All That We Have Is Today

Time is a treasure we cannot steal or borrow

And we do not know what will happen tomorrow

Ever the fortune that no one can tell

All that we have is Today; spend it well

Time is the patriarch of bygone years

No one can cage it; it just disappears

Ethereal Presence without form or face

Yet ever and always Today; gift of grace

Mute moment-merchant; no barterer he

Tick-tock allotment of favor; full, free

To beggar and baron alike will befall

Time’s equal portion, Today; that is all

Time is a breath-by-breath measure of grace

Who can foretell it or its steps retrace?

Century-boast yet its breadth none can say

All that we have of its thread is Today

© Janet Martin

Interlude

My sweet, 

if on some far-off tonight

you think of me 

where the shade of moonlight

pools on a sea 

of intangible deep

and then, 

if thought keeps 

your body from sleep

as trembling touch lingers 

on over-and-gone

begging with fingers

clenched; empty at dawn

and should want and longing 

of whispers grown cold

interrupt oceans 

in your cup of gold

and if in the quiet 

of past middle-night

you grieve this thing 

that has slipped from your sight

then darling remember, 

that beyond midnight’s sea

tomorrow is waiting 

with what yet will be

© Janet Martin

Heirs of Tomorrow

Yes, sometimes I forget

…it isn’t hard to do

And choose toil’s little odds and ends

Stealing time spent with you

How swift each season flies

A soft and subtle reach

Teasing the baby from our arms

While we hug, hold and teach

Once upon yesterday

We were children, carefree

And never gave a second thought

To love’s wise legacy

The tide that carried us

Still rushes ‘cross the wild

Now we leave in its wide-flung wake

Our footprints for a child

Here run tomorrow’s heirs

To everything we weave

We ought to touch with tender care

The moments in Time’s sieve

A child, but not for long

Time’s keen deliverance

Will leave those things we made for them

As their inheritance

© Janet Martin

Before supper I picked up fresh eggs at a local farm. A little boy was hammering two pieces of scrap wood together in the shed where they keep the eggs. When I asked him what he is making he told me 'a sled’ and without pausing he got up, pinched his creation in a vice-grip and began sawing the end with a small hand-saw. Next I asked him what he is going to use for the part to sit on, and again without pausing in his ‘work’ he replied, ‘oh, I don’t know yet’, his cheeks rosy from cold and exertion and his eyes gold with dream-dust.

What are we leaving these heirs of tomorrow?

…these precious, precious heirs!

Of Tomorrow's, Today's and...Eternity(there's no plural in Eternity)

When we wake, what was tomorrow

Now has become our today

Moments of ‘past-present’ drifting

An intangible foray

Now eyes open and tomorrow

Spawns a fresh and mystic page

While yesterday’s tomorrow gleams

Beneath our feet; an open stage

...where life’s unknowns spill in moments

Moment-mysteries unfold

Writing memories and memoirs

In its ink of gray and gold

And soon again eyes close in slumber

…tomorrow becomes today

Kaleidoscope of pain and pleasure

Slipping into yesterday

When we wake, what was tomorrow

Is today; so it will be

Until we waken in the morning

Of God’s vast eternity

© Janet Martin

Life is that thread between yesterday and eternity .

As I was drifting off to sleep last night I remember thinking ‘when I wake up it will be tomorrow’…and in my semi-wake state a picture flashed through my thought of what it might possibly be like when we open our eyes one last time…Forever.

Most Valuable Gift

Today is the most important day

That ever there will come to be

Yesterday has passed away

Tomorrow is a fantasy

For every deed that man has wrought

Or every lesson, come what may

Of living’s trial and error lot

Is taught in what we call Today

Yesterday sleeps in Time’s grave

Tomorrow is a mystery

Today is all we’ll ever have

Before it folds to history

Today, above all else we hold

Is Love’s most precious, priceless gift

Of Heaven’s charge in moment-gold

Before to past’s vast sea they drift

© Janet Martin

Tomorrow's Sorrow

Tomorrow they are calling for rain

But tomorrow is so far away

Let’s not borrow tomorrow’s sorrow

Lest we waste the sunshine today

Tomorrow they are forecasting gloom

Poisoning laughter with fears

But let’s not borrow tomorrow’s sorrow

Before today disappears

Tomorrow they are predicting woe

And skies that are dismal and bleak

Oh, let’s not borrow tomorrow’s sorrow

While sunshine kisses our cheek

Today is a day of grace

Today is the only now

So let’s not borrow tomorrow’s sorrow

Lest we miss today somehow

© Janet Martin

A Good Place to Be...

Tomorrow’s forecast is doleful

The future-predictions bleak

I don’t really like to think about

The tomorrow of which they speak

They say darker days are coming

I’m tired of ‘they say, they say’

And oh, I’m so very thankful

That I live in Today

'Do not worry about tomorrow'
Its fears are as ancient as dust
Greater than all our tomorrows
Is the God in whom we trust
The unknown lies before us
Who knows its 'what if's' or 'what mays'?
Only One; He watches o'er us
In all of our 'Todays'

© Janet Martin

 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, 

for tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Matt. 6:34

Of Things Phantom...

Tomorrow, tomorrow

Oh, tomorrow

You say

But darling, all I ever get

Is today

I’ve reached into midnight

But it is no use

Tomorrow is merely

A phantom excuse

For as surely as I lunge

At the hem of its frock

It is mist on my tongue

At twelve o’clock

And all that is left

Of its vapor hooray

Is the brand new repeat

Of another today

J~

Inspired by the title Tomorrow the Green Grass

On the prompt at IGWRT