The 'Love Test'

Lust is stirred by the visual
Love is stirred by the Invisible

Lust is limited
Love is eternal

Lust is selfish
Love is selfless

Lust is a fool’s gold
Love is wisdom's pearl

Lust craves
Love satisfies

Lust demands
Love is patient and kind

Lust takes
Love gives

Lust thrills
Love fulfills

Lust is restless
Love is peace

Lust is always seeking
Love waits

Lust is imprisonment
Love is freedom

Lust dies
Love lives

Lust is vanity’s deception
Love is pure and true

Lust preys on weakness
Love is unfathomable strength

Lust doubts
Love trusts

Lust is a roaring lion
Love is a steadfast hope

Lust flaunts the obvious
Love is a beautiful mystery

Lust is base
Love is divine

Lust flatters
Love praises

Lust wears many masks
Love, none; Truth needs no disguise

Lust is a jealous god
Love is God

Janet~

This New Day

Feet touch down on pristine crest
Of unmarred Time
Aspirations of hope persuade
My will to climb
Beyond the benediction
Of failure laid to rest
I close my eyes and whisper, Lord
Help me to do my best

Upon its flawless tarmac
I brush soft threads of prayer
And shed the cloak of longing, wrought
By echoes of despair
The unknown lies before me
The known is left behind
I exist somewhere betwixt
In moments un-designed

The purple-gilded sky-line
Declares that night has fled
As duty’s iridescent rod
Beckons me from my bed
I cradle for a moment
Dear loved ones in a prayer
Feet touch upon life’s pristine crest
As hope breathes on the air

Janet

What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who is against us? Romans 8:31

Seasons

Snow covers the earth
In argent sheaf
Time covers the heart
And heals its grief

Earth cannot rebel
Against Time’s season
We cannot fore-tell
Life’s rhyme or reason

Soon bitter cold
Must relinquish its grip
Soon we are old
As moments slip

Snow covers the earth
Beneath its sod
Springtime waits
For the whisper of God

We pass the way
Of life, but once
Only what’s done
For others, counts

We cannot re-arrange
One jot of the past
But live each day
As if it were our last

Janet~

I Remember

The night dips low in a forlorn tune
Her robe is heavy, blurring the moon
With silver breath, yet no limb stirs
Inaudible song; unscripted word
As I remember…

The darkened hue of her moody eye
Deepens the blue of the night moving by
Gone is the frolicking laughter of May
Cold and silent, it slips away
And I remember…

The air is keen with memory's sigh
Pushing the snow-laden dark awry
The hush of midnight sprawls on the air
A hymn of longing, love and despair
While I remember…

... the cooling of lips as you walked away
the aching of words that we could not say
the bleeding of anguish against the sky
the echo of years in one word...good-by
Yes, I remember


Janet~

Us

Not as the hope of gardens
Frozen in winter’s sod
Or tempests bowing the hemlock low
In cold forced worship to God

Not as the physical hunger
Growling its urgent plea
Nor as the hunger of nature’s wrath
Sweeping across the sea

Not as the rising and falling
Of dawn to midnight’s chime
Guiding the quadrille of seasons on
Over the landscape of Time

Love is no summer in waiting
…a hunger of constant torment
Though its storm may surge through our beings
In passion never fully spent

Love is a pure, purposed constant
Eluding the will of my pen
Complex in its unrivaled fullness
Evading mere script of men

In the rising and falling of moments
Or the seasons that vex earth’s cusp
Oh my darling, it is bliss to know
That love will always be…us

Janet~

Winter Dusk...

If only for a moment
Stop; be still
Motionless as the cloud
On distant hill
Or the snowflake
Hovering without sound
Ere it falls to oblivion
On snow-covered ground
As still as the breeze
Holding its breath
As winter serenity
Cradles the earth
As staid as the reeds
Blooming in snow
Or the flight of a bird
Etched in the glow
Of the burnished sun
In its silent descent
Or the moon climbing quietly
From the Orient
Deepening the sallow
Of noon-tide hue
And painting the fallow
In ribbons of blue
As still as the tree-limb
Stripped of its shade
Yet bolder in beauty
Its naked form splayed
Against the sky-line
As daylight grows dim
Stop; oh, be still…
…and you will hear Him


Janet

I was out the other night at dusk…
…the quiet, startling,
…the western skyline rich with nameless colors
and the east an ever-deepening intensity of blue.
It was AWESOME.

Tuesday Late Afternoon Haiku

Blissful caffeine jolt
Pianist seeking pleasure
Painful notes collide

Knitting needles click
Rush of rain beneath traffic
Supper sizzling

Daylight swallowed whole
Aroma of contentment
Sighs in the twilight

Janet~

Of Unforgotten Things...re-post from a year ago on Jan. 17th

http://margaretbednar365.blogspot.com/ Margaret gave me an idea...to see what was on my mind a year ago today...

Now and then the twilight steals
An hour from the dreamers calm
Entranced by sudden phantom reels
Playing out across its palm
Suddenly the landscape rings
With songs of unforgotten things

And there beneath the willow tree
And the locusts serenade
We gathered in camaraderie
Sipping ice-cold lemonade
And dreaming dreams befitting kings
Molding unforgotten things

Upon the cold and frosty air
I hear the soft and gentle tone
Of a mother’s voice in prayer
When her day of toil was done
And the night wind softly sings
Of dear and unforgotten things

I view in silent reverie
Each scene that passes one by one
Through portals of my memory
Here for a breath and then it’s gone
Until perhaps a moment brings
The sigh of unforgotten things

Janet~

I just re-read this poem a few days ago. I was trying to find some poems my parents would enjoy. My Dad is an 'invalid' for the first time in his life (he broke his collar-bone) He is seventy years old and he said he has been hurt before but never had a broken bone...and never anything that kept him from work for any length of time. He still helps my brothers on their farms.
I put together a little scrap-book of photos and poem to share my 'hobby' with him. I included this poem. Ironically, it is the 'year ago' poem.