Showing posts with label ice-storm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ice-storm. Show all posts

Friday, February 17, 2023

Like Glimpses Through a Gate


Psalm 16:11
You will show me the path of life; 
In Your presence is fullness of joy; 
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.


The thrill of February spring was short-lived,
...as was the clean up from previous ice-storms, 
 We woke to a world ensconced in nature's glitz!

How oft the Creator consoles
Earth's happiness, so full of holes...





February is always a struggle for me, poetically-speaking, 
and this February is no exception, so emotionally demanding/draining
 with so much local trouble and sorrow,
not to mention globally!
But hallelujah,
 God Was, Is, and Ever Will Be in perfect control!

We walk by faith, not by sight!
2 Cor.5:7


How oft the Creator consoles
Earth's happiness, so full of holes
Where grief exacts love’s bitter thorn
As dreams are dashed and hearts are torn
…and then the morn heaps hope’s buffet
As mercy’s masterpieces splay
Like glimpses, through a gate ajar
Where everlasting pleasures are

How often our faith could be
Disillusioned by tragedy
This, but part and parcel of Time
Tethered to weathered season-chime
Where rhyme and reason could dismiss
God’s goodness with betrayal’s kiss
Until, like glimpses through a gate
He reminds us of joys that wait

How often we could lose our way
If we relied on logic’s say
Where wise and fool alike concede
Man’s days are few and full of need
But, the best this world can demand
Pales, compared to God’s Promised Land
Glimpsed through a gleaming gate, agape
With impressions of its landscape

How oft the poet’s flound’ring prayer
Could yield to pirates of despair
Where unholy taunt plunders thought
And steals joy with blessings forgot
Until God opens downcast eyes
To impact us with sweet surprise
Unveiled, like glimpses through a gate
Where worship’s endless pleasures wait

How oft life's weight of care could wage
A war that nothing could assuage
Without more than this world can host
Of temporary toast and boast
Hoisted between eternities
A flail of mortal agonies
While glimpses through yon Gate remind
The man of the soul's transient rind 

How oft the Creator consoles
Earth’s happiness, so full of holes
With glimpses of Heavenly Hills
From whence our Help and Comfort spills
To cheer us onward in the flight
Of walking by faith, not by sight
Until Yon Gate eclipses grace
And glimpses become face-to-face

© Janet Martin

Psalm 121:1-3
I will lift up my eyes to the hills—
From whence comes my help?
2My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
3He will not allow your foot to [a]be moved;
He who keeps you will not slumber.












Wednesday, March 23, 2022

This Very Special Day


'I think I will have a muffin this morning', I said to Victoria 
as I put on another pot of coffee, 'since it is such a special day'.




Both of us had workdays cancelled because of school closures 
due to freezing rain this morning

This is a special day
The way the wind roars through
The ups and downs that crown
Life’s little lilt of
Me-and-you

How soft and swift the gift
Of Today is undone
By fingers, gossamer
And lowered masts on
Twilight’s galleon

Life’s leap from rocking cradle
To the still and silent grave
Does not leave us a hint
Of how much time 
Between we have

So, let’s not miss the melody
Of ‘us’, a ballad, sweet
And dance where paper ballrooms
Briefly pause
Beneath our feet

Time is a tender thief
Sometimes its wooing way
Could whisper us to sleep
Before we thank God for
This very special day

© Janet Martin




Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Let's Just Stay Home


 All schools including colleges and universities are closed today in hopes that people 'just stay home'!
It's much safer for those trying to keep roads clear if there is less traffic skidding about!





Let’s just stay home
The wild wind wails
and flails its tears like broken glass
Let’s stoke the embers into flame
and make Cozy;
this too shall pass
Let’s snuggle beneath fuzzy shawls
while Nature decks its halls with B-r-r-r
Let’s bake a cake (or muffins)
to celebrate
Time’s creaky gait toward summer-r-r!
 Let’s count the ways we love thee, home
Thy warm welcome
never wears thin
How sweet the tempo of thy poem
How dear the laugh-lines
of thy grin
How beloved thy roof and walls
They gather us closer a bit
And shelter us from brutish brawls
while Old Man Winter throws a fit
...and heaven drops its hints of joy
in cheery kettle-tune and such
In happiness of girl and boy
at ease near mother's gentle touch 
Let's picnic by the fireplace
Let's just ignore the roaring clock
No, let's look time straight in its face
and savor every tick and tock
Let's live life slow;
let's be ourselves
Ah, never mind what others think
Family-arity fills shelves
with photos, books and poet’s ink
that authors within wood and stone
the solace of love’s humble prayer
while we work fingers to the bone
lest home-sweet-home becomes threadbare
So, not without meek, thankful thrill
do we utter this sacred Tome
while wild the gale exerts its will  
glad, glad we say;
let’s just stay home

© Janet Martin



and then the irony; while writing this poem Matt, after hearing his school is closed went straight to work. "I'm not sitting around here all day!" he said to his anxious mother😊

I got a text from a neighbour asking if its okay if she comes over today.
(I guess she's not feeling the 'let's just stay home' thing either😁)

Victoria on the other hand told me she's so glad to be home today 
because she didn't sleep very well last night due to the fact 
that she kept dreaming there was a crow in her room that constantly flew at her head😂



More Than Time's Glance Can Tell


 Writing this while ice-rain pelts the window and all schools are closed far and wide!
An unexpected day off for me as well.
People are staying home unless they simply can't!
Hoping this ice-storm makes quick work of its 'art'.
We've seen too much of it for our taste in the past few years! 
(below, last April)

For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind,
and reveals His thoughts to man,
the One who turns the dawn to darkness
and strides on the heights of the earth,
the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

Amos 4:13

More than weather or if we have
Enough to make ends meet
More than fond plans before the grave
Claims what none can defeat
This day the Lord has made is more
Than almost-memory
It is a stepping stone toward
God and eternity

More than an orb of fate unfurled
More than money we earn
Naked we came into this world
Naked we will return
This trek of ‘all is vanity’
Of creature joy and grief
Is far, far more than we can see
Where none but God is Chief

Holy, holy, each breath we take
The soft undoing of
The stuff we heap, the plans we make
The people that we love
Where God so rich in mercy, gave
More than time's glance can tell
For death is greater than the grave
That holds the lifeless shell 

More than the bud of beaming spring 
More than summer's full bloom
More than autumnal winnowing
Before the wintry tomb
More than four seasons, round and round
On earth-bound carousel
More than a stint of lost and found
Beneath time's tolling bell

More than the host and boast of years
Whilst learning what we know
More than mist, kissed with smiles and tears
Where hold means letting go
More than a span of bread we break
Of hello and farewell
Holy, holy, each step we take
Toward Heaven or hell

© Janet Martin


Monday, April 16, 2018

Speaking Out For April!


Some more 'for-the-record-book shots' of a mid-April snow-day!







 But now, on April's behalf I beg!!!

Find her a fairy with wands made of cherry-bloom
Fix her a halo of silk sun-spun gold
Toss her a silver-mist mantle; a candle
Held to a hollow where violets unfold

Sing her a florist with daffodil havens
Fight for her right to umbrellas and such
Give her an apron; pockets full of rain-song
To waken bracken and furrow’s first dust

Shake a firm finger at old, Old Man Winter
Smoking his pipe in some sky belvedere
Tapping out ashes in big, white, wet splashes
Laughing as if he has nothing to fear    

Woo the warm zephyr too timid to venture
Over the sheen of pristine shiver-hue
Shout out a piece of your mind to the cold, bold
Philanderer of diamonds waiting to be dew

Daydream a picnic on green-meadow blankets
Fancy spring frocks of lilac and willow
Listen to catch the faint tolling of bluebells
Ringing in woodlots still covered with snow

Take a big heart and fill it with good wishes
Break it apart like a bud full of leaf
Whisper a picture of brooks filled with fishes
Forgive the maker of April’s mischief      

Croon a tune soft with pink inkling of summer
Kiss her a promise of tulip-pansy
Fluster the bluster of dusk’s dark-eyed busker
Standing on crocus shoots fiddling for free  

Tell Her a story of bare-footed children
Flower shaped founts for bumbling bumblebees
Hollyhock hollows and butterfly gardens
Beg Old Man Winter to take a nap, please

© Janet Martin


 This, version two of this poem, is a little bittersweet
 because version one, while I cooked supper 
was back-spaced to extinction by darling grandson(15 mos. old) and replaced with a row of zeros!
Version one had flowed from my fingers like a blind painter,
while version two, clawed from memory feels like shards of color not quite correctly arranged!
 But I feel like someone should speak out on April's behalf so I could not leave it 'unspoken':)

oh, and how's about cranking up a good picnic song?!