...and Then, There is This

Then, after kind words of comfort

When other have done their part

We must learn to be humble

And take their words to heart

After the love of others

A pat on the back, a hug

We must learn to be grateful

Responding with more than a shrug

And after the ‘you can do it’

After the ‘you’re the man!’

We must learn to accept ourselves

And then, believe we can

© Janet Martin

 

'aw, you're just saying that to be nice'...how often have we or someone close to us responded to a compliment in this way, whether verbally or in thought? 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.Ps 139:1-5

We're All in This Together

Image Source
Many of us know someone whose picture could be posted here, perhaps not as well known as Robin but as much loved!

We’re all in this together

No one a stepping-stone

To crush in our endeavor

To reach the top alone

We’re all in this together

Shoulder to shoulder we

Are part of one another

Earth’s great big family

…of human-nature weakness

And flesh-soul labyrinth

Where none are more or lesser

To He who gives us strength

Thus, we with kinder caring

And hearts that sympathize

Together, should be sharing

Life’s battle to the Prize

For who can know tomorrow?

Who can its fortune prove?

We’re all in this together

Still learning how to love

Pray God to give us hunger

Not for the things of dirt

But love for one another

To bind us through life’s hurt

© Janet Martin

Once again the topic of depression, addiction and suicide take headlines in the aftermath of Robin Williams' death. A few thoughts sparked this poem;  Susan's words of encouragement

and a paragraph in an article by Murray Pura directed to writer's in the latest issue of *Fellowscript magazine...

 

Isn't this a great motto for everyone; To promote/help/love each other because it is the right thing to do!?

Do you think there might be less suicide if we made this our 'hunger'?

*(Included in an  Inscribe membership is a a bi-monthly edition of Fellowscript, a magazine to encourage/educate writers at all levels.)

Of Rocking Chairs and Roving Years

Fleet through our grasp, blithe bleeds this gasp of air

Far-gone, those fair, forever days of youth

Where dreamers undeterred by seasoned truth

Smiled past those wizened words from rocking chairs

And hands work-worn; for all the world was theirs

…where castles in the clouds sparkle and gleam

Bright eyes fixed on a prize unmarred by scars

Moments spill steppingstones out to the stars

And they, the dancers on time’s merry stream

Transfixed upon its readjusted dream

Those dusty, lusty days dissolve somehow

The rocking-chair seems programmed to repeat

Old wisdom where new sages fill its seat

Their tongues still burning with the afterglow

Of all they thought they knew but didn’t know

How, when all is done are dreams defined?

After time’s trip-and-falling growing pains  

As we grasp at the gasp of what remains

 The rocking-chair echoes as years unwind

'All we can give is what we leave behind'

© Janet Martin

Wordless Worship

 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward." Matt. 10:42

We do not tally

Tears we shed

Nor prayers we pray

Or dollars poured

In to a work

We dare not shirk

For we are called

To serve the Lord

And though we never

Count or tell

The cost of it

God knows full-well

How much we give

Or keep will prove

Without a word

What God we love

© Janet Martin

From Today's post at A Holy Experience

Yay! God did it through willing wallets!

Kissing Tennyson...or any of our dear, old poets

Always on the lookout to add to my poetry collection...

We cannot touch

Miles, years apart

Save for the brush

Of heart to heart

Fingers and lips

May never meet

Your kiss of words

Bitter and sweet

Yet, without salvaged

Madrigal

We never would

Have met at all

© Janet Martin

I love reading old poetry...today at YDP they are featuring a beaut by James Whitcomb Riley.

...but, it was this poem The Brook by Alfred Tennyson that first captured my heart when I was a wee girl and sparked a lifelong love for lyrical poetry...

The Brook

COME from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,

To bicker down a valley.

 

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges,

By twenty thorps, a little town,

And half a hundred bridges.

 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

 

I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles,

I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble on the pebbles.

 

With many a curve my banks I fret

by many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may comeand men may go,

But I go on forever.

 

I wind about, and in and out,

with here a blossom sailing,

And here and there a lusty trout,

And here and there a grayling,

 

And here and there a foamy flake

Upon me, as I travel

With many a silver water-break

Above the golden gravel,

 

And draw them all along, and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

Among my skimming swallows;

I make the netted sunbeam dance

Against my sandy shallows.

 

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses;

 

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.