Forthwith of Days

Dawn bares the haste of Time’s ‘forthwith of days’

…sigh-stippled landscapes with skies intersect

Want, work and wonder their portions dissect

Keening our gaze to life’s quick-stricken ways

Nuance of circumstance, yesterday’s glance

Tethers our willfulness with naught but this;

Tick-by-tock offers and dust-to-dust kiss

Mirth and melancholy’s death-deigned romance

Music and monotone, laughter and groan

Dawn bares Time’s latest affairs made of these;

Moments doffed, petered into memories

Moments soft-metered into Steppingstone

Pragmatic, ecstatic, emphatic We

Weather the ‘Whethers’ of love’s highs and lows

What waits where dawn awakes, only God knows

We nurse Man’s Curse immersed in His mercy

© Janet Martin

 Ps.12

 Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone;
    for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
² Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
    with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

³ May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
    the tongue that makes great boasts,
⁴ those who say, “With our tongue we will prevail,
    our lips are with us; who is master over us?”

⁵ “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
    I will now arise,” says the Lord;
    “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
⁶ The words of the Lord are pure words,
    like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
    purified seven times.

⁷ You, O Lord, will keep them;
    you will guard us from this generation forever.
⁸ On every side the wicked prowl,
    as vileness is exalted among the children of man.