Friday, December 30, 2016

A Lot To Learn

It's a snowy-blowy morn...
Since no one has invented an apparatus that stays on top of soft-flake-fluffy, one must wade through thigh-deep white to feel the full wonder of perfection's plunder...
This poem can be read a stanza or two at a time rather than the whole thing if one so prefers;)


Like snow that melts upon the tongue, Time falls then disappears
It gathers as it pours; a hand that plants and harvests years
How much of it we touch and kiss, yet miss; its no return
Reiterates with what yet is, how much remains to learn

The best we have to offer often is not quite enough
To satisfy the howling hunger in each one of us
Time’s roaring tide of Moment courses from yon fount of blue
And forces us to reconsider what we thought we knew

This four-season arrangement floors us with its subtle sighs
Where we are often caught off-guard by hellos and good-byes
And it seems we never outgrow the humble need to learn
To trust the hand that refills as its drains time’s no-return

I’m glad that grace is unlike Time; steadfast and changeless stay
It forgives without keeping count and helps us face each day
It is the Hope in us that fans the flame of faith so we
With what we learn can pass on what we know yet cannot see

Like awe-struck sunset-gazers we watch midnight’s gong beget
Another year that disappears like day when sun is set
As all we strove and loved and hoped slips to a phantom urn
That cups, like ashes of a loved one, Bygone’s no-return

We have a lot to learn about what we thought we learned, oh,
And what we thought we knew turns into what we learn to know
We recall what our parents said and how we shook our heads
And now, as Time goes by we learn the truth in what they said

Time changes things but some things never change; our need for love 
Hatred and greed’s guttural goals never offer enough   
...and seamlessness of tick and tock that runs us through and through
Can lull us into thinking we have more Time than we do

Do not despair; see how the air is filled with Time unmarred
God grants another chance to try; though some of love is hard
He does not turn a shoulder, cold, to young or old, ah, we
Are the sole reason that new day extends Time’s yet-to-be

We tend to reach toward the skies where sighs and summer's meld
Where flower-lands cannot withstand winter, never withheld 
And winter never can deter with bluff and blustering
The return of the robin and the green-verve tides of spring

The old year fades; the Rubicon of centuries is hinged
Not to the gong of clocks or dawn, ruby and amber-tinged
But to the kind mercy of He who since Time first began
Will quench the thirst that we are cursed with since the fall of man

Like snow that melts upon the tongue this old year slips from sight
Newness is like a winter’s morning-countryside, pure white
Where soon footprints will mar the genesis before Amen
And perfection will wear the scars of learning’s Try Again

Was ever yet a moment more precious than Here and Now?
Worthless to wallow where regret would chain us to dread’s prow
But look; Hope is reborn with each new morn; God lights the lea
With love; It will not fail in its regale to you and me

The best that we can hope for is a half-breath prayer away
If we believe He will bestow what we need for Today
The hardness of our hearts and disbelief can build a wall
Twixt we and He who always, always loves us best of all

We cannot know what this day will unfold, much less a year
Futile to face its mystery and what-will-be with fear
But lean on He who Was-Is-Will BE faithful without doubt
Then He will help us learn what love and life is all about

What love and life is all about is not without command
Only a fool would disregard the Lord's righteous right Hand
He cups the rubric we call Time; but only for a bit
As we draw ever nearer to the severance of it

© Janet Martin

Happy second-last day of 2016!

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