Lessons Learned and Re-learned

For today’s prompt, day 20, write a “what I learned” poem.

The Past no one can reach,

But oh, it reaches far

 To teach us just how long the arms

Of short-lived actions are

***

The future never looks

Like we pictured, when past

It's landscape is the shape of choices

Oft made far too fast

***

Sometimes life-circumstance

Forces fresh point of views

And though circumstance
 Seems out of our hands

Response, we always choose

***

When I think less of 'me'

And more of 'we' and 'us'

I find I have the eyes to see

Beyond my fretting fuss

***

The longer that I live

The shorter seasons seem

So I have learned to treat each day

With reverent esteem

***

The longer that I live

The less it seems I know

The less I know the more I need

God's grace, whereby I go 

***

The School-master of life is wise

And kind to we, sight-blind

If we forget much that we learn

We should keep this in mind

Though His lessons to mortal dust

May not always seem such

It is so we may learn to trust

He who loves us so much

***

To be wise in one's selfish eyes

Blinds us to evil's way

To fear God is to shun the lies

That else would lead astray 

***

Not on platforms of victory

But crawling in the dirt

Is where I learn true sympathy

For a brother's hurt

***

When crowds have fled and death lies red

Upon earth's grave-ward lea

Still there is One, when life is done

That will abide with me

***

Ah, dread would fill my head with fear

And fear would be a noose

Without God's promises, my dear

To cut this captive loose

***

How pray tell, can we find comfort

And peace on this earth, war-torn

From the Word that never alters

Since the day the world was born

***

Now a few practical discoveries

I have learned that writing poems

Does not get the laundry hung

Does not dust, sweep, scrub the kitchen

But oh, it keeps the spirit young

***

I have learned there is no fountain

Filled with youth's euphoric flit

But the potion in a poem

Is the next best thing to it 

***

He who looks with humble honor

No matter what he may see

Finds pure beauty in the common

Through the eyes of poetry

***

Not the cold gold of a dollar

Not the pomp-and-show grandstand

Success lies in every scholar

That makes love their Chief Command

Janet Martin

 above pages from book pictured below