Preparing for Christmas...(a note to self)

http://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/be-prepared-prompt-33/

Poinsettia for the table

Bloom of festivity

Pretty little angel

To grace the Christmas tree

Lights and pretty candles

Lending their gentle glow

In tiny golden circles

Wee choirs in the snow

Cookies, cakes and puddings

In volumes quite obscene

Large and tiny presents

Wrapped in bright red and green

Songs extol the season

And malls the latest rave

Excuses become reason

As dollars become brave

Stress finds brand new victims

And cheer loses its mirth

All in the preparation

To celebrate His birth

Shopping lists extended

Beyond the budget’s creed

Holly, jolly merchants

Disguising greed as need

Christmas Eve descending

We brave the cold perhaps

To find within a chapel

A pew, where we collapse

My house sure looks amazing

The food, a work of art

Wouldn’t it be something

If this had been my heart?

Janet

Portions

Somehow, in spite of profusion of words

Silence remains stark; profound

We cannot dissuade unalterable truth

With the clang of syllabic sound

Somehow, though continents loom between

And geographically keep us apart

I hear the whisper of you deep within

And feel you against my heart

Somehow, by the rise and the setting of sun

We measure our portion of days

Darling, to love you I have only begun

Oh, let me count the ways

Somehow, life slips through the curtain of dusk

Its presence subtle and swift

Silence and distance and longing and love

Are portions of its tender gift

J~

Summation of Time

Time doles out the same amount

Of hours in a day to each of us

From generation to generation

It is not how much of it we have

But what we do with it

That will be our life’s summation

Twenty-four hours in a day

Three-hundred and sixty-five days per year

Save for that one in four

Why, in an age of modern conveniences

Do we seem to have less time

To spare, not more

Janet

Time

The moon climbs above the horizon

A stealthy, crimson eye

Pushing the remnants of evening

Into the dark, blue sky

I stand on earth’s silver palette

Night is frozen and vast

And it seems I can almost hear it

Present becoming past

The sky is a boundless portal

An ocean of infinite calm

Unfathomable to mortal

This speck in eternity’s palm

Here in the solace of midnight

Comfort and longing vie

To be the whisper of moonlight

Gleaming in my eye

Time is a thief of moments

Yet, time is a moment’s source

Hastening, ever hastening

Yet never a glimpse of its force

The moon climbs above the horizon

Translucent hand on Time’s clock

No man knows the day or the hour

When this cosmic time-piece will stop

Janet~

http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-our-inspiration-this-week-ive-taken.html

On Taking a Family Picture

When there is nothing very funny
Yet we find reason to snicker
If suddenly there seems to be
A sudden need to bicker
When insults freshly polished
Are muttered, hissed and hurled
As siblings are squeezed into
One square inch of the world
It must be family-picture-taking time

When father looks quite stern
And mother looks quite stressed
And we try to look quite proper
As we are quite primly dressed
When faces grow quite stiff
While smiles not quite freeze-dry
There really can only be
One valid reason why…
….family picture-taking-time

There are pinches, pokes and pushes
Then kicks and mother’s scolding
There are sighs and moans and groans
As our 'best smiles' we are holding
That turn out to be wasted
Because of an out-burst of laughter
Though we cannot remember
What was so funny after…
…family picture-taking time!

Okay, this is it,
Now every one POSE!
We all do our best…
One has their eyes closed!
One, two, three,
Let’s try again
‘a-w-w-w! I wasn’t ready
Sister’s being a pain!’
Oh, yes its family picture-taking-time

…so when father looks stern
And mother looks stressed
When we all try to look
Our very best
As we look at the camera
Smile and say ‘CHEESE!’
Tell me, this one is going to work
PL-E-E-E-A-SE!
Its family-picture-taking-time!

Take 70!

Janet…
Otherwise known as M-O-O-O-M!!!!

Yesterday I 'booked an appointment' with my family to be at home
so we can take a long over-due family picture...

p.s. I'm trying to pick one of the ump-teen photos to put into a card,
but one cannot edit eyes open,
or non-smiles into smiles or
add the rest of a person where it is cut off,
or un-cross eyes....the list goes on:)

My apologies to those of you who find photos hard to load...
This afternoon my internet is working but it is being very moody.

Once...

Because it is not in the measure

Of desire or despair

Or accumulation of

Fortune or faults

By which we are judged

When this clock halts…

And because I will never be able to reach

The point where I can

Justifiably throw stones

To hinder or hurt

Or forget that I too am

But a beggar clothed in dirt…

Or just because I cannot touch you

Does not mean that

I am unable to love you

Or meet you where

We can feel each other

In the arms of prayer…

Because this clock of life

Is wound but once

Never returning to yesterday

Or leaping to tomorrow

There is no need then

Either of its cares to borrow….

Because God will never

Discard me as hopeless

Or unworthy of His care

And because I need only to trust

From moment to moment

I can do what I must...

Because I cannot afford to squander

This gift wrapped in Time

I will choose only to love

You; for I have but a single chance

The clock of life

Is wound but once…

Janet~

http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-our-inspiration-this-week-ive-taken.html

Thoughts on Thoughts

You align your presence
to the curve of my thought
The force of an ocean
in a heartbeat, caught
somewhere between
my lips and my sigh
like a ship being swallowed
by the sea and the sky

***
Behind our eyes
Intricately designed
Is an infinite cell
Simply called a mind
And from it will flow
All manner of thought
Our action will show
What words do not

***

In every action
In every deed
Whether minute or mighty
Thought is its seed

***

Do we serve thought?
Or are we its master?
Thought is the forerunner
To success or disaster

***

I thought I knew a little
But with each passing year
The little bit I thought I knew
Has seemed to disappear

***

My thoughts are always more beautiful
With you in them

***

What is the measure
Of one little thought?
Coupled with action
I believe…quite a lot!

***

Who can know the power
Of the mind at all
By it man becomes great
And by it great men fall

***

The power of a man
Cannot be defined
By physical attributes
But the strength of the mind

***

Physical strength, no matter how fine
Is oft overcome by weakness of mind...

***

What are you thinking about today?

My thought had been to post one poem on thought but as I thought about thought more thoughts appeared;))

Janet

Someday Upon the Open Sky

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU&list=FLsqea52gOM17vOYBlwPVKvA&index=7&feature=plpp_video
(click on the wheel on your mouse to open the link to a wonderful song)


Someday upon the open sky
The sun and stars shall dim
As all God’s heavenly angels cry
Behold, behold your King
And from four corners of the earth
Each trembling knee will bend
To see the Child of lowly birth
On Heaven’s throne descend

Dare we to scoff and jeer and scorn
The One laid in a manger
For unto us a Child was born
That day to be our Savior
Someday upon the vaulted cloud
We will look up to see
That this is Jesus Christ the Lord
Love’s sacred Deity

Then the whole earth will turn to weep
At His pure holiness
But this true Shepherd knows His sheep
And they, the Shepherd’s voice
And those who long have waited for
The coming of their King
Will rise to meet their Shepherd Lord
And join the angels hymn

Janet Martin

I'm listening to the Christmas songs while doing housework.
Powerful messages in each one, words of hope and peace and joy and love.
Hallelujah!