Perfect Order

The vibrant bloom is drooping

And my pulse is charged with grief

As I see the quiet workings

Of a stealthy, subtle thief

As sure as spring turns into summer

And the summer turns to fall

Is the fair and fleeting favor

Of life’s youthful madrigal

Soon its eager glow is ravaged

By the pilferage of time

Soon the bud of blossomed beauty

Succumbs to the season’s rhyme

And the flower weeps its petals

Back to earth from whence it came

Leaving nothing but its memory

And the whisper of its name

Yes, the vibrant bloom is drooping

Man cannot dissuade the course

Or design of nature’s order

Nor the Hand beneath its force

To everything there is a season

And a time for every plan

We cannot thwart God’s perfect reason

For we are simply…man

© Janet Martin

I noticed that the peonies are beginning to die and something akin to grief stirred in me to realize another year of peonies is quickly passing...

Eccles. 3:1-8

Isa.55:8-13 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
    come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
    without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
    so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire

  and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
¹² You will go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
    will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
    will clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
    and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
    for an everlasting sign,
    that will endure forever.”