Monday, November 20, 2017

Lessons Learned and Re-learned

For today’s prompt, day 20, write a “what I learned” poem.

The Past no one can reach,
But oh, it reaches far
 To teach us just how long the arms
Of short-lived actions are

***

The future never looks
Like we pictured, when past
It's landscape is the shape of choices
Oft made far too fast

***

Sometimes life-circumstance
Forces fresh point of views
And though circumstance
 Seems out of our hands
Response, we always choose

***

When I think less of 'me'
And more of 'we' and 'us'
I find I have the eyes to see
Beyond my fretting fuss

***

The longer that I live
The shorter seasons seem
So I have learned to treat each day
With reverent esteem

***

The longer that I live
The less it seems I know
The less I know the more I need
God's grace, whereby I go 

***

The School-master of life is wise
And kind to we, sight-blind
If we forget much that we learn
We should keep this in mind
Though His lessons to mortal dust
May not always seem such
It is so we may learn to trust
He who loves us so much

***

To be wise in one's selfish eyes
Blinds us to evil's way
To fear God is to shun the lies
That else would lead astray 

***

Not on platforms of victory
But crawling in the dirt
Is where I learn true sympathy
For a brother's hurt

***

When crowds have fled and death lies red
Upon earth's grave-ward lea
Still there is One, when life is done
That will abide with me

***

Ah, dread would fill my head with fear
And fear would be a noose
Without God's promises, my dear
To cut this captive loose

***

How pray tell, can we find comfort
And peace on this earth, war-torn
From the Word that never alters

***

Now a few practical discoveries

I have learned that writing poems
Does not get the laundry hung
Does not dust, sweep, scrub the kitchen
But oh, it keeps the spirit young

***

I have learned there is no fountain
Filled with youth's euphoric flit
But the potion in a poem
Is the next best thing to it 

***

He who looks with humble honor
No matter what he may see
Finds pure beauty in the common
Through the eyes of poetry

***

Not the cold gold of a dollar
Not the pomp-and-show grandstand
Success lies in every scholar

Janet Martin

 above pages from book pictured below












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