Today-sums

After an incredibly productive, bittersweet, hectic week 

I am forcing myself to slow down a bit this morning,

something sometimes hard to do when so much to do seems always in the way!! 

So sometimes I need to consciously carve out little corners of refreshment 

lest Dear Duty blinds me to the Sheer Beauty of Today!

already Today has wowed!

this, the view through the window beside my writing desk.

Thank-you God!

(A view that faithful visitors are quite familiar with

because I love to share the delight of

 this view as it is transformed, morning to morning, season to season)

***

Last Saturday our son moved out for the foreseeable forever future!

As happy as I am for him, I am weathering the inevitable

mother-grief that comes with season-ends.

He has had brief stints of independence before,

but when I saw his books, basketball, fishing rod etc. 

on the heap of stuff piled at the door

I realized this move has a much more permanent flavor!

'Today' often dances across time's threshold so fleet-footedly

 we sometimes forget the cast Today-sums are creating!

So, lets fold hopes and hurts into prayer,

and place them in the hands of Today's Giver!

He is able!

This is what the Lord says—
    your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
    who teaches you what is best for you,
    who directs you in the way you should go.

Isa.48:14

The past is filled with all the things we always did ‘Today’

A cast instilled with echoes that sometimes come out to play

The loveliness of laughter in an afternoon beneath

The blue and balmy rafter that sweet summer days bequeath

Before the door we dashed through lowered a dusk-laden bar

On paint-trays that we splashed through on the way To Where We Are

The past, a vast collection of Love’s Once Upon a Time

Replays a frayed reflection of a muffled season-chime

Where once notes fell, keen and precise, in oft overlooked grace

Before the knell of Bygone’s bell enhanced the commonplace

As we are softly smitten by the sheerness of the flit

That scratches like a kitten with the sacredness of it

Look! Here a moment glimmers, ah, already it is spent

Past’s book of ages shimmers with pages once Present-bent/lent

How very velvet is the brush dipped into Time’s veiled tray

As its permanent ink arranges Tableaus of Today

And suddenly, how very rare Right Where We Are becomes

Aware of how a life is a Tally of Today-sums

The past is always hungry for the treasure in our hand

We cannot keep its measure from Yesterday’s shadowland

So, lest we are caught gazing at tincture on Bygone’s tray

Let’s keep a kind eye on the picture falling from Today

Because Love’s Once Upon a Time is always in full swing

A very virile season-chime of Today’s offering

…where God’s grace grants each new Today’s fresh opportunity

(Does it not bid us kneel and pray before we scale its lea?)

Lest boldly we set foot upon its very holy stage

Heedless of Who begets the dawn of Time’s unblemished page

And forget, what is spilled runs rife long after its foray

Because the past is always filled with life we lived Today

© Janet Martin

So, wherever in the world you are

Happy, holy Today!

Moments are a momentous gift!

'Today' sums up a life in no time flat!

Let's treasure the mementos moments make!