Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Of A Mother's Heart





A mother’s heart is filled with words
That ink can never form
An ocean tossed, a cradle, soft
A pillar in love’s storm

A mother’s heart is full of art
That brush could never read
A corridor of sacred scars
Where rawest splendors bleed

A mother’s heart is squeezed and torn
Where hands can never reach
It bows low-small yet stands full-tall
Where love must learn and teach

A mother’s heart is flesh and blood
And yet a longing stair
Up to the One who hears the groan
Where love is stripped and bare

A mother’s heart is soft as silk
Yet firm, unshakeable
Methinks a mother’s heart must be
A sort of miracle

© Janet Martin

Of Life's Simple Things




 A collage of simple-thing blessings in my right-here-right-now: autumn snagged on the carpet, foot-prints in the snow, birdies at the feeder, dripping tap means running water,ice-ensconced buds,winter-laced trees,lotsa laundry means busy blessing of family...
How many ‘simple-thing-blessings’ surprise you right where you are!?


Ah, patriarch of beauty
What joy your bearing brings
You kiss dullness of duty's face
With this; life’s simple things

Oh, stranger to vain-glory
You tip the jars of grace
And trim the barren winter tree
With threads of gilded lace

The gavel of your judgement
Is never harsh or hard
You drench new dawn with light of day
And pin the dusk with stars

Your moments none can gather
Or ever quite appease
And yet they fill life’s larder, love
With tender memories

The memories we garner
Are woven with the strings
Falling from mercy’s fingertips
In gentle, simple things

…of twinkle spilled in laughter
Of crinkled, autumn tress
Of snowflake sprinkled from a sky
Foreign to ugliness

…of silver-studded sorrows
Of beggar-blooded joys
Of hope in each tomorrow, love
Where God His will employs

Oh, patriarch of beauty
On time’s four-season wings
You cheer our humble here-and-now
With this; life’s simple things

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Beneath God, Oh the Wonder of it All...



As our minds turn Christmas-ward we are recalling the ice-storm of the week-end before Christmas last year! Though it made for some stunning nature-shots, we are hoping for a less slippery season this year;)

Beneath God, oh the Wonder of it all
See how the surf of seasons rises, falls
One to the next is sutured, seamless sweep
Where future, present, past flows deep to deep
Yet never wavers from our Father’s keep

Creation, cradled in the hands of love
Where moment-meted ages push and shove
Yet, cannot out-maneuver hope and grace
See how the morning spills from mercy’s face
To frame the work Love’s passion holds in space

Beneath God; holy wonder penetrates
These walls of flesh and blood; it saturates
Our lowly understanding where the air
Is vexed with thought’s excuses shaped in prayer
Yet not disdained by I AM’s tender care

Oh, who can God's full sum of wonder spell?
Or ever find an equal parallel?
The God of old is still our God; Amen
The Jesus that was born in Bethlehem
Is He who promised He will come again

Beneath God; yet cradled close to His breast
Ah, in this wonder our fears may rest
While surf of seasons, as they beck and call
Perplexes reason, on our knees we fall  
As we but glimpse the wonder of it all

© Janet Martin

This past Sunday was the last Sunday of my Sunday School teaching term. (Gr. 4&5) We learned about Genesis, The Fall, The Flood, the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. As we concluded the lesson we discussed how each story is not some abstract happening  for our entertainment  but one generation linked to the next, right up to Jesus being born in Bethlehem and right up to now that story is still being written!

 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, Gen.2:4



Monday, December 1, 2014

Counting Lessons




 For the past month or so this 'fellow' has come to say hello every morning!


You can count on dreams
To break
You can count on years
To fly
You can count on your breath being stolen
With nothing
But the blue of time’s eye
You can count on plans
To fail
You can count on hearts
To bleed
Where love is a double-edged,
Hunger-flushed grail
Spilling fulfillment
And need

You can count on hope
To hurt
You can count on faith
To win
You can count on flower-tears
Fading to dirt
Where death and life begin
You can count on prayers answered
'no'
You can count on fears answered
'yes'
And in life’s good-bye you can count
On hello
To stun us with happiness

© Janet Martin

Sonnet of Late Autumn's Late Day





How blue twilight falls to the halls of late day
How cold on the fallow its sallow kiss lies
Its stark invitation to put toil away
Calling where autumn is closing its eyes
Gentle, the mantle of scarlet and gold
Drifts from our visage to cradles of dirt
Muted mosaic enfolded and rolled
Into Time’s nevermore where echoes flirt
With love’s appointments and whispers of loss
Juxtaposed here in autumn’s albatross


Those places we see where nobody sees
Beckon when dusk dangles dark overhead
The weight of Want strangles laughter with ease
Yet without Want we are already dead
The fall of fall fills landscapes fully bare
Stripping the tresses of girlish appeal
Save for the scrap of a leaf hanging where
Once upon May and June its high noon reeled
With newness of bloom and blueness of sky
Before Time’s hours tore holes in its sigh

Hollows are laden with autumn’s last rose
Nature relinquishes its neon tears
Brittle, they scuttle in huddled repose;
Death is a sleep without hours or years
Life is a ladle from whence seasons drip
Dusk is a pool at the end of a day
Here in late autumn how swift skylines tip
Tucking to darkness earth’s stripped overlay
Here in late autumn its late day is bent
Heavy; a levy of Past’s firmament

© Janet Martin