Thursday, March 11, 2021

Happiness, Heaven-on-earth and Love


This poem was written with young parents in mind but
has something in it for us oldies too😉😄
(yes, it's muddy boots and wet-everything season!)
(because I do childcare some 'memories' stay quite fresh😅)


"Me? Trouble?!! 
How can you even think it?!"


It doesn’t always look like much; the noisy thick of it
Can spill and spread in such a way to make you ‘sick’ of it
Yes, you confess the mess is often quite more-than-enough
It doesn’t look like happiness, heaven-on-earth or love

You slip on the spaghetti that your darling toddler flung
Next week you’ll find one dried to the ceiling or a chair wrung
The toy-box you replenished at Christmas with eager joy
Is like a decoration ignored by dear girl and boy

Between lost socks-boots-mittens, you find scribbles on the wall
Where budding artists practiced while you answered a phone call
First signs of spring are tracked across the fresh-mopped kitchen floor
‘Enjoy these Best of Days’ says ‘Mrs. Old’ who lives next door

The sink is full of dishes while fridge and cupboard run bare
Baby is teething so you do not have patience a hand to spare
You sure could use the nap your youngster refuses to take
It would work such sweet wonders for your arms, back and headache

The bills are due, there are a few you had not counted on
Thank God for work and by His grace you’ll keep chugging along
…where Something steals your breath as only Little Tot can do
And you forget all but the precious face looking at you

Yes, it can feel like quite a fight, the messy ‘stick’ of it
Keeps you from understanding quite, the tender quick of it
But some day you’ll look back and see (like we did) sure enough
That this really is/was happiness, heaven-on-earth and love

(Optional ending)

(…the point to this ditty I guess is, whether young or old
In the middle of muddle-cuddle-mess-blessed hug-and-hold
Or past the place of youth and grace as we embrace ‘what’s next’
And wonder at the mirror-face, half-laughing and half-vexed

…we ought to try to take and make the best of where we are
Nobody needs to be perfecto or a super-star
But learn to count the beauties and the blessings one by one
Because no matter where we are, where we are is soon gone!)

© Janet Martin



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