Making the Most (from mistakes)

 Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Brewer @Writer's Digest

"For today's prompt, write a mistake poem.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Yes, even that person standing in the corner

shaking their head to the contrary.

And even those people who don't admit to making mistakes

have seen others make them.

So whether it's the mistakes you've made,

witnessed in others, etc., write a poem about it today."

A few wisdom-gems from Prov. 28...

Many are the mistakes authored by impatience. 

But many mistakes are also simply part

of the human experience of learning;

An education in kindness and humility!

***

Mistakes are indeed terrible if we refuse to learn from them.

***

Yesterday I made the mistake of thinking I could dash from the paint pail to the 

door I was painting without dripping on the uncovered part of the carpet.

I was wrong! thankfully I noticed the drip before it was totally dried

and much scrubbing later it was resolved!

Not all mistakes are quite that easily rectified, are they?!

Sometimes we mistake the mistakes we make as stumbling blocks

And dread the education learned in the school of hard knocks

But fumbles, stumbles and such can be blessings in disguise

Teaching us kinder sympathy and making us more wise

As, looking back we realize the stumbling blocks we rued

Were, in fact stepping stones toward a greater gratitude

Life’s ladders to success are riddled and scarred with mistakes

But they are not for naught if we have the courage it takes

To look them in the eye, admit the fault of it and then

Pick up where we left off, humble enough to try again

Becoming, through the blunder a more patient fellow friend

Because of the mistake that made us wiser in the end

Sometimes it isn’t easy to let mistakes have their say

Human nature wishes there would be an easier way

But, be that as it may, we can learn much from our mistakes

To sweeten the success that follows in its weathered wakes

(But, one kind word of caution as we enter Today’s School

The same mistake repeated often, may expose the fool)

Better to try and make mistakes than be fear’s captive, chained

Better a venture failed than nothing ventured nothing gained

Better to be a student of bungles than stand aloof

Because we are not brave enough to acknowledge reproof

Better to find, along the way, through detours Learning takes

Beauty, discovered in the silver lining of mistakes

© Janet Martin

Oh, bitter regret of The Mistake

But oh, the wisdom in its wake

And oh, the gentler spirit won
From what I wish I had not done