Love's To-do Lists...

 My life and Margaret's comment on the previous post inspired this poem:)

 photo later...can't find my coat I wore yesterday and it has my camera in its pocket:(

Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Ps. 106:1

Camera found in a coat hanging outside...in the rain, but it still works!
Happy May, by the way!

Duty untwists in to-do lists

No refuge from its stringent spoil

Save in night’s lay-me-down-to-sleep

To rest our hands and feet from toil

Hours untwist in to-do lists

Task sires task, its seems to me

Still, I do not care for escape

If my to-do is from-to Thee

…for love untwists in to-do lists

How humbly glad am I, full-blessed

To minister to need where need

Remembers me in its request

Thus, Lord above, with grateful love

I pray where life’s spiral untwists

That Thou wouldst grant wisdom and strength

For love’s laurel, life’s to-do lists

© Janet Martin

Ah, glorious Sunday, ah, blessed day of worship and rest!

Well, rest sort of…all I need to do is re-tidy the house, ice two birthday cakes, move some of Melissa’s things(from her move home yesterday) from the garage because the birthday bonfire might be rained out and perhaps a birthday BBQ instead, do a bit of taxiing, teach Sunday School…

Hence the inspiration for this poem. It is because we have people who love and need us and we love and need them whereby our (never-ending) to-do lists evolve.

Dead End Day-dreams or Living The Dream

PAD Challenge Day 30: last day:(
For today’s prompt, write a dead end poem.. Take the phrase “dead end” and apply it to a noun,.

 Quote from a book pictured below...

They fill my head with visions of far fairer days to come

When I am not so busy with debt-dictated demands 

But after contemplation Methinks dreams are but the sum

Of common hope, and love the fire that fuels life's dreamlands

We never dream of loneliness or days when we are frail

And far too old to climb the hill of wild-bloom haply flung

And I have learned through tears well-earned, how dear this moment-grail

...how 'tis The Dream, not Destiny that keeps the spirit young

These are life's darling days, my dear, the dream, its serenade

We dance, not on yon cloud but on two feet if we are blessed

And I would like to dream, when day is done that we have made

A memory that we recall with tender happiness

Daydreams drive us toward an end we try to fantasize

Where shadow figurines, like strangers are kinder somehow

But circumstance alters the trance of Yonder-paradise

Thus we never secure the key to it because of Now

 

© Janet Martin

 

Ah, Fare Thee Well, Mademoiselle

Writer's Digest PAD Challenge day 29: (already!) For today’s prompt, write a haphazard poem. 

Her hair askew,

Missing a shoe,

Her dress in disrepair

And all around

On the green ground

Are hints that she was there.

Her plans half-made

She is way-laid

 By fairer next-of-kin

Who strolls amazed

On trails she blazed

On Mother Nature's skin

She will not see

The laden tree,

The garden flushed with bloom,

A pioneer

Her grin and tear

Threads Mother Nature's loom

...nor will she stroll
Where leaves cajole
A canopy of leaves
Or linger where

The dust-sweet air

Drips from dawn's tawny eaves

Ah, fare thee well,

Mademoiselle,

We love thy April ways

They set the stage

And turn time's page

To May-June-July days

 Janet Martin

Important Mind-matter

The measure of a little thought

Is more mighty than we may know

For by the mind the hand is taught

How sure a little thought will show

So if perchance we think perhaps

Our thought can dally harmlessly

We should remember, touch reacts

To what we think no one can see

This matter of the mind is not

A plot where seeds fall unaware

The measure of a little thought

Will soon reveal what we plant there

© Janet Martin

  PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. 

Phil. 4:8

Important Arithmetic

Your hand

Plus mine

Equals

Joy Divine

© Janet Martin

  PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

Important Notice for Today's Musicians

 PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

Look, what on yonder shore doth break

Expanding like a golden lake

Until the dark is done away

In time’s new, ancient Thing; Today

Look, what appears where years have shown

We do not grasp in full the groan

Of love’s travail; atonement’s way

Covers the old with new; Today

Look, where the eon of the sky

Ebbed dark in vesper lullaby

Ah, see it spill its refilled tray

Where God has willed a new Today

Look, like an unsung melody

Sheet music splays from sea to sea

Ah, pray that we with rev’rence play

The harp strings that we call Today

© Janet Martin

Important Business, This Poetry

PAD Challenge Day 28: For today’s prompt, take the phrase “Important (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem.

Important business this, the art

Of baring pieces of the heart

For stranger’s eyes to criticize

Or interpret, at least in part

Important business this, the dare

To splay heart pieces on thin air

For other lips and fingertips

To touch with much less thought or care

Important business this, the taunt

Of restless air requesting font

With lowly pen we trace its yen

And draw a poem from its vaunt

Important business this, the ought

That shapes a word that shapes a thought

That shapes a mind; ah, be not blind

To those who find what ink has wrought

Important business this, for we

Who teach not eyes, but hearts to see

As we lay bare on naked air

Heart-pieces shaped in poetry

© Janet Martin