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!