We Walk, Crawl, Leap, Fall, Die...

Sometimes when reading 'the greats ' of poetry

a voice mocks me with 'why do you even try?!!'

For the same reason 

they did, I am sure

...for only a poet knows the 'word-lust and lure' 

that it seems, the poet must
for better or worse,
endure 

This excerpt from De Profundis by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

and a trek on skis through fences and trees

stirred today's poem...
This poem is from a gem of a book published in 1885.
 I found it a few years ago in a thrift store!

 (for easier reading click on image)

We walk on ages of leaf-lavished plunder

Hobos of hunger, we ravage its clime

Derelict darlings of God-authored wonder

Flickers of fancy on fields old as time

Sometimes we crawl beneath fir-boughs and fences

Hunting for something that just isn’t there

We, creatures cursed with a thirst for formed answers

Fumble for more than faith’s life-blood of prayer

We leap on landscapes once loved by forefathers

Tended and tilled by their blood, sweat and tears

Why in the scheme of progress and its authors

Should we think we are owed more than our peers

We fall, the Giver of grace bends to help us

He is hope’s kind ‘upsy-daisy, my sweet’

He never turns a blind eye nor forgets us

He is the Planter of blooms at our feet

We die the death of each breath-gifted being

This is the flip-side of all life bestowed

Then, when this body yields taste-touch-hear-seeing

We meet the One to whom our life is owed

We walk, crawl, leap and fall, all of us learning

Time is a tight-rope twixt cradle and grave

We, like acrobats balance awe and yearning

Inching toward The Fulfillment we crave

© Janet Martin

 

Philippians 3:14 

I press toward the mark 

for the prize 

of the high calling of God 

in Christ Jesus.