For All We Cannot See

  PAD Challenge day 4 (two-for-Tuesday)

Write a beginning poem. And, of course, when something begins, it often signals something else ending. Soooo, the other prompt is to…

Write an ending poem. Poem about something ending.

 

 

Sometimes we try to fix our eyes only on what we see

The Prize, my love, is not unveiled until eternity

So while we cope and grope and hope, what blessed assurance this;

Our faithful God does not forget; He keeps His promises

Time; but the chime and mime of clocks; a grace-lent madrigal

Its end is the Beginning of what matters most of all

We cannot find true peace of mind until our will is bowed

To God, forgiver of our sins; but He resists the proud

Sometimes we try to fix our eyes and sighs on what we see

But Jesus is the only Way to Life and Victory

His love, oh, not his judgement, is salvation for mankind

He promises that whosoever seeks will surely find

This life begins in full, my love, when first we are set free

To trust our faithful God above for all we cannot see

© Janet Martin

 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.

1 Pet.1:13

Miracle

 PAD Challenge day 4 (two-for-Tuesday)

Write a beginning poem. And, of course, when something begins, it often signals something else ending. Soooo, the other prompt is to…

Write an ending poem. Poem about something ending.

Begin again;

One foot and then

The other,

That’s the way

For what seemed

Like the end

Last eve

Is a fresh start

Today

The miracle

Of time is this;

Where new

Is birthed

From old

With nothing more

Than dark that lifts

And fills

Its arc with gold

© Janet Martin

 

Blades of Grass or Caught Off Guard

The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; Ps.103:15

We harbour secret sorrows in hollows of skin and bone

And know, in spite of loneliness, that we are not alone

The God who grants the loveliness of seasons is our Stay

And He will never leave us love-forsaken on life’s way

We cup-cup-cup the up-up-up and lay-me-down to sleep

And love-love-love and learn-learn-learn how little we can keep

As day-to-day becomes the way that winds through retrospect

And we are always here, where past and future intersect

We cannot turn back Time or leap ahead of its decree

And what waits to unfold is more than anyone can see

As by-and by slips through this sigh-and-why afflicted dust

While time takes time to try us with new, untried ways to trust

A bell tolls in each blossom where the souls of people pass

To loll or stroll beneath the bough that shades these ‘blades of grass’

Where soon-soon-soon April-May-June will dip to history

As on the brink of eons we make small talk and sip tea

…and say, (as if we just discovered a phenomenon)

How swift the day that slips away, how quick a year is gone

Then pray the Lord our souls to keep and we to keep His word

Lest death should call when we think not, and we are caught of guard

© Janet Martin

Testament of Love

PAD Challenge day 3:For today’s prompt, take the phrase “(blank) of Love,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

 Yesterday gold...
Today gray
God faithful
All the way

To do the things we ought to do
And not keep score or record of
Those second miles and weary whiles
 That balance softer smiles of love

To be fit for the task that asks
Love to be servant, never slave
And not to shirk love's harder work
 But to care well for what we have

 To take this day of gold or gray
And give it all that we can give
And not to waste its touch and taste
Where love is the best way to live

© Janet Martin

A Fantastic Matter of Fact

PAD Challenge, Day 2: For today’s prompt, write a “not today” poem.

There will be chairs of sand

And diets of sea-breeze and sun

And population tanned

And duty’s to-do left undone

Skies, bottomless and blue

Will drowse above the turquoise deep

Time’s panoramic view

White-capped, wind-swept and half-asleep

Laughter will lilt, a kite

The hour neither there nor here

Without a clock in sight

Save sailboats etched on coral pier

There will be barefoot strolls

But where we walked, no one can tell

There will be fishing poles

And fish that never bite, oh well

There will be summer, oh

There will be Holiday

There will be sea-song ebb and flow

But darling, not today

© Janet Martin

More Than Meets The Eye...

PAD Challenge: Day 1. For today’s prompt, write a reminiscing poem.
Suddenly first motherhood return in a flash and 24 years disappear!

We are having SO much fun since January brought a new wonder (first grandchild) into our days...

(January-photos by my niece Brittany Ruppert) 

 February...

March... 

There’s always more than meets the eye

The ear hears years long passed to naught

While days dole out their lullaby

To what we hold in hands and thought

Twenty-four years can disappear

Like nothing happened in between

The heart has doors no one can hear

They close on worlds once young and green

The clock can skin our talk alive

The jibe and jive of morn-noon-night

Distracts us, like a summer drive

When we forget time’s appetite

…’til, on the fringe of years run wild

We turn to hear a baby cry

Our firstborn holding her first child

There’s always more than meets the eye

© Janet Martin

Reborn...

PAD Challenge: Day 1. For today’s prompt, write a reminiscing poem. 

 I am recalling my dad's bouncing steps and his whistling as spring reignited both duty and dream!

He whistles as he works; his voice is filled with fiery pep

He seems much younger than his years with keenness in each step

His day begins in early morn, machinery starts to sing

For weary farmers seem reborn when winter turns to spring

Prelude to wheat fields gleaming like gold oceans at high noon

Is poured from bag to planter to the lilt of zephyr tune

Where soft, upon the stilly dusk the hum of steely steed

Is heard as Farmer tills the dust and refills trust with seed

The air is heady with the blend of tractor fumes and blooms

And fresh turned sod; God stirs the soul in nature's living rooms

Where it seems all creation is refurbished with the joy

Of sweet, sweet innocence reserved for childhood's girl and boy

The farmer knows that hope and woe will wage their yearly wars

That highs and lows of price and temps are hinged to spring's first chores

But still, he whistles as he works and dares to dream and plan

For spring, like a fountain of youth works wonder in a man

Janet Martin