Of New Throughway

November PAD Challenge begins! For today’s prompt, write a new day poem.

okay, I wrote the above line yesterday but
 its New joined to age-old throngs, before I could get to the prompt!

So, a day later a new, New Today offers up its page of grace, 

 ...for some it will be a stage for celebration

(Congratulations to the Houston Astros for winning their first World Series Champion title!)

...for others a page bearing tears of disappointment

(no words needed)

Ah, laid beneath delinquent feet

Yon sweep of star-deep pales until

Redemption’s carpet gilds the street

And tints colorless field and hill

We, bonded to the old turn to

The New Today that time deploys

Where time insists upon its due

And runs it through with sorrow-joys

Earth’s boulevard, starred with the tears

Of grief and laughter’s testament

Hinges to scads of yester-years

A sphere of unmarred filament

Ah, here and now offers a dance

On tides where heavens ebb and flow

And dark relents to grant new chance

To prove the gratitude we owe

© Janet Martin

Thursday Thoughts on A Wednesday

Thursday Thoughts (little verses)

 started when I had Thursdays off...

Now they happen more or less where ever they land:)

The ladies were teasing me that my mind is likely composing a poem

as we conversed etc. this morning but it just does not work like that...

I often sit down, not planning on the words that come!

They often take a direction all their own

even when the hunger was for a poem of an entirely other nature.

All said, it was a fun, far too fast few hours!

In time we begin to appreciate Appreciation

Valuing the simple celebration

Of what is

***

As the years go by we learn to re-learn

How, what we thought we knew

Was a stepping-stone

To what we think we know

For now

***

It is not enough

To spout love-poems

Love is a second-mile language

Often in plain, sometimes painful

Syllables

***

To know when to speak

And when to be quiet

Now, there is a woman!

***

It all goes by so fast

We should remember

Not to forget

To remember this

***

The will to be willing

Is a battle half-won

But the battle to be willing

Is never quite done

***

 We should give today all we can

No more

But no less

***

Let’s admit it

We should quit it

All this keeping score

*If we have each other

We have so much

To be thankful for

© Janet Martin

*This community is mourning the sudden loss of my niece's class-mate

whose dad is my nephew's gym teacher. 

A few hours away a community also mourns the loss of a youth

with family-ties to this community!

Let's commit to cherishing each other with gentle kindness while we may!

Happy 75th Birthday, Mother

 In a few minutes this room will be filled with her daughters and daughter-in-laws for our annual Mom's-birthday-tea!

My turn to host!

On this very special Day, dear mom

We wish for you life’s best

That by the grace and love of God

Your year will be joy-blessed

On this, your seventy-fifth birthday

Mother, we want to tell you

How very dearly loved you are

Each day the whole year through

So, on this very special day,

We pray a special prayer

And thank God for the blessing of

Your love, sweet mother dear

We pray the Lord His face to shine

On you and give you peace

On this, your very special day

And until life will cease

Janet~ 

...and a nice devotional out of an antique gem of a book!

...see you on the other side of tea and treats.

(Everybody brings a yummy something to enjoy with out coffee and tea)

It's Halloween

Someone requested a Halloween poem and I realized I have never written a single one,

partly because Halloween in rural Ontario is a little quieter than town-Halloween.

We didn't go trick-or-treating as youngsters but sometimes we would sneak up to the attic and take clothes from mother's 'younger days box', stuff pillows into dresses til they fit, find funny hats and shoes, then we would knock at our own door and see if we could trick them into a treat...
or we would dash about the yard scaring siblings because everything seemed so deliciously-spooky!

 There was always a few neighbors who came in their costumes and I think we were almost as excited to see them as they were to 'be' them:)

I still remember staring at a boy who we played with all the time
but he was wearing a sad clown mask and laughing under it oh, how I hated it!!

I have approx. 10 treat bags ready just in case because my kids from daycare sometimes come.

The trees that laughed all afternoon moan, menacing and black

They claw the air where wide-eyed witches venture through the towns

Consorting with strange creatures each sporting a pail or sack

Fairies, black cats and princesses, robots, jail-birds and clowns

Mickey Mouse with a lady-bug, a vampire and a cow

Pumpkins with feet, a skeleton, gorillas, monsters, oh

Their quest for treats makes streets not quite as sinister somehow

While along jack-o-lanterened walks, white ghosts and goblins go

Wild shadows leap and lunge, toss trees, they screech and scratch and wail

Or so it seems; the wind, it screams and gives us good goose-bumps

Where dry leaves rattle like the bones of summer up for sale

The whole world is a haunted house full of hisses and thumps

…and it would be too scary to knock and say ‘trick or treat’  

(But mom or dad stands not too far away with watchful eye)

And soon flat sacks grow fat with loot sticky, salty and sweet

While overhead a host of phantom ghosts and witches fly

© Janet Martin

This Flight of Night and Day...

 

Been growing older...and old-ish with Alan's music,

from Here in the Real World,  Chasin' that Neon Rainbow  etc,to this one, The Older I Get

Interesting how an artist's writing and song choices change with the years:)

The older we get the more, not less, we start thinking about what's ahead

and what's important!!

This flight that leads to heights unfathomed grants another rung

Our senses tuned more meekly to It than when we were young

Thought’s scope of bold imagination turns a keener ken

To hope and soul salvation and mortality of men

It is a holy-fear-riled Thing; this breath-by-breath approach

Toward the Lord, where severing of skin and soul encroach

…and there is no escaping what will come and never pass

Love’s ultimatum shaping so much more than days of grass

No, no, don’t turn your head away and say it isn’t so

Our personal appointment date with God, ah, who can know?!

Don’t turn your heart from Him yet somehow think it will be well

Or slap each other’s backs and laugh and say ‘see you in hell’

Love does not leave us grasping blindly at some shrine engraved

Look at the cross, repent, believe and cursed soul will be saved

How awful is the thought of death and then The Judgement Day

If Unbelief, with final breath let’s heaven slip away

This flight of night and day is like a staircase through the stars

But laid beneath man’s bumbling breach on cradle-to-grave bars

And only by the grace of He who suffered Calvary

Are we prepared to not run scared when Mercy’s face we see

Holy, holy, someday we all will see Him, Love Sublime

The Son of Man enthroned, carried on clouds will shatter Time

The stars will fall and some will call on mountains then to hide

From Righteous Wrath of He who bled on their behalf and died

How is it hope and dread are so intricately entwined

Souls clothed in blips of dust-to-dust will soon leave earth behind

As daily grind, heave-ho, yes-no slips through an Awesome Door

This flight of night and day folded into Forevermore

© Janet Martin