In the Light of Letting Go...

Ps.145:10-14

The Lord is good to all;

he has compassion on all he has made.

10 All your works praise you, Lord;

your faithful people extol you.

11 They tell of the glory of your kingdom

and speak of your might,

12 so that all people may know of your mighty acts

and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and your dominion endures through all generations.

The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises

and faithful in all he does.[c]

14 The Lord upholds all who fall

and lifts up all who are bowed down...

(Read the whole glorious chapter HERE)

The road to life's highlights runs

rife with anticipation

The road from;

with fond memories

We spent a special weekend with some old and some new friends;

a weekend eagerly anticipated for some weeks then BLINK! and it's over!

Whether its outings, or a simple meal or seasons, 

as gifts of earthly pleasure slip through our bearing

as we touch, taste and treasure, while ever growing older 

we learn to expect and even cherish

the bittersweet pangs of letting go

that are bound to follow the embrace!

These bittersweet pangs hide in beaming pink peony-pom-poms,

...soon felled

in growing children and grandchildren

and in every fond fellowship/relationship God grants 

with people or nature!

Love imparts in profound measure, both pleasure and pain!

...like the pleasure of anticipating ice-cream

to celebrate the first day of summer

before the pain of disappointment.

Sorry guys!

The ice-cream shop is closed!

(we were informed of the closure ahead of this photo but

had to make sure) 😅

to respect privacy I won't share the kind of photos from the weekend

 most people most enjoy...of people!

but here are a few other pleasure-treasures.

Blue-heron dusk primping-routine

Canada geese on a leisurely paddle...

Sunset 

'ride' on The Big Chute (photo is the the boat ahead of us)

The chute is lowered into the water till boat/boats are properly boarded

then the chute via cables lifts the boats over the highway 

and lowers them into the water on the other side!

Summer's fresco

White Falls...

...and a poem-memento to remember to treasure what we hold

all the more because of the letting go! 

Love imparts in profound measure, portions of pleasure and pain  

As hearts overflow with treasure only farewells can sustain

Nothing in life lasts forever; tears and laughter ebb and flow

  As we learn to love with fervor, 

in the light of letting go

 Brave the fleeting bliss of flowers in spite of the kiss that waits

 Like a seal on Bygone's Bowers brimming with Delight's licked plates 

Let the music of love's moments rush the soul with holy 'ooh'    

For Love spills a sweeter cadence 

in the light of letting go

Love imparts with raw precision climaxes of joy and grief 

Suturing heartache's incision, bud by bud and leaf by leaf 

Meanwhile drawing ever nearer Heaven's reassuring glow 

While love's holding grows much dearer 

in the light of letting go  

© Janet Martin

I went in search of an oldie hymn (Lyrics below)

 this morning as I pondered the weekend and shed some tears

and prayed some prayers esp. for my brother-in-law and also friends 

who have bid (some very unexpected) farewells to their spouses in the past year,

and are suffering love's ultimate earthly letting go, 

no longer able share both love's profound pleasure or pain!!

Parting Hand

Author Anonymous

1 My dearest friends, in bonds of love,

Our hearts in sweetest union prove;

Your friendship's like a drawing band,

Yet we must take the parting hand.

Your presence sweet, your union dear,

Your words delightful to my ear;

And when I see that we must part,

You draw like cords around my heart.

2 How sweet the hours have passed away,

When we have met to sing and pray;

How loath I've been to leave the place

Where Jesus shows His smiling face.

Oh, could I stay with friends so kind,

How would it cheer my struggling mind!

But duty makes me understand

That we must take the parting hand.

3 And since it is God's holy will,

We must be parted for awhile,

In sweet submission all in one,

We'll say, "Our Father's will be done."

Dear fellow youth in Christian ties,

Who seek for mansions in the skies,

Fight on, you'll win the happy shore,

Where parting hands are known no more.

4 How oft I've seen the flowing tears,

And heard you tell your hopes and fears;

Your hearts with love have seemed to flame,

Which makes me hope we'll meet again.

Ye mourning souls, in sad surprise,

Jesus remembers all your cries;

Oh, taste His grace, in all that land

We'll no more take the parting hand.

May Melody

June happened before I had a chance to complete this May Melody 

started on Saturday...

May never turns its moments back; each hour once and done

In blush of blossom bric-a-brac

... and lilacs kissed by sun

In verdant vistas, velvet green ‘neath vivid, welkin eaves...

In granting planting season, as earth bursts with birth of leaves

And dandelion-dazzle, luring eyes and feet to pause...

Where soon each mane is frazzled into orbs of silver gauze...

May plays its precious pleasures once; of brief, half-leaf festoons...

Of gardens, where glad children bounce like colourful balloons...

Thrilling to feel spring’s awe-filled, fresh-tilled soil...

...between their toes

May grants a dance of joy to joy, tulips and daffodils...

Like regal harbingers deploying fleets of petal-frills

A virtual kaleidoscope of ever-shifting hues...

May never turns its moments back; each hour once and done

In blush of blossom bric-a-brac and lilacs kissed by sun

In verdant vistas, velvet green ‘neath vivid, welkin eaves

In granting planting season, as earth bursts with birth of leaves

And dandelion-dazzle, luring eyes and feet to pause

Where soon each mane is frazzled into orbs of silver gauze

May plays its precious pleasures once; of brief, half-leaf festoons

Of gardens, where glad children bounce like colourful balloons

Thrilling to feel spring’s awe-filled, fresh-tilled soil between their toes

Eager to learn the law of seeds; how ‘one reaps what one sows’

How harvest’s sacred imminence bids us to plant with zeal

Where soon the thief of innocence will bite the carefree heel

May grants a dance of joy to joy, tulips and daffodils

Like regal harbingers deploying fleets of petal-frills

A virtual kaleidoscope of ever-shifting hues

Nature rallies with hymns of hope no skeptic can confuse

Or boast or claim credit or laud for glories on display

Where only a fool denies God, especially in May

May makes us glad to be alive in spite of sorrow's knife

That somehow keens an urgent drive to grow a lovely life 

Because each moment is a gift we hold but cannot keep

And life is too transient to drift through flowers, half-asleep 

Where opportunity abounds in plots we ought not shirk

To plant a seed that soon confounds us with God's handiwork 

© Janet Martin

and last but not least, 

celebrating June with the first fresh from the garden 

simple supper salad of the season! 

Ephemeral and Eternal or The Briefness Of It All

May is flying by in a flurry of hellos and farewells

and smiles and tears...

and much to do!! 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence ...

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; 

How gray-gold-greenly moments spill and meld to Nevermore

Today's gush of gossamer twill so briefly held before 

Ephemeral and eternal, are deftly intertwined

Tangible to intangible as echoes strew behind 

Life's dues of give and take weave so much more than meets the eye

Love's hues sparkle and ache and grin and groan with my-oh-my 

How soon the little boy and girl sheds childhood's innocence 

How surely choices lilt and swirl, unfurling Consequence 

Ephemeral and eternal, Time's subtle shuttle hums

As both brutal and beautiful to Bygone's cast succumbs

As morn, moment by moment weds with yester-scapes of death 

As God's unfailing purpose threads through every gifted breath

...where every hour bursts with blooms that fade like flower-storms 

The dust we till, hustles a loom that never quite conforms

To want-and-wishing's wistful whims; while moments spill and meld

Weaving with wisps that flare and dim, a lifetime briefly held 

Ephemeral and eternal, where no two days the same

Tune flurries of hello-farewell no one can curb or tame

Leaving so much to ponder with each season rise and fall 

As smiles and tears grow fonder with the Briefness of it all

Janet Martin

Farewell's Shadowlands

Oh, the undeterred momentum of moments no one can faze

It sparkles through our bearing to a world of yesterdays

It vexes rhyme-dazed poets and Duty's proprietors

As it hastens new morning through noon and dusk's gaping doors

Where, in the wake of choices that we make in its brief chase/grace

Remains the part that never stays yet no one can erase...

The above ditty was suddenly inspired from part of a 

conversation with Hubby this morning, who called

in the beginning/middle of the poem below,

begun after starting the fire, morning devotions

between putting supper in the crockpot,

filling empty bird feeders,

answering messages, texts and emails,

and other sundry domestic dues,

 while trying not to panic as

 I gaped at the clock that boldly declared

that the topic I began writing about

(daybreak's hello) in the waking hues of today

has long since ceased to be...

already part of farewell's shadowland!

but, in the afore mentioned conversation 

Hubby asked me if I ever think of everything

I could accomplish if I didn't write.

I guess none of us can see the hidden 'scale' within,

 where we weigh (hopefully) the eternal value of how we fill

fleeting moments!

Oh, how often I am torn between lyrical cadence

and domestic prudence 😔😅

...because what we do is so brief

yet so eternal!

Dawn, like an unplumbed well of ink

Unstoppers gold-gray, blue and pink

The tranquil tides of night soft-wane

Unveiling berths of mirth and pain

Beneath the tolling of a bell

Unfurling shadows of farewell

The halo of hello is brief

Harbinger of pleasure and grief

Like ripples of a pebble tossed

Dawn disappears; its advent lost

In hues and dues that rose then fell

To fuel shadows of farewell

How subtle spills life’s epitaph

A world where echoes weep and laugh

Composed from the momentous surge

Where daybreak and hello soon merge

Like melted mist, intangible

With long, deep shadows of farewell

Present, where past and future meet

Beckons reckonings, bittersweet

How careful-prayerful we should weigh

Think-ink, that fuels do-and-say

Soft spilling from our lips and hands

To dwell in farewell's shadowlands  

© Janet Martin

Ps. 121

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

2 My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not allow your foot to [a]be moved;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

4 Behold, He who keeps Israel

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your [b]keeper;

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

6 The sun shall not strike you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall [c]preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.

8 The Lord shall preserve[d] your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even forevermore.

A Beautiful Life-Jim Reeves