Unequivocal Eclipse

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

For today's prompt, write a major event poem.

A spectacular start to Eclipse Day...

Today bears an air of excited anticipation/expectation

for what has been dubbed a once in a lifetime celestial event!

A total solar eclipse!

Many have made much ado about this rare event!

Imagine if with similar excitement,  we anticipated and prepared for

Another Once in a 'lifetime' Celestial Event!

Rev.1:7

Behold, He is coming with the clouds, 

and every eye will see Him—

even those who pierced Him. 

And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. 

So shall it be! 

Amen.

(Today's poem can be read as one

or as five poem-lets)

To open my eyes to a front row seat

To goodness and mercy is no small fete

To want nothing dearer that God's Hand stayed

And to rejoice in this day He has made

To live in the moment before it is spent

Makes every Today a major event

***

To feast on the favors/flavors of hope and cheer

And savor the sparkle of Now and Here 

Before Today's Slice within reach becomes

A gaping impression of scattered crumbs

Ah, nothing and no one can capture time spent

Thus, every day is a major event 

***

The would-have and should have of yesterday lie

Like strewn husks beneath Today's beaming sky

Tomorrow's illusions may never unfold

Today's vault gleams with priceless moment-gold

Let's make the most of its measure soon spent

And treasure Today; a major event 

***

How lovely the laughter that dries the tear

How brief each leaf in the sheaf of a year

How hardly it seems daybreak spills hope's hues

Before darkly muffled by dusk's adieus  

How dearly then, before Today is spent

We should be tuned to its Major Event 

***

Each day is like a stepping stone; someday

God will reach down and brush them all away

Someday, each knee will bow, each tongue proclaim

That He is God; holy, holy, His Name 

Someday Unequivocal Evidence

Will eclipse all previous major events

Janet Martin

There's an old quote something like this;

For the believer, this world is as bad as it will get.

For the unbeliever, this world is as good as it will get!

What a (Glorious) Day That Will Be (for the Believer)

How hardly it seems daybreak spills hope's hues

Before darkly muffled by dusk's adieus  

No Minimalist (when it comes to poetry)

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

For today's prompt, write a minimum poem. 

“Enough is as good as a feast.”

— Thomas Malory

Black coffee, wake-up call's delight

Feet touch down; glorious

So many mercies to ignite

Poetic impetus

From winter's drab, depleted vaults

To buds bursting with pink 

From zephyrs turning somersaults

Ten thousand ballads wink 

Heaven and earth's fullness implores

Poetic ecstasy

Each breath drawn from a sea that roars

With unpenned poetry 

Human nature, predictable

Would drive us dearly mad

Without Poetic Canticle

To keep us kindly glad  

Creation pulses, poem-kissed,

Thus, I can never be

An organized minimalist

Regarding poetry

As soon as I awake, it seems

To be my lovely lot

To troll a tugging tide, that teems

With poems yet to jot

A crimson rose, a freckled nose

The tireless march of time

Dusk's diamond-studded curtain-close

Beckon for lilt and rhyme 

A hand to hold while growing old

A lake, mantled in mist

A pansy, purple, white and gold

Poem cannot resist

'Enough is as good as a feast' 

Is good enough for me

Unless this includes an increased

Poem-frugality 

Janet Martin

My poetry book collection used to be contained in one cupboard,

but no longer...because a good poem book I simply cannot resist😅😏

No Minimalist (When It Comes to Love)

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

For today's prompt, write a minimum poem. 

I cringed to write today's poem, drawing from

'Love's Room For Improvement'

Help me Lord, to be more than

a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal!!

1 Cor.13:1-8

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love,

 I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have a faith that can move mountains,

 but do not have love, I am nothing. 

3 If I give all I possess to the poor 

and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,

[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, 

love is kind. 

It does not envy, 

it does not boast, 

it is not proud. 

5 It does not dishonor others, 

it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. 

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

7 It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

Imagine if God gave only the minimum

of goodness and mercy?!

Instead He left Heaven to the sinner's debt

And break the curse of death and hell...

By speaking uplifting words??

No, by dying a brutal death on a cross!

Love held nothing back but gave His all!

Jesus Paid It All

To give the minimum will always be the giver's loss

A deed performed for duty's sake, a thankless albatross

The key to happiness is not a complicated plan

But is, and has always been love; God first, then fellow man

Love is no thankless joy; the more we give the more we gain

Though its reward is not like the treasure misers maintain

Love startles us with happiness that leaves hearts humbly awed

And filled with incomparable, fathomless peace of God

It is more blessed to give than to receive; can it be

This world groans because of Love's lacking generosity?

Have we become erring experts, defending greed's excuse

Twisting love's tender ties that bind mankind, into a noose?

To give love's minimum will always be the giver's rue

To love only those who love us, even the pagans do

Oh, God, make our happiness and heart's desire burn

With love's invested maximum of Eternal Return

Janet Martin

May the song below  be our life-prayer🙏💕

More Love To Thee

How Deep The Father's Love For Us...

Tell It Like It Is

Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer for poem-a-day challenge

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Tell (blank),"

replace the blank with a new word or phrase,

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

I Love To Tell The Story

Tell Me The Old, Old Story

 

Oh, tell it like it is

Half-truths set snares, you see

Tell of God’s love but do not miss

Accountability

Cast no shadow of doubt

Handle holy truths well

Tell of Heaven but not without

The solemn fact of hell

Tell of pierced hands and feet

Of pardon’s flood unfurled

Of joy that waits to make complete

The sorrows of this world

Tell of redemption’s grace

But to not skip this part;

Repentance is the sacred place

Where God’s forgiveness starts

Tell of love’s staff and rod

Ah, where can we begin

To measure the mercies of God

Without mentioning sin

Faith without works is dead

Yet grace no work affords

But, tell the words that Jesus said,

‘No man can serve two lords’

Tell of God, just and kind

Lest in life’s brief pursuit

Of happiness, we do not find

The Vine that yields good fruit

With earnest love implore

For the sake of the Soul

And tell the truth in full before

Last Breath unveils the whole

Oh, tell it like it is

Half-truth deception lulls

Its audience with compromise

That Last Threshing Floor culls

Tell of a Shepherd's call

Tell of a Shepherd's love

The Way the Truth The Life that all

Eternity will prove

Tell of the evidence

That transcends verbal claim 

All who love God heed His commands

To glorify His name

© Janet Martin

Tell-tale Signs of Joy to Come (on the laughing tide of life)

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer for poem-a-day challenge

For today's prompt, take the phrase "Tell (blank),"

replace the blank with a new word or phrase,

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

In Ontario we are in the see-saw season of

'ah, spring, oh, winter, ah, spring, oh-h...'

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace...

Futile to try to pry the bud to haste the bloom, or seize

A broom to sweep dustings of snow from hills and streets and lanes

To everything a season; soon the nakedness of trees

Will don fresh fronds of emerald lace and lofty leaf-refrains

Nature is never anxious, never ruffled by protest

It does not miss a beat, no matter how we rue its pace

Ah look, in the crook of the apple tree, a robin's nest

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace

Foolish to chase the wind or shake an ineffectual fist

At Old Man Winter clinging to what not-a-one can keep

Ah, let him roar and war against the tug of shores, sun-kissed

Soon soft zephyrs will dance across meadows dappled with sheep

Futile to fret. Let hope whet appetites for joys at hand

As the first tell-tale signs of spring intensify until

Nothing can stem the laughing tide of life that sweeps the land

With green grandeur, pink blossom-blush and yellow daffodil

Janet Martin

Spring Waltz (Mariage d'Amour) Chopin

The first line in the 3rd stanza drew me to Ecclesiastes!

The endeavor...

Eccles.1:14

Ecclesiastes 1:17
So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly;

 I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind...

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished

 and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile,

 a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:17

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. 

For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

To the man who is pleasing in His sight, 

He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy,

 but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating

 that which he will hand over to one who pleases God.

 This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:4

I saw that all labor and success spring from a man's envy of his neighbor. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:16

There is no limit to all the people who were before them. 

Yet the successor will not be celebrated by those who come even later. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 6:9

Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

The conclusion...

Ecclesiastes 12:13
When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this:

 Fear God and keep His commandments,

 because this is the whole duty of man.

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

The Original Riverdance

 Prompt #3 from Robert Brewer @ Writer's Digest poem-a-day challenge

For today's prompt, pick a musical act or artist

and either make that the title of your poem

or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem.

Its splendor captures hearts and souls

In arrangements that spill

Through gullies, between hills and knolls

It runs its foaming drill

It thunders through the wilderness

And eddies into bays

Above its cascade, mists caress

Its roiling interplays

It performs without preference

As masterpieces grand

Roll without mortal audience

Through untamed timberland

A lyrist that commands respect

The lure of its appeal

As ageless as its dialect

Of silver, sage and teal

It serenades the fisherman

That navigates its stream

And sparkles like a sequin-fan

Where sunbeams waltz and gleam

It glides, as tame as nameless reeds

Idling along its shores

It clashes where two courses feed

Into one vein, it roars

…and frets and moans and froths and fumes

Until its ire is spent

To slide beneath the willow plumes

That strum its moody bent

Mingling of danger and delight

Of unbridled romance

Heeding a Maestro veiled from sight

Save in the river’s dance

It dips and dives, leaps, jives and falls

Liquid arpeggio

Of promenades and madrigals

That always steal the show  

© Janet Martin

LORD OF THE DANCE RIVERDANCE BY PANDAMIMIH

Isa.43:1-3

Now this is what the LORD says—

He who created you, O Jacob,

and He who formed you, O Israel:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name; you are Mine!

2When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you go through the rivers,

they will not overwhelm you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be scorched;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

3For I am the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...

A Medley of Happiness Guarantees or Love's Happy-Sad Reality

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

For today's prompt, we have our first two-for-Tuesday prompt, 

which means you get two prompts. 

You can write to one of the prompts, both the prompts separately,

 or try to write a poem that works with both prompts at the same time. 

The prompts are:

Write a happy poem, and/or...

Write a sad poem.

Some sunny happiness-anticipation mementos today...

While the wind howls, wild as an untrained child!

Happiness Guaranteed

As long as there are boys with joys like fishing, baseball, pups

And girls with pretty curls, and brook-banks strewn with buttercups

And warm handshakes and birthday cakes and laughter, old and young

And spring following winter, and arbors wisteria-hung/strung/flung

And fortunes found in friendships crowned with loyalty and prayer

And skies of blue and work to do and poems still to snare/share

And birds to sing as the morning dissolves the heavens, dark

And simple things like trees with swings, like picnics in the park

Like beauty to behold and shelter from the cold, bold gale

Like hope secure for the soul moored in Love that will not fail

Or, like fresh bread or coffee or berries, sun-warm and sweet

Or gardens, where gladness runs wild as a child in bare feet

As long as two agree and ‘will you marry me’ hears ‘yes’

And babies coo and wonders woo, there will be happiness

As long as you and I try to be kinder every day

And live to bless, then happiness will never lose its way

© Janet Martin

Irreparable Alloy 

In greatest happiness and sadness, love is always chief

The flipside of love's gladness is, inevitably, grief 

The higher love's apex of joy the deeper sorrow's trove

Irreparable alloy; the bitter-sweetest price of love

True love is like a treasure no imposter can attain

A finely mingled measure of profound pleasure and pain

Not for the faint of heart is love's vexatious certainty 

The twain can never part; love's happy-sad reality 

© Janet Martin

Inexorable Irony 

The only way we know for sure that happiness exists

Is because of the sadness that this broken world untwists 

How dumb would be delight's caress, how numb, the rousing cheer

Without sadness to sweeten happiness with bitter tear 

© Janet Martin

Without determined dedication

Without valiant effort

Victory is flavorless

***

Wilt thou be happy, oh,

  so happy thou couldst burst?  

Well, then,

Forget about thyself; 

and love God first

then fellowmen

© Janet Martin

It's nice to be appreciated and loved

And we all know

That its important, once in a while

To tell each other so!

***

Wishing one and all a happy day!

Yea, happy is that people, 

whose God is the LORD.

Psalm 144:15 KJV

Like Music Notes (In a Brand, New Love Song)

Happy April!

My, how a month doth fly!!

April is the month of the poem-a-day challenge!

 From Robert Brewer at Writer's Digest...here is today's prompt.

"It's time for the first day of the 2024 April Poem-A-Day Challenge! Each day, I'll provide a poetry prompt and a poem to get things started. You can secretly poem along at home, or you can share your poem in the comments below.

For today's prompt, write an optimistic poem. I find the beginnings of things to be a time of great optimism. Whether it's the beginning of a sporting season or a month (or even a week), there's so much opportunity available. But optimism can exist anywhere and at any time; so don't limit your optimism to the beginnings of things."

Today we embark on

a new day, a new week and a new month!

All great new reasons to embrace optimism!

Behind us lies the dust and ash of seasons spilled and spent

Unfurling in its aftermath a bittersweet tableau

Of what may sometimes seem like a cosmic experiment

Of love, learning how to hold on while learning to let go

Like an unblemished phoenix today gleams, a priceless stone

In hands where we, fumbling proprietors of precious time

Proceed, through daybreak's gaping door, vessels of skin and bone

And Soul, shouldering grin and groan as on and up we climb 

I love the loveliness of a new day, like a clean sweep

Like a fresh page, rather than yesterday's returned 'so-long'  

I love the way the ending as we drifted off to sleep

Evolves into the Intro of a whole new worship song

Behind us lies the old; the dust and ash of ages set 

Before us gleams the new; like treasure from an unplumbed trove 

Beneath us streams a fresh measure of moments never met 

Like music notes composing brand-new hymns of hope and love 

 

Janet Martin

Psalm 100 is a glorious way to refresh optimism with

unfaltering truth from the Word of God

A perfect wat to start a new

day-week-month!

Make a joyful noise to the LORD,

all the earth.

2Serve the LORD with gladness;

come into His presence with joyful songs.

3Know that the LORD is God.

It is He who made us, and we are His;a

we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

4Enter His gates with thanksgiving

and His courts with praise;

give thanks to Him and bless His name.

5For the LORD is good,

and His loving devotion endures forever;

His faithfulness continues to all generations.

Forever God Is Faithful

Collections of Bit By Bit

PAD Challenge-day 7:

Two-for-Tuesday prompt. 

Write to one prompt, both prompts, 

and/or combine them: 

Write a big poem, or...

Write a small poem.

Life roads/loads can seem impossible/impassable when viewed in a lump sum...

Sometimes, as a loved one bears a cross, 

 oh, how we wish we could

bear or ease it for them but we cannot, and should not! 

(sometimes we wish we could rid ourselves of our own crosses!)

 Only beneath life's crosses

does faith become stronger and humbler/meeker💗🙏

But we can and should pray for God's sufficient grace 

to be the strength in our weakness!!

2 Cor.12:9

And He said to me,

 “My grace is sufficient for you, 

for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Life roads/loads can seem impossible/impassable when viewed in a lump sum

Its weight of cares can topple the most hopeful optimist

For none can see what waits to be, what is ‘what-ifs’ outcome

What favor or calamity the hour may untwist

What detour must be taken or what leap of learning tried

What perseverance shaken or what darling wish denied

But one breath, one step, one moment and one prayer at a time

The feeble can scale mountains and great burdens can be borne

Courage can face the giant where faith’s steppingstones align

To make us more reliant on the Author of each morn

As we press on toward the place where troubles cease their cry

As step by step and grace by grace He whispers ‘here am I’

A small word of kindness begins ripple effects of cheer

Tis step by step, the victor wins the title victors claim

Moment by moment unravels seasons, marked year by year

And draws each road we travel back to He, from whence we came

Do not despair, the Whole of It, when analyzed will show

Life's collections of bit by bit, as by God’s grace we go

© Janet Martin

In the Sweet By and By

John 1:16

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.