to the moon and back

And we could build skyscrapers with dishes, washed, dried and stacked 

The meals, prepared with thoughtful, loving labor, by God’s grace

Would humble us immensely if gathered into one place

Thank-you mom, for your diligence in ‘training up a child’

While we outgrew dresses and shoes, while days-to-years ran wild

While we would laugh and work and play and learn to humbly pray

To our Father up in Heaven to guide us each day

You taught us how to find joy in earth’s beauty, grand and free

Though busy you were never blind to God-penned poetry

You showed us (not just told us) when there was a task to learn

You took the time to read or pause to watch the seasons turn

You never did complain (or if you did I don’t recall)

A helpmeet for your husband and a mother to us all

With love enough to go around with never one left out

Love was the priceless plenty we never had cause to doubt

What happy days of childhood from heedless innocence slipped

From ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ to prayers without a script

From ‘Goodnight, yes, I’ll leave the hall light on, at least for now

(Unless the talker talked too long and laugher laughed too loud!)

Dear mom, I want to thank you, for too often I forgot

And simply took for granted tasty meals, healthy and hot

And work-worn hands that did not eat the bread of idleness

But tended to duty’s demands with cheerful faithfulness

I’m thankful for God’s love that has allotted eighty years

‘The multitude of sins’ you covered with your prayers and tears

And for the treasured memories that sparkle in a trove

Where surely the greatest of these is our sweet mother’s love

I pray each day for God to bless and keep you in his care

That come what may you sense the power of His presence there

I thank Him for the gift of a mother who read His Word

And let us by example with devotion undeterred

Happy eightieth Birthday, may the year ahead be blessed

With God’s mercies and if He wills, with health and happiness

Happy eightieth birthday, as your numbered days decrease/increase

May they be overflowing with God’s love and joy and peace

© Janet Martin

Psalm 71:18

Now also when I am old and grayheaded,

O God, forsake me not;

until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation,

and thy power to every one that is to come.

Psalm 37:25-26

I once was young and now am old,

yet never have I seen the righteous abandoned

or their children begging for bread.

26They are ever generous and quick to lend,

and their children are a blessing.

Psalm 90:12

Teach us to number our days,

that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Awesome or Awe's Sum

Beauty burgeons and brims, even in the rain

The vault of earth and heaven's hymns overflows with refrains  

The beauty of the heavens and the earth awakens awe

Where short-lived showcases of birth soon yield to nature’s law

Where, like the train of God’s robe, glory’s fringes spill and brim

To fill the temple of the globe with ‘Holy’ holy’s’ hymn

The beauty of creation is made plain for all to see

Four-season celebration of Divine Authority

Where we are granted glimpses of a Better Timeless Place

While masterpieces of God’s love astonish human race

Beauty and brokenness cohere in breath stealing display

A mosaic of smile and tear, of warm gold and cold gray

Where the bliss of beholding cannot thwart the fundament

Of farewell’s kiss enfolding what no sigh can circumvent

Where beauty’s bowers thunder with the evidence of He

Whose miracle in wonder is perfect humility

As we fix our gaze on Him rather than selfish aim

As earth and heavens coffers brim with glory to His name

The beauty we behold on earth on That Glad Day will dim

As our mortal death gives birth to an immortal hymn

The miracle of wonder’s perfected humility

The pure worship that thunders throughout all eternity

The beauty of creation is the whisper of yon cast

As stuttered exaltation finds love’s perfect words at last

As broken hearts are mended and as Eden is restored

The blood-washed soul ascended and forever with the Lord

© Janet Martin

Of Goodness and Mercy

 Surely Goodness, Surely Mercy -Shane and Shane

God’s Goodness: what delight this confidence bestows

His goodness does not shift like shadows through life’s highs and lows

But, steadfast and secure in spite of creature care

The full assurance of His goodness combats dark despair

Where we who trust in Him, and His goodness unfurled

Are part of His Goodness, to bring hope to a dying world

To cheer the suffering, to bear their burden too

To be a ready offering of His goodness run through

God’s mercy: what sweet joy and consolation bless

No foe or trouble can destroy mercy’s kind faithfulness

Sin’s pardon has been won. No other fete achieves

What mercy grants to everyone who repents and believes

Where we would deserve death and hell, grace sets us free

His mercy fills Final Breath’s knell with shouts of victory

For through death’s valley, He will walk with us, so near

To overthrow the enemy so that we need not fear

Goodness and mercy, oh, let endless praise begin

His goodness for our want and woe, His mercy for our sin

Wherever life may lead, whatever may befall

Goodness and mercy intercede to help us through it all

Where so unworthy we, heirs and joint heirs of Christ

Benefit from the agony that Jesus sacrificed

To draw all men to Him, the Perfect Prince of Peace

Where His goodness and mercy brim from founts that never cease

The glass through which we peer does not reveal the whole

A darkly, sorrow-scarred veneer enshrouds the deathless soul

Where what we see in part often vexes our gaze

Goodness and mercy’s works of art above our thoughts and ways

Because the cruciform of faith and hope and love

Must bear the testing storm its authenticity to prove

But, whatever betide, of grief and pain and strife

Goodness and mercy will preside all the days of our life

© Janet Martin

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not [a]want.

2 He makes me to lie down in [b]green pastures;

He leads me beside the [c]still waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He leads me in the paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil;

For You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You anoint my head with oil;

My cup runs over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I will [d]dwell in the house of the Lord

[e]Forever.

Of Paling Autumn-tide...

Tucked between stunning sunrises and sunsets

a week of busy, beautiful autumn days and fall foliage farewells

whirled away...

Of senses steeped in heavens heaped with bottomless azure

Of hunger held where moments meld to moments like felled leaves

of awesome blaze of autumn days, no awed gaze can secure

of joy and grief as leaf-by-leaf earth gathers final sheaves

of happiness and loneliness in autumn’s madrigal

of dappled skies as lullabies are loosened from the limb

of mellow, yellow bliss in the felicity of fall

of landscapes glossed with leaves of frost as lofty tapers dim

of garnet, gold, and umber soldering of farewell’s kiss

of tattered music sheets scattered like fleets on leaf-tossed seas

of vain attempt to circumvent the haste of What Yet Is

of precious days soon blazoning a maze of memories

of hearts beguiled by art run wild in unrivaled release

of brooding blues and dazzling hues in myriad shades of red

of purple hills as morning spills its molten masterpiece

of worship’s woo as winds undo bronze buttons overhead

of pure delight footloose, in spite of ties that snare and bind

of heartstrings caught in every thought besotted by fall’s bow’r

of senses keened by tresses weaned, to what is soon behind

of season spent and reason bent with remnants of lent flow’r

of wisdom earned by lessons learned of what no one can stay

of now and here hinged to a sphere of ages out of reach

of you and I beneath a vault of sky, crowning today

of urge and whim soft burgeoning with what remains to teach

of ‘love-you-so’ and letting go and ‘oh-don’t-leave-me-yet’

of weathering the tethering of dusk-bathed countryside

of cherishing the precious perishing leaf-pirouette

of ships that sail upon a vale of paling autumn-tide

of glint and glance of dizzy dance of leaves across the yard

of taking stock of tick and tock’s inevitable claim

of shadows thinned by a cold wind raking a boulevard

of wooden wicks like candlesticks snuffed of life’s little flame

of scarves of smoke draped on an ochre ambience of death

of days undone by ways common to man since Time was spun

of a rag quilt, pieced, stitched and spilt with every sacred breath

of silver ilk, like milkweed silk snagged on a ray of sun

© Janet Martin

The Believer's Awe

1 Cor.13:7-8

Love...bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things.

Love never fails.

Love makes worthwhile and beautiful the oft-not-glamourous 

And fills each would-be-common-task with sacred happiness...

Love, for the Lord our God

Oh, may this ever be

The driving force that stays the course

Of faith’s fidelity

Love, humble, kind and true

As earth and heaven meet

Self, sacrificed, the cross of Christ

Enough for joy complete

Love, transcending time’s tide

Where trouble oft dismays

Though woe assails, love never fails

For God is love always

The doctrine faith defends

Anoints love’s altar call

As we embrace the truth and grace

For Christ, love’s all, in all

Do not despair, though love

Must suffer many tears/fears

Beneath its pain the sacred gain

Of soul’s salvation cheers

Then, with Reason renewed

Until the end of days

May Mercy’s Rose of love compose

An offering of praise

...and fill us with delight

In spite of much amiss

God's Spirit of comfort and love

 Instills us with His kiss

Love, the Divine decree

Love, the Redeemer's law

Love, the True Light, faith's pow'r and might

Love, the Believer's Awe

© Janet Martin

For Bearers of Hurts and Disappointments

So much of faith's fight is fought in the hidden battlefield of the heart

where often God alone is witness of its tender triumphs and death-defying defeats!

God's call to faithfulness is not for the faint of heart nor for half-hearted endeavors!

Faithfulness is an all-in fight to the finish

often riddled with hurts and disappointments.

1 Cor.9:24-26

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?

 Run in such a way as to take the prize. 

25Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. 

They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. 

26Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air. 

27No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, 

so that after I have preached to others, 

I myself will not be disqualified.

This poem began when dawn dripped from coral eaves...

Now the day is almost done awash with rain and leaves...

Where hurt and disappointment rakes relentless talons through

Where we wrestle with sacred stakes witnessed by only You

Where we are often tested by the fires of dismay

Our motives tried and tempted by the liar’s merchant sway

Where touch cannot make manifest, nor visage intervene

The substance of hope’s hidden quest of evidence unseen

Where the strait gate which faith is warned to press and strive toward

Bids us to endure hardness like a soldier for You, Lord

Bids us to put on the full armour only You supply

Bids us to be on guard for the Charmer of cunning ply

Bids us to lay our all upon altars of sacrifice

Bids us to heed the call without aversion to the price

Bids us to bear love’s cross in faith’s response of gratitude

Where what appears as loss on earth is but Heaven’s prelude

Where hurt and disappointment clings to grace that will not fail

While we wrestle with Reckonings that Your face will unveil

Grace crowns the law of Moses with the law of love’s decree

Knowing Your love that chose us is the law that sets us free

That the gift of salvation no mortal creed can undo

There is no condemnation for all who are found in You

Knowing You are not mocked; and that we will reap what we sow

Knowing not how we talk but walk is the fruit that will grow/show

While hurt and disappointment undo and refine the part

That only You bear witness to; the throne room/war room of the heart

Lord, there is nothing hid from You; nothing impossible

Where hurts and disappointments rue, You work the miracle

Where transformation’s work is wrought, not on a bed of ease

But in the thick of what is not according to our ‘please’

As we yield fear and dread and doubt to faith to undergird

And do not take one step without reliance on Your Word

Where hurts and disappointments hone the heart, so oft betrayed

To fix its hope and trust upon the Cornerstone You laid

© Janet Martin