Monday, August 31, 2015

Prayer For The Morning, Noon or Night





Lord, guard my heart from apathy
Lest heedlessly I dare
To scorn Thy sacred sympathy
That gilds night’s thinning air

Lord, tune the Want that fain doth sprout
To harbored plots within
Where tares of arrogance and doubt
Set snares beneath my skin

Lord, keep me from the cunning path
That seems to fit my plan
And yet the end thereof is death
Veiled in the ways of man

Lord, teach this shell of dust to trust
And let its lone worth be
The love that first You gave to us
Then we return to Thee

© Janet Martin

Of This Romance

Anne Shirley: Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?
Marilla Cuthbert: No I cannot. To despair is to turn your back on God. 



 
If I allowed my heart to lead 
then I would wallow in the blue
of letting go; Summer's end weds
With the intent of 'missing you'
and so instead I'll tell my head
to tell my heart to dream and dance
lest in the blue of 'missing you'
I miss the bliss of This Romance



It's become tradition for us to watch/listen to Anne of Green Gables while we preserve peaches. This year a few great lines struck me with fresh appreciation.

 Anne Shirley: Don't you ever imagine things differently from what they are?
Marilla Cuthbert: No.
Anne Shirley: Oh Marilla, how much you miss. 

 (I hope you've had the delight to meet Anne with an 'e' even if you are not a kindred spirit it is worth the read!)

Through the Eyes of the Mind

This time of year it is not hard to find beauty for the eyes but, the mind must see it first!
I could be over come with the color of blue as summer soft-slips from Time's avenue...so,




May we find, as much with our minds as our eyes
The beauty of life’s lovely ‘thank-you surprise’
Lest in the hard fought delights of the day
Time is a teller for trouble’s dismay
But oh, if we look then thought soft-realizes
That life is a vendor of lovely surprises
And we are the spenders of it; may we find
Its lovely surprise with the eyes of the mind

© Janet Martin

We see through the eyes of our minds…
in love everything is, if not always beautiful, still at the least, bearable.


Happy Monday!

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Of One-time You and Me

Yesterday's suggested stroll through zinnia's and marigolds had to be put on hold so as not to interrupt the bees;-)...today the only visitor I met was a grasshopper.

Zinnia's are sort of like snowflakes, Victoria remarked, so many somewhat the same yet so different!

Sort of like people too, huh? We may seem quite different in appearance yet we are also quite alike;
...we need to be needed and love to be loved!

Hair,
Eyes,
Nose,
Mouth
And a pair of ears
We are all somewhat alike
At first        glance,       it appears
But if         we look more       closely
Then ah,         we will         surely see
That there        is only       one of you
And only one of me
So, since 
we are a            one-time Us
Oh, wouldn't             you agree
That we         should 
 not bicker            and fuss
But ever          strive to be
The best  version,           by God's kind grace
 Of one time            You and Me


Janet;-)
            

We Are...in After's Before



 
 Last year's threshold of this day was far more colorful than this year...the reason I remember? I sent the above picture on a birthday card I made for my dad last year:)

Over the threshold of the east like waves that wash the shore
A new portion of moments sweeps into After’s Before
Where cupped between Time’s firmament of Future filling Past
We are. Upon the breadth of Now each little life is cast

The poetry of it can steal our hearts and soothe our fears
The agony of it can feel like wounds tattooed in tears
But then over the threshold where the Now of yester fell
A new Now spills its everlasting charge of ‘Do it well’

Holy, holy, the free-fall of an hour soon is swept
Into Past’s captive endlessness; our Want of it inept
Yet we are often wanderers of it; not with our feet
But with reaches of thought; its jaded journey bittersweet

Now blooms then breaks in petals. We are reapers of its moil
The plot of it may cause our heart of hearts to ache with spoil
The toil of it may spit at us; still in form of Today
Over the threshold of God’s grace a New Now carves its way

© Janet Martin

Friday, August 28, 2015

Futile Unforgetfulness...





Sometimes I wish
I was woman enough
To tell you I miss
What we will never have

Sometimes I wish
The greatest love
I never knew
Wouldn’t be you

Sometimes I wish
We could turn back the clock
But if we did I know
I still wouldn’t know
What to say…

© Janet Martin

Why? because Tor and I just watched the movie Casablanca;-)


Soft, a Summer of Moments Slips...





Soft, a summer of moments slips to the Empire of Past
No flower has the power to grip petals ever fast
Or usurp the authority that aggravates a fool
…all must succumb to the hierarchy of a higher rule

Impassioned views of Youth meets Truth; a brick upon the air
Then we grow old, no longer bold enough to double-dare
Or wrench fare from the gentle Hand from whence all blessing flows
For we have come to recognize the disguise of the rose

All that we ask is for a task that is noble and pure
All that we need is less of greed and more of what endures
The gravity of Brevity teaches us to revere
The bloom we hold before it folds its gold in russet tear

Soft, a summer of moments flows toward the close of day
Soft, like the climax of a rose it gently fades away
No flower finds the power to preserve its verve of prime
No hour finds a bower to escape the Hand of Time

Then God, I pray that we may not wrestle with The Ordained
Yet wring from it the full of it in fervor unrestrained
And take what is and cherish it with thankful zeal because
Soft, a summer of moments becomes everything that was


© Janet Martin

Reveling in the Bloom Of It these days...

Later we'll stroll through the Zinnias and marigolds, shall we?:)
Happy God-granted Friday!