Thanksgiving Praise Sonnet

How gracious is the Hand tinting the tress

With scarlet hues and bronze-petal array

He draws the eye to summer’s swift decay

And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness

Beneath the lowered arches of the cloud

The earth responds to Heaven’s will sublime

To everything purposed thing there is a time

Thus seasons pass through mercy’s tender shroud

And mortal marvels at His patient grace

That He should please our gaze with such delight

When oft we fret and thanklessly we pine

He lends to earth the shadow of a Place

Not made with Hands; where faith at last is sight

Our eyes traverse the barred horizon-line

We glimpse His love; astonished we descry

But earthly frames of Him as we behold

Each season-scape; the emerald turns to gold

Spring’s verdant rush is fall’s depleting sigh

The quadrille of life’s swift four-season scope

Dances across Time’s charted centuries

Thought cannot grasp unmarked eternities

And as we cling to promises of hope

Our wonderment abounds and escalates

For what is man that He remembers him?

And rescues us from utter wantonness

A mirror of His goodness He creates

As glory crowns the humble, wooded limb

And gilds the autumn strand with awesomeness

Lift up your voice; oh, God accept our praise

You do not leave us groveling in the dirt

But in life’s grievous toiling and its hurt

You stun the meek spectator with Your ways

And though we do not understand your thought

We trust; holy compassion spills its heart

And lends to humble sod Your perfect art

In manuscripts of nature we are taught

To everything on earth there is a time

From seed to bud to bloom then back to earth

This is the way of dust; His righteousness

In grand profusion, wondrous and sublime

Imbues our paltry pittance with His worth

And gilds the autumn tress with awesomeness

© Janet Martin