By Tender Means of Poetry (or, To My Gentle Reader)

So sorry, sweet little birdies, but filling the feeders needs to wait!

A sudden day off due to wild weather has opened the rather rare (ice-embossed)

window of opportunity to 'wax poetic' 😅💓

This book, rescued from the garbage bin by a truly caring friend

 who dropped it off at my door last week, 

Stole my heart with the first page!...

and inspired today's poem 'to my gentle reader'...

Of that which kindly comes to be

By tender means of poetry

To cheer us gently on, dear friend

Upon life’s careworn twist and bend

Where face to face we may not meet

To trace the bond of friendships sweet

I thank God for love’s ink-wrought font

To gently bind the wounds of want

And keep each other company

By tender means of poetry

To know, though we are far apart

The timeless tug of heart to heart

To share the very sacred touch

Of tears and smiles and prayers and such

And help us realize anew

The preciousness of me-and-you

And to gladden regions of thought

With refreshed awareness of God

To make us feel like family

By tender means of poetry

To tune us to the creature cry

Of hope; to hold love’s candle high

Where often dreams do not come true

And carefully laid plans fall through

To teach us to not cling too fast

-ly to what soon augments the past

To remind us, through lilt of rhyme

What does not change, in spite of time

And taste life’s sweet comradery

By tender means of poetry

To catch midst winter’s frigid fling

A sense of everlasting spring

To find a plot where tulips grow

To brighten thought while wild winds blow

To rouse an unexpected thrill

Where pages birth a bloom-tossed hill

And suddenly we bow the head

And thank God for the bit o' bread

Through that which kindly comes to be

By tender means of poetry

© Janet Martin