Of Christmas, Rest and Wintertime (or, with Half-welcome Wonderment)

 Happy Winter Solstice!

...each window framing Christmas cards...

Across the land where summer set grandstands of leafy silhouette

And spread its table with the grace of chamomile and Queen Ann’s lace

Now, with half-welcome wonderment we wake to unflawed filament

Of dazzling stars and diamond shards; each window framing Christmas cards

Wakening hearts to joys forgot while days were dusty, long and hot

And tuning happiness with ways not lost to Bygone’s ‘good, old days’

The bluejay, still sassy and bold, home, still a haven from the cold

The kitchen, still like a warm hug where we fill dinner plate and mug

And remember fond days gone by that bring a teardrop to the eye

Where here and there an empty chair draws tender pictures on the air

Of those we miss with aching heart and then we kiss love’s works of art

And thank the Lord that He saw fit to bless us with love’s precious bit

Ere holding turned to letting go; and now we treasure each ‘hello’

With pleasure, not perceived before we grieved a Farewell-fettered door

And now we take a closer look at pictures in a phantom book

Capturing the tittle and jot that lays another year to naught

Shaping perspective with the ink of berry-blue and blossom-pink

Of dream-hued greens, of golds and reds, of fields tucked in like featherbeds

While learning how to marvel more as season’s skim time’s ballroom floor

Composing ballads, brushed with sage/age, that never bare lyric to page

But make us sweetly, humbly glad for each arpeggio/upsy-daisy we had

Where joy is purer in the wake of holy valleys of heartache

And winter with its surly bite unfurls its showcase of delight

As, with half-welcome wonderment, we smile though we are weather-bent

Embracing life’s unflinching law that unleashes a storm of awe

Soft-wafting flakes and stinging gales, feet blazing knee-deep frigid trails

To gain a pristine point of view where morning fills the old with new

And with half-welcome wonderment find we are growing snow-content

Contented not to understand the whys of winter’s wonderland

The ‘hows’ that howl and hurl the Must of life like swirls of snow and dust

Where love is always unprepared when it comes to sorrow’s soul bared

But faith and hope will always bare/bear the beauty of God’s faithful care

And as the inner child beholds the way that winter white enfolds

The earth beneath a wreath of rest, Longing laughs, feeling like a guest

In a world, though broken and scarred, touching a free-for-all Postcard

As half-welcome wonderment brims, dissolving in no-holds-barred hymns

All hail the pow’r of He who grants each season-gifted song and dance

Praise God for love’s blessings to cheer each up and down throughout year

Exalt the Name that saves us from the dread of cold, dark heathendom

Let winter glisten like a gem in earth’s/faith’s four-season diadem

The fire crackles in the hearth, the chicken cackles with egg-mirth

The oven hosts aromas wild with scents that wake our inner-child

To happiness we oft forget in summer’s leafy silhouette

Of slower pace/grace of frosty clime, of Christmas, rest and wintertime

Janet Martin