Thursday, January 12, 2023

We Will Go Forth (and a few more Thursday Thoughts)


We cannot outlive the Unknown
or challenges we face 
But look, each moment's steppingstone
is anchored in God's grace

Faith's substance of things we hope for
will someday rend the veil
Revealing the complete splendor
Of love that did not fail

***
The sunless stretch continues...
not sure what happened to last week's forecast for this week's yellow...


It could certainly have the potential to dampen our spirits if we let it!
But...

If we would fixate on the weather we might be quite glum
It's been a dose of dreary, drippy, damp, sunless ho-hum
But love and life are so much more than covers of a book
So much of what is written is hidden until we look!
Then as we turn the pages where God's goodness overflows
We find ourselves quite speechless, awed by blessings He bestows 

***


Seeds are so very, very small
Sometimes we doubt their clout
And dare to wonder where they fall
...until they start to sprout 

Seeds look like nothing much at first
Mere crumbs, mundane and mute
But from the crumb, when it has burst
Comes all manner of fruit 

Seeds seem to be too slight and slow    
To hold much harm or good
But as the sprout begins to grow
Seed's clout is understood 


***

Our worlds are often mirrored in the shimmer of a tear
Or lightened by the laughter of someone we love so dear
Or sweetened by the banter of a breeze, a child, a bird
Or brightened by the candle of a kind and gentle word
Hard knocks are often softened by a handshake and a smile
Making the world that shimmers in a tear, so worth its isle/while

***

Tick-tock tempo laps the shoreline of  a winter afternoon 
Like the summer-blue momentum of lake-lyrics lazy tune 
Like a breeze undresses tresses of its leaf-shaped souvenirs 
Tick-tock tempo falls and rises until winter disappears

***  
This morning's foggy shroud inspired the beginning of this poem...


We will go forth then, you and I
The view of what yet waits withheld
Like a masterpiece made of sky
Vaulted above the mist-veiled veldt
While the clocks unrelenting toll
Unfurls and collects, synchronized
In breath-sized billows as they roll
Through hopes salvaged from dreams capsized
Undoing what we thought we knew
With sudden, foreign points of view

We will go forth because, my dear
No choice awaits but to proceed
Faith spurs us on and spars with fear
As scars forge wisdom’s crown and creed
Where delight, like a diamond stud
Dazzles dark backdrops of dismay
Where hope, like an unbroken bud
Reminds us of blooms held at bay
Cheering us on as vast unknowns
Unfold flowers and steppingstones

We will go forth but not alone
Goodness and mercy follow still
Where thoroughfares of grin-and-groan
Are never all down or uphill
The valley where shadows are cast
Like creases in a color-world
While the Master pieces the Past
With present grace on grace unfurled
His able Hands cradle the sky
We will go forth thence, you and I

© Janet Martin

(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
2 Cor.5:7

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