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Monday, October 21, 2019

Like Whispers or Hope's Great Passageway...


 Yesterday, (Sunday morning) while together,
 our church-family received the sorrowful news of the sudden passing of another of our members, 
A beloved husband, dad and grandpa!
We will miss you Clayton, but are comforted to know your cares are past!



The song that long spilled from leaf-flowers fair
Is growing softer in its changing keys
As orchestral estrangements ride the breeze
That gallops through the trees like steads of air
To scatter in its wake a lake of leaves
There is a time to plant and to uproot’
The husk of dawn to dusk shucked underfoot
Like whispers that love celebrates and grieves
And none retrieves, but like a surging sea
That rolls toward the shore; Time takes its toll
While flust'ring our clear path to the goal
As we are propelled toward what will be
On a forceful, unpredictable tide
Oh, God our help in ages past, abide

The canopy of variegated green
That lured us from heat-rippled field and street
And drew us to its cooler, grassy seat
Is red and gold with blue holes worn between
…and we are at a loss for words it seems
To perfectly and properly express
This tug-of-heart that vexes happiness
And like the frost-kissed tree, undresses dreams
Insisting that we take a closer look
At often quick and easy reasoning
As tick and tock applies its seasoning
Of fallen leaves, like whispers in a book
Where Aftermath and Imminence collide
Oh God, our help in present-tense, abide

The future is a far and foreign world
The past, places and faces we recall
...as tender tears in soft surrender fall
Like whispers into gentler thoughts unfurled
Because as seasons pass we start to see
The subtlety with which a life is spent
Where everything we have is simply lent
And all relinquished in eternity
Breath seized by death; veil lifts at curtain-close
Sod, sea and sky dissolve into a mist
And all that was before does not exist
As we behold the Destiny we chose
Oh God, o’er Hope’s Great Passageway preside
Oh God, our help in days to come, abide

© Janet Martin

 There is a time to weep...

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.


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I hope you enjoyed your pause on this porch and thank-you for your visit!