Happy New Year!
“Grace and peace be yours in abundance,
through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
(2 Pet. 1:2)
The old year ran out before I was able to finish
its final post...
Hello and welcome, 2022!
Momentous carousel of gray and gold,
green, blush and blue...
May we weather with hope renewed
each day as it is lent
and leave behind when it is through
a year of love well spent...
The above verse is a brief contemplation
Below an ambling stroll through a garden of thoughts
...and a few snapshots of the end of the old
a visit to the neighbour's farm...
Harbour view after returning middle daughter to her home (away from home)
and beginning of the new...
Tendrils of day-to-day like vines entwine
Where green shoots gild weather-beaten remains
And hope rekindles bittersweet refrains
On thoroughfares of four-season design
Where what was new a year ago is old
And what is new runs rife with life’s unknowns
And what is old is framed in grins and groans
That only eyes of retrospect behold
Yet, as we peer ahead no one can see
What waits to climb time’s gates to history
For all that changes some things never do
Nothing estranges takers from the Hands
That give to each its score of numbered sands
Nothing can thwart the truth, forever true
Nothing can bar faith’s humble prayer from He
Who knows what waits to be, oh, blissful thought
No matter what is lent to mortal lot
Nothing usurps Divine Authority
Do not despair, but bless God; do not curse
His goodness, steadfast through better or worse
The vines that climb the arbor of a year
Soon disappear, or so we dare to think
But though moments are over in a wink
So much abides beneath Bequeathed Veneer
Where words and deeds like seeds scattered behind
May seem to sleep, like gardens heaped with snow
But in the course of time the fruit will show
This is the way all nature is designed
He is not mocked who ordains time and place
And stocks each season with mercy and grace
The new to the old grafts with seamless ease
Thresholds meld to cold gravestones of the past
Daybreak fuels dusk’s purple shadow-cast
The rise and fall of footstep-symphonies
Like waves; a mighty force that disappears
How sacred then, commonplace steps become
When from shorelines we view the humble sum
Of shoes outgrown or outliving man’s years
How humbly then we stoop to tie the strings
Of faith in God for what the new year brings
The highs and lows of joys and woes compose
The dust and ash that tears and laughter spill
Where morning hoists Mercy's faithful refill
From He who crowns the thorn-stem with a rose
As north, south, east or west our steps deplete
The Path hinged to endless eternity
And no one knows how near or far will be
The sacred transport from time's trampled beat
As we are borne beyond the humble sum
Of shoes and such, into the world to come
© Janet Martin
From me to precious you,
Wishes for a
A blessed and joyful New Year!
