Another Porch ...A Poetry Blog

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Everywhere We look We See...October

Autumn seeps through wooded sweeps

Everywhere we look we see

Honeyed hints and russet tints

Teasing nature’s tapestry

Expectation celebrates

Though September shuts its gates

It leaves in its wake, mist-morn

Hillsides steeped with brittle corn

Orchards bent with ruddy flair

Children’s laughter on crisp air

Apple-rosy cheeks to kiss

October is Autumn’s bliss

Pour the cider, pour the tea

Everywhere we look we see

Summer-set, mulled violet

Orange and red and yellow tree

August cinders wink and glow

On a hearth of petal snow

Hearts of wonderment applaud

Glimpses of our glorious God

Lowly bush and lofty limb

Showcase art authored by Him

Raise a song of praiseful zest

October is Autumn’s Best

Look, the brook is leaf-boat shook

Summer’s sapphire sparkle sleeps

Cellars brim with harvest-hymn

Hulls and husks are holy heaps

Heart is wowed with humble joy

Earth is bowed with bloom’s ahoy

Beauty flames, fades to farewell

Wind song strums the sallow fell

Every sugar-tree a torch

Halo dims, strews pumpkin-ed porch

Blushing berm meets stalwart stride

October is Autumn’s Bride

Everywhere we look we see

Romance threading age to age

October is poetry

Pressed on page of frost-kissed sage

Skyline sketched with stark-etched tusk

Shadows stretch like cats at dusk

Butterfly and lullaby

Flit where flowered fragments lie

Rain-song, wind-song, leaf song melds

Nature grieves, no leaf withheld

Loom to ether broom, leaves coast

October is Autumn's Boast

Monday, October 2, 2017

Please Pray! Faith's Unfathomable First-resort

Please pray…often follows our heart-cries because life’s hurts are too hard to bear alone!

Sometimes we plead in confidence, our secret sorrows, sometimes it is a world-wide cry.

The latest plea comes from my poet-friend in Las Vegas .
She pleads 'please pray for my city today!'
after yesterday’s shooting.

Please pray…oh God and so we do

You know when life is cruel and hard

Thou, Only God, holy and true

Your outstretched hands are Calv’ry-scarred

Please pray, oh Lord and so we do

To He who hears each earnest plea

For no one is a stranger to

The One who died for you and me

Please pray, then we with fumbling lips

Trust thee to decipher our groan

Where prayer is like a battleship

That transports whispers to Your throne

Please pray, ah, this no last resort

Save to the one who does not know

The faithful mercy of our Lord

And daily grace whereby we go

Please pray for hearts of meek belief

Our God of love the same today

As when He, beneath thorn-pierced grief

For faith and hope opened The Way

Psalm 102

A prayer of an afflicted person who has grown weak and pours out a lament before the Lord.

¹Hear my prayer, Lord;
    let my cry for help come to you.
²Do not hide your face from me
    when I am in distress.
Turn your ear to me;
    when I call, answer me quickly.

³For my days vanish like smoke;
    my bones burn like glowing embers.
⁴My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
    I forget to eat my food.
⁵In my distress I groan aloud
    and am reduced to skin and bones.
⁶I am like a desert owl,
    like an owl among the ruins.
⁷I lie awake; I have become
    like a bird alone on a roof.
⁸All day long my enemies taunt me;
    those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
⁹For I eat ashes as my food
    and mingle my drink with tears
¹⁰because of your great wrath,
    for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
¹¹My days are like the evening shadow;
    I wither away like grass.

¹²But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever;
    your renown endures through all generations.
¹³You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
    for it is time to show favor to her;
    the appointed time has come.
¹⁴For her stones are dear to your servants;
    her very dust moves them to pity.
¹⁵The nations will fear the name of the Lord,
    all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
¹⁶For the Lord will rebuild Zion
    and appear in his glory.
¹⁷He will respond to the prayer of the destitute;
    he will not despise their plea.

¹⁸Let this be written for a future generation,
    that a people not yet created may praise the Lord:
¹⁹“The Lord looked down from his sanctuary on high,
    from heaven he viewed the earth,
²⁰to hear the groans of the prisoners
    and release those condemned to death.”
²¹So the name of the Lord will be declared in Zion
    and his praise in Jerusalem
²²when the peoples and the kingdoms
    assemble to worship the Lord.

²³In the course of my life^[b] he broke my strength;
    he cut short my days.
²⁴So I said:
“Do not take me away, my God, in the midst of my days;
    your years go on through all generations.
²⁵In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
    and the heavens are the work of your hands.
²⁶They will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like a garment.
Like clothing you will change them
    and they will be discarded.
²⁷But you remain the same,
    and your years will never end.
²⁸The children of your servants will live in your presence;
    their descendants will be established before you.”