Creed For Courage

 Ir's not our imagination! according to Who STOLE Ontario's sunshine? Shocking stats, here 

since November we have had unusually less sunshine!

 So we are delighting in the colour of this dawn's awning 😊

 ...but, no matter the color of the canvas, no matter the season

we have plenty of reason to take Courage!

To think enough of self to know we have something to offer

To recognize the heart and mind will spill what fills its coffer

To show through word and deed the seed we nurture, briefly hidden

For what we think becomes the ink with which our lives are written

To learn from our mistakes then leave behind vain accusation

This day the Lord has made is cause for humble celebration

Forbid that we ignore the gift that streams from Mercy’s pardon

To unfold moments rife with life like buds unfold a garden

To rise and shine and count more than the woe that hurts and hounds us

To let God’s divine love and grace encourage and confound us

To make the most of what we have He grants before echoes replace it

And thank Him for whatever comes because He helps us face it

To turn the other cheek and speak words worthy of their flower

And to forget to fret about those things beyond our power

To sense within the groan and grin that here and now composes

Reason to twirl-spin, take a bow and stop to smell the roses

© Janet Martin

Then You Will Fly

PAD Challenge day 15; For today’s prompt, write a prediction poem.

 For the sake of what might be...try!

(that's what I tell myself when fear-demons jeer, sneer and leer) 

Fear will paralyze the Poem

Close your eyes and feel the Light

Let the Author of ink-oceans

Fit the Fledgling for the flight

Trust a leap of faith to paper

Bear the dare to share the art

Sometimes the pen is a saber

Carving courage from the heart

Steal the breath of death’s bystander

Seal this tender touch of time

With the tempo of tamed banter

Into mementos of rhyme

Beauty begs for recognition  

Brush the bruises from your sigh

Brave the height of inhibition

To know what it is to fly

© Janet Martin

Take Courage...

It's so easy to forget, when our own lives are full,

but let's remember to keep praying for Wayne and Doreen,

and their boys,(Darcy's brothers)
as they go on with a gaping emptiness in their home and hearts!

Take courage friend, though future as it flows through Now to Then

Is not what we envisioned, and swifter than we supposed

As Past’s eternal cast expands it tunes our acumen

To living’s wake of learning and horizons undisclosed

What once we thought we knew startles ho-ho with meek ‘aha’

Truth does not change its view,, we find, as raven locks turn gray

The aftermath of say-and-do fulfills its stubborn law

Of ‘reaping what we sow’; still, by God’s grace we face each day

Do not despair, my friend, the tender care that keeps the bird

Is faithful to the end though oft we kick it in the shins

With unwavering kindness He pursues us, undeterred

His gift to everyone who asks; the forgiveness of sins

Hello-farewell; heaven and hell-glimpses stun come-and-go

It rips our ragged breath from bodies bent on want and need

And teaches us the happiness of stepping soft and slow

Across Good morning’s welcome-mat that once we paid no heed

Take courage, friend, for God saw fit to lend another day

Its tray drips with appointments that we cannot fully see

But if we trust the Hand of He who grants, to show the way

Then we will have the courage to endure what waits to be

© Janet Martin

Autumn's Woman...

She dies with dreams, then like a phoenix

From the ash of summer spent

She rises, soft-brushes the onyx

Arabesque of discontent

From her shoulders; now she is bolder

Older than she was before

Lessons of summer season, mold Her

Into Wisdom’s troubadour

Leaves whisper; brittle bronze-y omen

Sallies-slips-drips-swivels-swirls

To kiss the cheek of autumn’s woman

Born of summer’s yester-girl

© Janet Martin

'o-o-o-h, I love fall', sighed Victoria yesterday in a morning sharp with its suggestions,
'its comfy sweaters, jeans and tea...'
We look at each other and grin in mutual delight while Jim tries to straddle the gap twixt venus-mars

Of Care and Courage

Care runs ready fingers over laugh-lines of youth

It weighs the spirit with want, need and truth

Life has no easy-street without any trouble

Lest ever we think it; pop goes its bubble

Its care, in spite of our ‘rather-would-not’

Trains us to labor with what we’ve got

We cannot order or arrange morrow’s air

Nor tug the veil from its stalemate of care

Our utter hope, when it’s all said and done

Is not how we cope but Who we lean upon

All we can do with our share of care’s test

Is ask God for courage then trust Him for the rest

© Janet Martin