December's Fleeting Greeting

The final month that makes a year greets us as we awake 

Where tides of tick-tock disappear like ripples on a lake 

And makes us take a longer look where leaf-song bursts and fades 

And sweeps up youngsters in a book of childhood’s yesterdays 

The door that gapes beneath the tolling of a shapeless bell 

Invites us through; hearty handshakes always precede farewell 

Where ‘hello dear December’ like a twinkle in time’s eye 

Is soon snuffed like an ember on a hearth of years gone by 

We all start off so small in the Wherewithal of Today 

The Hand of time soon draws us all from carefree hours at play 

As January soon gives way to June and June to fall 

Until we too are stooped and gray that started off so small 

Hope lights the candlestick that sits in windows of the soul 

Without it we are all quick to lose sight of Goodnight’s Goal 

December carves through ages, turns back pages of thin air 

Until we find the manger and the Christ-child lying there 

© Janet Martin

Found an oldie wee Sing Christmas cassette when I was fall cleaning the other week

Love this song! 

Wind Through The Olive Trees

And one more brand new song for your listening/worshipping wonder/pleasure

How Low Was Our Redeemer Brought

December's Destiny or More Than Fa-la-la

 Hope; not like the morning's gold...

 -to-red horizon flare...

 ...before it is tucked in a gray envelope of air

Snow-dusted, star-frosted; nature entrances

Hope is replenished in spite of its ways

Darling, a montage of footfalls and dances

Bears us from ballrooms of lost yesterdays

December dazzles the dark with 'skewed spangles

December tugs at our hearts with time’s toll

December hugs us then twirls us, then dangles

Echoes and dreams in an epic drum-roll

Darling, the days of a year near completion

Emptiness vies with fulfillment in it

Leaving us clinging to lifeline’s from Heaven

Hope without God is a bottomless pit

December is like a Door to Hereafter

Like embers dying on hearths of cold earth

Darling, December is longing and laughter

Groping the walls leading to Hope’s re-birth

Ethereal exodus from Despair's danger

Hearts flock to Bethlehem there to behold

In humble worship, the Babe in the manger 

Where hope's glad tidings will never grow old

 

Holy, the heart’s hallelujah soft-trembles

Mercy excites man’s half-sights with God’s love

Fixing Faith’s Substance sustaining Hope’s candle

On Divine Evidence no one can prove

© Janet Martin

When we linger in each line of this Story(put ourselves right there)

We too can feel a rush of Hope's 'Glory to God in the highest',

 just like the shepherds in days of old, because let's face it

...we all want a little more than fa-la-la-la-la fading into thin air!

 Luke 2:1-20

 And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. ³ So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.

⁴ Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, ⁵ to be registered with Mary, his betrothed ^[a]wife, who was with child. ⁶ So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. ⁷ And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a ^[b]manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Glory in the Highest

 ⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And ^[c]behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a ^[d]manger.”

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill^[e] toward men!”

¹⁵ So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. ¹⁷ Now when they had seen Him, they made ^[f]widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. ¹⁸ And all those who heard it marveled at those things which were told them by the shepherds. ¹⁹ But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.

Of Almost-Snow

An air of expectancy groans through nature's bare bones today...

 ...as if one can almost hear Old Man Winter's approach!

Lovers of  'brooding landscapes' better take a long, last look according to the weather-forecast

The air is poked with bare oak branch

And stoked with ‘almost snow’

Across the yard brittle leaves dance

In footloose tic-tac-toe

The land is primed for white that spills

To deck the halls brown-gray

Glad to be clad in sledding-hills

And snow angels at play

The far-off ridge broods blue and bare

It lures the poet’s gaze

To touch the tremble in its stare

And clutch time’s ebbing ways

The earth is like a tambourine

Where tuneless jingles shake

The wind, a minstrel, wild and green

Rattles the balsam brake

…and from each window eager-eyed

A world of children wait

To greet the whirling, twirling tide

As winter opes its gate

© Janet Martin

To Time's Touch

In August you lie on my skin, sun-warm and flower-kind

In December you vex my grin with summers left behind

Still, ice-kisses pressed on my cheek remind me not to weep

But fumble with what dusk dismisses to past’s darksome deep

...because what was cannot return; and what waits, who can say?

Futile to ransack today's urn in search of yesterday

Thus, though we pine for zephyrs strumming vine laden with leaf

We drink the pink of snow-sunrises veiling slumb’ring sheaf

The hour, like a flower, unfolds, blooms, its shadow dims

And fades to nothing but the tune in bygone's hallowed hymns

Time's moment-gold we hold soon drifts in ashes cold and gray

December's embers snuffed like stars at dawn or summer's day

© Janet Martin

December's Day

Hard, hard, beneath our feet silk-soft the lofty season slips

It strips the lushness from the land like laughter from its lips

The swelling harvest disappears; December’s day is stark

Where echoes waft like silver snowflakes strumming early dark

The boulevard is brushed with brittle scuttle-song of leaf

The pasture-land is hushed; its little bloom in gathered sheaf

And thought is like a room that tries to hold what it cannot

December’s day the skin and bone of time’s tittle and jot

How hardly we have held the Thing that melts within our clutch

How deftly day and night can wean beneath our very touch

A lifetime; always giving us what we can never keep

December’s day like a mother singing her child to sleep

Still, still the skylines blush, the rush of tick and tock deploys

Another round of push and pull to vex life’s grievous joys

Where holding on is always the prelude to letting go

Each climax fades; December’s day a passive afterglow

© Janet Martin