Showing posts with label sonnet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sonnet. Show all posts

Monday, February 26, 2024

For Your Name's Sake (some sonnets)

You drape the dell with scarves of silver tulle...

You carve the curving course of brook-song hue...

...the earth is full Of the glorious handiwork of You





You drape the dell with scarves of silver tulle
You carve the curving course of brook-song hue
That shimmers out to sea; the earth is full
Of the glorious handiwork of You

You fill and whet the seed that leaps to life
Fruit and flower reply; ah, who are we
That we should doubt Your ways while earth runs rife
With Your mercy, glory and majesty

You stir within the human heart a sense
Of holiness and power undeterred
A Culmination, awesome and immense
That eye has not yet seen nor ear yet heard

Oh Lord, let no path I pursue or take
Be for a lesser cause than Your name’s sake

***

Ps.23:3
...he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

***

You wake and rouse the earth from winter’s clutch
With ways we love and have come to expect
With daffodils and robin trills and such
With plumes and blooms sun-kisses resurrect

You tune four-season’s steadfast carousels
Sun, moon and stars their ordained circuits stay
And never stray; not one planet rebels
Your perfect law and order they obey

Nothing and no one can usurp Your will
Ancient oracles have not slipped your ken
Heaven and earth will not pass away till
Each jot and tittle is fulfilled. Amen

Behold! where autumn’s auburn petals fell
Springtime’s unfailing hallelujahs swell

***

Ps.24:1
The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof;

***

The earth is Yours, and its fulness thereof
The greedy forget this and want for more
Than Your goodness, mercy, kindness and love
Offering wealth that pales this world’s brief store 

Your righteousness and truth are of great price
The wise covet its fortune earnestly
Striving to be a living sacrifice
Lest worship be a show of vanity

You rend the dark; cut mercy’s legions loose
You bend heavens and earth with evidence
Of You; thus, we are all without excuse
When it comes to devotion’s recompense

Dear Lord, whatever life may bring our way
Help us endeavor to trust and obey

***

Ps.103:8
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.

***

Compassionate and slow to anger, You
Withhold judgment, but not forever, oh
Someday total accounting will come due
Pity the one who heard You and said 'no'  

You, who held nothing back but gave Yourself
Pity the one who prizes prideful pelf
Above the love that robs death/hell of its claim

Time's four-season circuit spins round and round
Some sense its sacred toll, some scoff and sneer
But someday Time's Veneer will run aground 
And all earth's tribes will mourn with holy fear

Then, hope and grace and faith will be no more
When who we chose to serve settles the score 

© Janet Martin

***
Matt.24:30
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, 
and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, 
and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven 
with power and great glory.

***

Behold! where autumn’s auburn petals fell...

Springtime’s unfailing hallelujahs swell





Monday, February 27, 2023

School/Leap of Faith- A Sonnet


As we were leaving on Sat. for our annual weekend in TO I realized
the pink eye I was trying to ignore was suddenly getting much worse.
We stopped to pick up a prescription because all the over-the-counter meds were sold out!
(bit of a pink eye epidemic on in our area)
To top it off, a mild sore throat escalated into wild discomfort.
By Sat. night the long anticipated dinner, (and remainder of the weekend)
was more endured than enjoyed!
While I know this is small on the grand scale of troubles
it was/is still super disappointing!
But on we go...
with so much still to be thankful for!

1 Thess.5:18
give thanks in all circumstances;
 for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.


I didn't get any photos this weekend except a few at 
Krispy Kreme donuts on the way home...


There's a good parable in watching the process of a donut being made.
A glob of sticky dough, mixed, pressed and fried before the
final, delectable sweet-treat finish!
So, speaking in donut terms, sometimes
 when we're in the gob-of-sticky-dough stage
 or the pressing and frying stage
it might be easy to forget
 there's a 'sweet-treat' finish!


To roam among grave stones of seasons spent
Is but to squander what soon wastes away
To wander in deserts of discontent
Is but to miss the treasure of Today

To mourn for what we cannot change is vain
Distracting us from present precious sands
To dread the unknown is a futile pain
Better to pray and leave it in God’s hands

His grace, always sufficient for life’s lot
His mercy new each morning, praise His name
His love transcends the scope of mortal thought
His promises are free for all to claim

His goodness greater than affliction’s lathe 
His peace, perfected in each leap of faith

© Janet Martin

Jim needed to leave for work when we got home!
I snuggled on the couch and listened to an extremely uplifting message 
from David Jeremiah about faith.
I couldn't find the exact one on YouTube, 
but below is a link to another gem of a message filled with invaluable reminders.
It starts in with this...
"One of the sobering thoughts about the Christian life is the truth that God is far more interested in who we become and what we are than in what we do. He cares a whole lot more about how we live than about what we accomplish. His purpose is to build Christians, not cathedrals. His focus is on people, not programs, and for this reason, when God is working in the life of a person, he often allows unexplainable events to prepare and perfect those that he is getting ready to serve him in a much bigger way in the kingdom. The New Testament says this: "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives". Often when difficult things happen in our lives, it's not the evidence of something that is wrong, but proof that something is right."

***

Life aka, 
The School of faith
is filled with highs and lows,
 joys and woes,
 in all shapes and sizes
thorns and rose-
coloured surprises
Everything comes, 
then it goes.
What yet waits
Only God knows...
But,
Whether we are enjoying the flower
or being pricked by its stem
God is faithful.
Forever
Amen 

Donuts remind me of a song from days gone by when
our children were little...




Thursday, October 20, 2022

A Sonnet of Wonderment/Confoundment

Jer.32:17
‘Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth
by Your great power and outstretched arm.
There is nothing too hard for You.





Time cannot shift the Hand that tunes the tide
That manifests God’s ancient covenant
That ebbs and flows across the countryside
To author amaranthine wonderment

Where we could shout until no voice is left
The height and breadth of beauty to descry
Only to concede mortal is bereft
Of words to adequately gratify

…the thirst that bursts into a hymn of praise
Too grand for script of syllable and rhyme
To God, who never ceases to amaze
Unphased, He proves the changeless ways of Time

And rouses from Confoundment's inept mold 
Agape stutters of 'Ah, Lord God, behold.'

© Janet Martin

Gen.8:22
“While the earth remains, 
Seedtime and harvest, 
Cold and heat, 
Winter and summer,
 And day and night 
Shall not cease.”



Psalm 40:5
Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders You have done,
 and the plans You have for us--
none can compare to You--
if I proclaim and declare them, 
they are more than I can count.

Great are the works of the LORD;
 they are pondered by all who delight in them.

Psalm 92:5
How great are Your works, O LORD, 
how deep are Your thoughts!



Friday, March 26, 2021

The Truth About Things


This poem was inspired partly by this morning's Bible Love Note
and partly by spending a few hours yesterday burning
brush picked up and raked form the yard...

'At death all Things will turn to dust and ash'

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: 
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Eccles.12:7

Truth does not shift its weight from foot to foot
Or like a shadow; it is absolute
The precedence of God no one outranks
Man’s part is to obey and give Him thanks
This keeps the heart from becoming enslaved
To the futility of Things, the ‘old man’ craved
Truth teaches us to value what we ought
Lest in the quest for wealth, Truth is forgot
Only treasures in heaven will not rust
All else at death will turn to ash and dust
Naked we came and naked we will leave
Beware, lest snare of Satan doth deceive

The grave is the cadaver’s final splash
At death all Things will turn to dust and ash

© Janet Martin

 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, 
where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 
21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.…
Matt.6:19-21

On that note I am about to leave to buy some things,
Because some Things serve a sweet cause such as
 a gift for Grand-daughter's second birthday!
Last year store-lockdowns and Covid restrictions
 kept her first birthday a rather low-key
celebration. no gifts, no party!
This year hopefully we will celebrate with renewed awareness and thankfulness
 of the preciousness of words like 'together' and 'hello'
and 'have a piece of cake'!

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Seasoned Scene Sonnet

(click link to read the whole powerful chapter)

I am the Lord, and there is no other;
apart from me there is no God.
I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
so that from the rising of the sun
to the place of its setting
people may know there is none besides me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other...

It is I who made the earth
and created mankind on it.
My own hands stretched out the heavens;
I marshaled their starry hosts.


The morning melts the dark, the heavens spawn 
Dawn’s ever-ebbing shadows from the air 
Unrolling, like a bolt of blush chiffon 
Gilt gossamer that tumbles through our stare 
Unveiling labour, love and longing’s stage 
Where scenes change with each season’s ordered rite 
While overhead the heavens never age 
But mark the night and day with dark and light 
To leave its imprint not in stars, but hearts 
A script composed of constant no return
As ways and means of circumstance imparts 
An ever-startling scope of more-to-learn 
Hope, like a bud that still withholds the rose 
Keeps us caught between knees and tippy-toes 

© Janet Martin




Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Balancing Burdens...




To bear the weight of the woes of this world
Would drain us of all hope of happiness
To dwell on the darkness where Light unfurled
Beckons, is to miss God’s kind faithfulness

To suffer we must; but to hurt alone
Would surely be hardship’s most bitter part
The Lord does not leave us Comfortless, no
Though this world’s sorrows can shatter the heart

Worry is not the same thing as concern
Worry frets anxiously; futile and hard
Concern will caution, encourage, discern
Stand like a strong, loyal soldier on guard

Lord, help us daily Thy grace to employ
To bear life’s burdens with courage and joy

© Janet Martin 
 
1 Pet.5:6-7
Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, 
so that in due time He may exalt you.  



Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Winter Worship and Wonder (a sonnet)






Fresh flakes of snow fell while we were asleep
And draped the earth in a dazzle of stars
Now it is hard for summer-hearts to keep
The joy of winter from breaking through bars

...intended to keep splendid scenes of green
Within thought’s reach (while winds cut like a knife)
To buoy hope through days and months between
Trees robbed of leaves and buds primed with new life

For something about white delight instills
Our sense of sight with kind humility
As the Author of awe always fulfills
And exceeds fanciful expectancy

His Masterpieces startle hearts with cheer
Wonder and worship smile from ear to ear

© Janet Martin

 Yes, I've shared the song below many times...
It is one of my favorite winter-welcome and prelude to Christmas carols!



Sunday, December 1, 2019

A Something-to-Remember Sonnet on A Stormy Church-cancelled Sunday Morn...



 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Gal.6:7
We reap what we sow, but we never see the full impact of the harvest!
Many who follow reap what we sow as well...


We leave behind, with grit of daily grind
Strewed on time’s path, the aftermath of choice
In ebb and flow of yes and no entwined
Where death may steal our breath, but not our voice

As consequence and recompense reply
Though you and I lie stilled in Bygone's glade
They grapple with the apple of hope’s eye
And wrestle on a trestle that we laid

This thus should stir in us a sacred quest
To consider more than the score of Now
For what seems small soon falls prey to the test
That tries the ties that bind us to time’s plow

Where what we sow will grow, then while we sleep
Beneath earth’s sash of dust and ash, they reap

© Janet Martin