Hard To Hope...

I heard someone wish for belief in Heaven after earth,

for the hope it gives to this life's fragility,

for the comfort it gives to loved ones left behind

but in doing so would also need to acknowledge the possibility of hell

(because God is love, holy and just)

So it is hard to Hope without recognizing

there must be Jesus aka Salvation!

  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. 

I do not give to you as the world gives. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. 

Jesus.

 (John 14:27) the whole chapter is AWESOME!

It shows the Way when Thomas asks,
“Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Hard to hope without a heaven

Hard to hope without Belief

Hard to Hope without a reason

Higher than Time’s earthy Chief

Hard to hope without Salvation

Hard to hope without the Truth

Hard to hope through tribulation

Without knowing why, in Who

Hard to hope without Forgiveness

Hard to hope past what we see

Hard to hope, love, without Jesus

For without Him, 

Hope cannot be

© Janet Martin

 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

 In his great mercy he has given us new birth 

into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

1 Peter 1:3

Pointless Protest

PAD Challenge 21: For today’s prompt, write a protest poem.

You move through us without motive

My, but how you steal our breath

Easing from the tree each votive

Where life always ends in death

Time, don’t be in such a hurry

My, but how you steal an hour

While we laugh, love, weep, work, worry

You ease petals from the flow’r

Giver-taker, thrill and torment

My, but how you steal our days

Never settled for a moment

Where your prelude-postlude plays

Time, don’t hasten your precision

My but how you steal a year

Never slowed by indecision

On this road of now and here

Never deterred by our pleading

My, but how you steal a life

Drawing us from want and needing

Where your kiss cuts like a knife

Time, don’t let us lose our hunger

My, but how you softly steal

Until curse and holy wonder

Are silenced beneath your wheel

© Janet Martin

My Love-Hate Affair With Old Man Winter

PAD Challenge day 20: For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

• Write a love poem. Or…
• Write an anti-love poem.

Sometimes I think that I could do without the ways of you

You rattle skin-bone cages with your grin-and-bear it jeer

And though I've come to expect all the wild, white things you do

Sometimes I weary of the armies that you commandeer

…but then I cozy up with quilts and listen to you wail

And feel so wealthy with home fires and supper-soup feast

And then I thank the Lord for shelter from your howling gale

A glimpse-of-heaven-haven when your weather is a beast

Sometimes I get enough of white fluff dazzling fields and streets

The beauty that we push, plow, shovel keeps me torn between

The wonder of your wander-lands swaddled in pristine sheets

And hunger for wild-flower strands and meadows em’rald green

But then I hold a mug of Hot after your cold halloo

And feel So Very Fine in fuzzy-slippered hearth-front chats

After I turned the other cheek and you fist-cuffed it too

Though I had put on armour of coats, mitts, boots, scarves and hats

Sometimes you are a flirt, your kiss soft, starry-eyed delight

Sometimes you are a jerk and push me hard across the yard

Sometimes you are a lonesome fellow calling through the night

Sometimes a rowdy, rough-neck rogue, sometimes a brooding bard

Belief is trust in Something that we cannot see or touch

Where Hope and truth comprise the age-old faith to which we cling

So I am not completely over-whelmed by your clutch

Knowing that given time enough, you always yield to spring

© Janet Martin

A Bit of November-Dusk Nostalgia

When the day is being tucked beneath November-blue flannel,

 when Grandson begins to 'wonder'

 when the birds snag an early supper,

 While we make muffins,

then supper, to a backdrop of Kenny G Christmas, well,

 ...it calls for Something, like slowly-savoured Poem

 (BTW, a poem is enjoyed much like a dessert, slowly, one bite/serving at a time😋)

Over the hills an anthem bleeds

To soothe earth’s fallow scars

A capella of ragged reeds

Tunes echo-tempered bars

The barge of afternoon is drawn

Across a phantom sea

To moor where no one can return

Save in fond reverie

...where poplar-coppice, shimmers-quiv-

ers, silver in the sun

Where tide of Time glimmers, shivers

Where season-rivers run

...where sky is like a belvedere

Its terrace, smoky blue

We climb a flight of yesteryear

To marvel at the view

…and listen to a heart-shaped hymn

That falls through smile-wreathed tears

As swift and soft the shadows dim

And the world disappears

© Janet Martin

Make Us Your Wowsa, God

PAD Challenge day 19: 

For today’s prompt, write a poem that uses at least 3 of the following 6 words:

 con, flush, oxymoron, pass, rub, toxic.

God often gives us a wowsa!
If we let Him, He can transform us into His wowsa!

You pass your brush
across the air
where rose-pink flush
captures our stare

No con man, He
who paints the sky
No oxymoron;
To live we must die 

Dear God, rub away
Doubt's toxic lies
Transform our hearts
As you transform skies

Janet~