This Is No Paradise...

( excerpt from the book The Wind That Shakes the Barley)

This is no paradise

Where we press prayers and tears

And humble home-made heaven-bits

To time’s fretwork of years

This is no trial run

Where once-a-lifetime pours

With nothing more than mere moments

Time’s path to heaven’s doors

This is no small matter

This kiss of mist that peers

Into time’s cup, a little breath

And then it disappears

…not into stone-cold graves

Nor into nought’s abyss

But into Vast Eternity

Where only God IS

© Janet Martin