Days Like This...

Mama said there’d be days like this…

You know, the ‘pushing water up-hill’ kind of day

But just like the frolicking laughter days pass

So too, the double-trouble days will slip away

Over the edge of the western sky-line

The bag and baggage of it disappears

Only to be remembered as ‘that was the day’

As we recall the highs and the lows of life’s years

And for all we know, someday looking back

Remembering again this day we had

We will simply shake our heads and laugh

Saying it really wasn't all that bad

Was it the Wayward Wind?

Oh, was it in the wayward breeze

That spun its laughter through the hush

Where whitewashed lattice-work of trees

Submitted to God’s startling brush?

Or was it in that perfect snowflake

Dangling for a wee half-grin

On the lash 'gainst Nature's cheek

Before passive oblivion…?

Was it in the music trickling

From the snow-brushed altitude,

Or in the somnolent caressing

Of God’s fingers on cold wood?

…or in the melody of winter

Strumming silver notes of mirth

In a sweeping, tangent love-song

To the frozen tides of earth

But suddenly a breath of wonder

Lodged its teardrop in my throat

As I stood upon time's splendor

Earth's bedraggled overcoat

…caught in the trance of moments falling

Into past’s expanding sea

Invisible; yet full and rolling

Waves unfathomed beneath me

And here I am, briefly suspended

On life’s fragile thread of grace

Was it the wayward wind that opened

Up my eyes to see His face?

Janet

Thoughts while I was out skiing…

I felt like a one man army crashing through perfect, pristine fields and snow-brushed stillness…

 Praise the LORD from the earth,
   you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
   stormy winds that do his bidding,  Ps. 148: 7-8

Whispers

There is a song that I would like to hear
once more, my dear with you
but death is long; life short I fear
for all we seek to do
Time and miles in silent smiles
may weave their  latent chain
Creating the impression of
faint shadows on the wind ...
....a wisp of everything that might have been

In every hour a small eternity
of thoughts and wishes bleed

I do not have the power, dear
to withdraw hope from need

And when the night of pale moonlight
is low and long and and deep
I write those things that I must write
in memories to keep

…the echo of those things that might have been

Time marks our footprints on the sands
of silent history

With every heartbeat tugging strands
of present-tense from me

Directing our feet forward
While our eyes should do the same

But in the midnight portal
I hear echoes breathe my name

…and speak of everything that might have been

Everything that might have been,
Dear love, may yet still be

The whisper of tomorrow’s hymn
 A begging mystery

And so the song I want to hear
In retrospect still plays

Across the dark blue atmosphere
A thousand yesterdays

…extol a melody of things to be

J~

Poemlets and such...

Expectation without example

Is a tough act to follow

A life well-lived

Is lived in moments
An unfulfilled life
Is a quiet torment

Fake your knowlesge
If you must

Wisdom cannot
Nor can trust

Dare to love recklessly

There is nothing to lose

But chance
Dare to live fully
Just close your eyes
and dance

In well-doing

We do well

Placing trust

In a perpetual liar

Is like trusting thin ice

Next to a fire

Moments are pennies

Hours are dimes

Little is much

In multiple times

Dig deep

When burying grudges

Walk carefully

Between lines of gossip

We are never too wise

For life’s school

Or too educated

For the Golden Rule

Thought

Shapes desire

Desire

Shapes action

Action

Shapes lives
And lives
Shape history
History shapes
What we know
...what we know
shapes thought...

I think I know...
I love you!


Janet~

Well of Learning

 image source; superpunch.blogspot.com 

Tis an ever-deepening well

This well of ‘things to learn’

Years do not seem to fill

The void; instead I yearn

To know more now then I did then

In blithesome, carefree years

Where I presumed ‘now’ would be when

The thirst would disappear

Because I would have learned the breadth

Of what there is to know

But all that I have learned instead

Is that I’m learning slow

And the more I learn I see

The less I know to tell

And what remains still to be learned

Is an ever-deepening well

Janet~

The Coldest Cold

They use words like ‘family’ and ‘home’

He blows on his cold coffee, blinking hard

And pretends he is not listening

While the hollowness expands in his soul

Laughing, they gather mittens and scarves

Chatting incessantly through lingered farewells

Of ‘see you soon’ and words like ‘friend’

He has never known their warmth nor they his depth of bitter cold

His cold cannot be soothed by mittens or scarves

Even the box that he calls home is warm

In comparison to the chilling agony in his soul

As an eternal echo weeps alone, alone, alone

Oh, he’s known a family of sorts, gathered around

The warming stove of an old rubbish bin 

But its members come and go, or die

And they all suffer the plight of an unbearable chill

Once a passing gentleman yelled ‘God loves you, son’

Tossed him a coin and patted himself on the back

Returning to the comfort of home-fires, behind closed doors

While outside the chill grew deeper, freezing the tears in his soul

Janet~

To my Child...because of Grace

http://free-extras.com/images/the_holy_bible-2880.htm; image source

How do I teach you everything you need to know
Before time tugs you into its perpetual flow
And you sail away into the vast unknown
Without me
but not alone…

How do I reach beyond my mountain of failures
asking you to forgive ,as tears flow in silent rivers
down my face
and I would lie down, unable to continue
if not for grace…

How do I teach you, when I, still in the middle of learning
realize that even now as moments pass, there is no returning
to undo the done
but simply to breathe a new breath of grace,
to trust and carry on

All red and wrinkled you were placed in my arms; in my heart
forever, time and distance cannot pull us apart
so it is with love; and God will not spare
His grace to us
It is everywhere

How do I teach you to see Him in life’s twists and turns
as every fiber in my being yearns
for more time; But there will never be enough
time to empty earthen vessels
of this thing called love

And even as I hold you, I feel you slipping away
and there are so many things I cannot find the words to say
and so I pray for strength, wisdom, and oh,
how to tell you what is most important
before you go

How do I help you to see past my erring example, dear child
to the Perfect Example that will never fail; the divine Guide
He does not lead us wrong
and by His grace we trust
and we are strong

How do I teach you, my precious child, to live precariously
through Him, trusting blindly, loving fully,
forgiving freely
and knowing that in every unknown
you are not alone

How can I teach you that His Word is an ever-abiding
faultless beacon; the true Light when deciding
against the advice of the world
for it is base, self-seeking
and cold

How do I open my arms far enough to let you go
and yet folded permanently holding you close
…so close that I feel you everywhere
because of grace, God's grace
and prayer…

Janet~

inspired by: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/what-a-parent-wants-to-say-before-a-child-leaves/

Albino Sky

Albino heavens reach to earth
Blending with winter’s argent girth
No stark horizon-line revealed
To separate the sky from field

The sun, a wan and sickly orb
Cannot penetrate the robe
That spreads its colorless attire
Across a dormant atmosphere

The statue of a stalk or tree
Scribbled upon earth’s frozen sea
Is nature’s verdict indicating
Life beneath this pale shroud waiting

Transient scope of veiled illusion
Dull and tuneless inter-fusion
Frustrates mortal’s pleading eye
As earth amalgamates with sky

Janet Martin

Every so often in the winter we get a day
When earth and sky are exactly the same shade…