Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2024

Ode to Father Time

Dear Father Time...

I never tire of your ways...

Your sweet and sun-steeped golden days...(today, a balmy 20C)



Your contours, swaddled in soft grays...


Your landscapes, washed in pink...



A quick pit-stop for supper and off again)



Spring is like a dog straining wildly at its leash today!

I never tire of your ways
Your sweet and sun-steeped golden days
Your contours, swaddled in soft grays
Your landscapes, washed in pink
Your rough-and-tumble give and take
Your waves that sob and surge and break
Across shorelines that gleam and ache
With untamed poem-ink

I never tire of your hymn
It trembles in the barren limb
And throbs as buds begin to brim
With orchestras of green
With daybreak’s lilac-tinted sighs
And twilight’s gentle lullabies
With hellos, harboring goodbyes
With all that falls between

I never tire of your waltz
Your minuet and somersaults
Your promenade that never halts
But twirls me round and round
Till I am breathless with delight
Yet never tire of the sight
Of you, gilt-edged ‘gainst gath’ring night
Of a new day unbound

I never tire of your ease
Turning moments to memories
Taming my younger-hungered pleas
With humble thankfulness
My cheek against your stubbly chin
Ah, darling, how can I begin
To count your ways I cannot win
Yet love you nonetheless

© Janet Martin




Thursday, November 2, 2023

Sheer Veneer





Is the haste of a season sometimes almost more than you can bear too?

Tonight we lingered, sipping rich, black espresso in the crisp, gold dusk...




Time’s fabric is so sheer
Like mist-embellished gauze
That gathers up laughter and tears
Into the year that was

How easily it slips
Through fingertips and sighs
Like poetry of eyes and lips
Of hellos and goodbyes

Futile to linger where
The daylight disappears
Beneath a shawl of dark blue air
Un-weathered by the years

How swiftly seasons waft
Like silver thistledown
Above the quiet woodland doffed
Of spring-to-autumn’s crown

We reach but cannot trace
The thread that weaves the year
As season-stitches interlace
Time’s fabric remains sheer

Let's savor its sheer bliss
With love's sheer appetite 
And let the sheer wonder of This
Fill us with sheer delight

© Janet Martin











Monday, October 2, 2023

(Precious) Pearl-Storm...

Once more, moments, like precious pearls, mete morning’s gilt-edged gauze... 


Once more, moments, like precious pearls, mete morning’s gilt-edged gauze
Fresh opportunity unfurls its thunderous applause
For better or for worse, dawn’s river rushes earth and sky
Where we will bless or curse the Giver by how we reply
And we will surely influence some soul we touch today
With kindness or indifference, by what we do and say

Soon blush and bronze of daybreak dons workaday shoes and hues
Moment-pearls spill and roll and bounce through prayers, hopes, dreams and dues
Through thought, through lips and fingertips, pearl-pulsed payoff impends
As time’s fleet treasure-measure slips to profound dividends
A wonder-storm of glints and swirls; we groan and grin and gasp
Ah, life; a subsequence of pearls that glimmer through our grasp

Before the torrential downpour of moment-pearls subsides
And silence tempers the uproar of morn-to-eventides
Let’s live as if today were love’s final pearl-spending spree
Before God unveils troves that prove the heart's fidelity
Let’s pay more earnest heed to the accounting that awaits
Our words and deeds when life’s precious moment-pearl-storm abates

© Janet Martin

Luke 12:34
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Today's workaday shoes are about to get gloriously garden-dirty!😊





Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Showcasing Time...

Over and over we ask this question, 
without ever really expecting an answer, right?!😅
'Where does the time go?!!'

already almost mid-September?!
How can it be?!


Last week my granddaughter, 
during a tea-break gasped,
" Grandma!, what happened to the garden?!!"
"Harvest", I replied.
 "We brought in all the potatoes and onions!"



No matter what we are doing we are planting and/or harvesting!
We reap what we sow!


Proverbs 13:4
The slacker craves yet has nothing, 
but the soul of the diligent is fully satisfied.

***

Today's 'time' was spent at church this morning,
prepping food for a funeral tomorrow,
 then a bit of this and that at home this afternoon,
including starting to harvest marigold and lavender 
for hopefully lots and lots more tea-breaks to come!

A splash of summer sunshine in a cup 
while winter gales howl...





I cannot hear or feel or see
Where you go as you slip through me
…each day, a little like a door
To what has never been before

A dissonance of highs and lows
Of gates agape and curtain-close
Of lissome waltz and trip-and-fall
Of grinning, groaning beck-and-call

Your seasoned tide of seasons, rife
With encounters that turn to ‘life’
Where nothing I can do or say
Will keep you from slipping away

Above my head, beneath my feet
Through skin-and-bone-cradled heartbeat
Into a place I cannot see
An intangible gallery

...of moments, melding as they fall
To pictures on a phantom wall
Showcasing you, a pantomime
Of once-upon-what-once-was-time

© Janet Martin

A verse to live by while time allows and the secret to happiness...

Prov.16:20
He who heeds the word wisely will find good, 
And whoever trusts in the LORD, happy is he.


Saturday, June 24, 2023

Of Mortal and Divine

When every blade-leaf-petal is
dazzled with silver drops
we who behold would be amiss
not to pause, and praise God



The Hand of Time is, in essence the Hand of God!
So in troubled times like these,
we take heart for we are in Good Hands...

The Hand of Time unfolds flowers...







The lifespan of a flower is brief!
(see the transformation of a week in the photos below)




The Hand of God holds eternity!!
It bids us consider well whose Hand
we choose to trust!

***

Eccles.12:6-7
Remember your Creator
 before the silver cord is [b]loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
7Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

***

Outstretched, across the land and sea
Without form to define
This indelible unity
Where mortal and divine

...cradles the earth and tips yon purse
With dawn’s momentous lure
Once more life's for better or worse
Runs rife, to rich and poor

To test the sacred symmetry
That binds body and soul
And balances humanity
Against the holy Whole

Of love’s sovereign authority
Above sky, sea, and sod
Mist mingles with eternity
The Hand of Time and God

A flower cannot keep its prime
As dust's due decks the sod
The Soul slips through the hand of Time
Into the hand of God

© Janet Martin

Job 14:1-2

Man, who is born of woman,
is short of days and full of trouble.
2Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away;
like a fleeting shadow,
 he does not endure.



Friday, February 3, 2023

What May 'Seem' (in the moment) Is Not So At All...


I had a terrible time reigning in the galloping steads of today's poem-possibilities,
but with the news of another of my husband's aunts passing away (Ella)
it causes Thought to muse on how what may seem 
 (mundane and inconsequential) in the moment
is not so at all!!


I look at the mundane duties (thankfully brightened by cutie-duty)
 that seem never to be completely completed,
and I think about how utterly meaningless much could seem
in the grand scheme of things...until we open our hearts
and mouths and turn potential-mundane-chore-ness to a glorious refrain
of worship/praise to God who grants Today! 

(When I play the song below or something similar, while doing housework
it changes my whole perspective!)
This afternoon looks like a long-song afternoon aka lots of housework!!



It may not seem like much; the mundane ebb and flow
Of duty as it falls through touch then melts like flakes of snow
Caught on the tongue of Time where nothing stays the surge
Of a momentous pantomime where past and future merge
On a verge called Today; perched on eternity
A chariot soon drawn away by steads we cannot see
Where the grim rigmarole of Today will expire
As the pilgrimage of the soul is restored to its Sire
And what once stole the show is but a lifeless barge
As I AM snuffs the ebb and flow of Duty’s awesome charge


Then, what seems to compose a long-forgotten script
Is unveiled as with curtain-close, the soul of Garb is stripped
When the last dream is dreamed, and the last breath forsook
The last jot of what ‘simply seemed’ summarized in a Book
Where font of taste and touch is gathered; smallest small
And what once seemed like nothing much is not so after all
...where, pray as we emerge from what death has estranged
As Today tumbles from its verge, that one thing is unchanged
As we behold God, oh, it will be as before
Praising He from whom blessings flow both now and evermore

© Janet Martin

John 5:24-29
“Most assuredly, I say to you, 
he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, 
and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. 
Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, 
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; 
and those who hear will live. 
For as the Father has life in Himself,
so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, 
and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, 
because He is the Son of Man. 
Do not marvel at this; 
for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 
and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, 
and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.



Thursday, December 29, 2022

Frameworks of Farewell

 



The framework of farewell is filled with moments spilled and spent
Into a little locket frilled with laughter and lament
Where what we argue or reject, or believe and embrace
Becomes part of the retrospect that farewell’s frames showcase

Sometimes it seems I almost see Father Time tease my sigh
With a fedora jauntily pulled down over one eye
He tips his hat and with the other hand touches my cheek
‘There, there, you know I understand the words you cannot speak’

Sometimes I think I sense him wink as one more year becomes
The latest, stationary link of soldered cookie crumbs
And sums soft-shook from flowers that we plant, then pluck and press
Between books filled with hours of love’s hopeful happiness

Where bittersweet, an echo-fleet embarks upon a sea
That surges with the thrum of bare feet lost on Bygone’s lea
Where frames of farewell gaped while hellos rang in the New Year
From thresholds barely shaped before their doorways disappear

...into the mist of faces kissed and arms that ache because
We cannot gather back the vista of The Way/Day That Was
Where the New Year that tolled a bell dangling from midnight’s skies
 Is stilled in frameworks of farewell with now Old Year’s demise

Darling, (dear, Father Time, forgive my bold intimacy)
But you perplex the poet's rhyme without apology 
And vex brave fantasy with fact; darling, then hold me near
And I will hold your hat while you kiss away yesteryear  

© Janet Martin










Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Like Velvet Tulle

Below is a paragraph from the study page for the leaders
of last Sunday's Sunday School lesson...
sound encouragement/wisdom to live by
as we dwell on the theme of faithfulness!

'We can’t undo the past, but we can be decisively committed to the next step, 
the next moment, and the next opportunity.
What if you committed to faithfulness one day at a time?
 And what if your faithfulness marked the people around you in significant ways? 
Then I would imagine that your faithfulness 
will lead to future opportunities for greater influence.
Don’t waste today.
Be faithful to your purpose 
to live as the salt of the earth 
and the light of the world.
And God will use you today and, Lord willing, 
multiply your efforts and opportunities tomorrow.' -The Gospel Project

Since last Thursday our area is an ice-and-snow castle!!



Like velvet tulle the crepuscule of night dissolves; it falls
Like paper from a gift that lifts the darkness from earth’s halls
Like whispers of mercy and love brushing shadows awry
Like a fresh sheet beneath our feet that reaches to the sky
Like smiles across the miles that toss barges of want and need
Like little boats or music notes that bob and press and plead
Like melodies in symphonies where seasons rise and fall
Like music bars or shooting stars or like a madrigal
To fill that cast of Almost Past with what none should ignore
Today; the place where by God’s grace it spills from shore to shore
To set the stage, where age to age the fruit of choice becomes
At that last breath the life and death of very sacred sums
When, like soft tulle the crepuscule of time and grace will fade
Like mist upon the Sealed Bygone of choices we have made

© Janet Martin

Psalm 51:15-17
O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
16For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.


Thursday, December 1, 2022

Establishing Familiarity (in a world of change)



Happy, happy December!


...and below a few photos of inspiration for today's poem!

the joy of small child's curiosity...

(and his delight at his 'baby-in-basket'
just like yesterday's Baby-in-a-basket'💗💝)


Tried and true recipes and the surprise
Of trying something new and loving it...
(I wish I had the ingred. on hand for the mango salsa!
Some other time!

And when we wake, ah bliss, fresh-brewed coffee...

The Word of God, steadfast and absolute...


Things do not stay the way they used to be
Progress presses the old ways to adapt
And change; estranged familiarity
Can wake wishes for seasons, echo-wrapped

Thus, bidding us to seek with meeker awe
The things that are the way they used to be
The unthwartable ilk of nature’s law
The joy of small child’s curiosity

The thrill as winter-heavens spills white stars
The hope that every Christmas is about
The happiness of refilled canning jars
The yard where puppies romp and children shout

The farmer that still whistles as he works
The gardener as happy as can be
Where despite sweat and toil, Eden still lurks
In every petalled plume and bird and tree

The unrivaled wonder in new-born babe
The tiring, tender toll of parenthood
Fond memories that we would never trade
The unshakeable truth that God is good

Tried and true recipes and the surprise
Of trying something new and loving it
The art of learning, (even though time flies)
To slow our hurried steps and sit a bit 

The black and white beauty of snowy nights
The beckoning warm welcome of sweet home
The comfort of tea-book-slipper delights
The courage to bare hearts into a poem

The option to use ink, paper and pen
The sentimental sweetness in farewells
We know will turn into hello again
Either on earth or in yon citadels

The friendliness of flowers, every one
A perfectly profound intricacy
A well-earned rest by zest of labor won
And when we wake, ah bliss, fresh-brewed coffee

The Word of God, steadfast and absolute
Regardless of post-modern heresy
The evidence science cannot refute
I AM, who WAS, IS and ALWAYS WILL BE

Music, a foretaste of eternity
When worship’s melodies will never cease
The heavens declaring God’s majesty
In every wondrous welkin-masterpiece

The momentum of moments meting change
Where so much is not like it used to be
Lavishes us with what none can estrange
Establishing familiarity

© Janet Martin







Monday, October 3, 2022

I'm Glad That Time is Full of Days



No matter what, for better or worse,
tomorrow today will be over!
(Forever After)
Let's do all we can to make it a good one,
All for the glory of its Giver, God!



I’m glad that Time is full of days
Still waiting to unfurl
Between hurt’s hurdles and dismays
An oyster with a pearl

Between summer and winter’s snow
A world of woodland-wicks aglow
Then winnowed leaf by leaf

Between the dolor of farewell
The color of surprise
Of sun gold where blue shadows fell
O’er hello’s laughing eyes

Between trails blazed and settled dust
The bittersweet finesse
Of trials teaching us to trust
And treasure/define happiness

Between desire and despair
The opportunity
To take a leap of faith to where
Tomorrow used to be

To walk to years beyond our reach
With little girl and boy
And hold the small hands bound to teach
Old teachers about joy

I’m glad that time is full of days
Still waiting to become
New melodies of thankful praise
To He, whom days come from

I’m glad that time is full of days
With nights tucked in between
Like phantom, featherdown duvets
On Bygone’s evergreen


© Janet Martin


Col.3:17
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, 
do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
giving thanks to God the Father through him.