I Would Never Trade...It

Writing while waiting for rounds two and three for supper😀

 The skyline was a riveting shade of blue all day long...

Thankful for the hello that preceded dusk's farewell

Bits of doggerel to waft soft on a brooding breeze

Thankful for the day we had before its shadows fell

Thankful for the moments that we wove to memories

No it’s not often perfect but the better part is good

And I would never trade it with you even if I could

Thankful for the rooms that echo with love’s song and dance

For the times we had and have, that always end too soon

Thankful for the music-notes that loss seems to enhance

Making me more mindful of a whistling minstrel's tune

No, the 'stars' are not perfect but as time's bars flare and fade

We seem to write a melody that I would never trade

Thankful for the seasons that run through us, smooth as air

Always something new in what is old as Father Time

Thankful for the reasons that teach us to live in prayer

Thankful for the view after the hill so hard to climb

Yes, it’s far, far from perfect; precious page so soon forsook

But I would never trade it for somebody else’s book

© Janet Martin

Let's Love Each Other

Let’s take a gentle pondering to re-evaluate

Why loving one another is so much better than hate

For hate is like a poison that kills joy and happiness

But love is like a hymn that lifts its voice to praise and bless

And love is like a big bear-hug but hate is full of pain

Love is patient and kind but hate is jealous, spiteful, vain

Love meets people right where they are with tender sympathy

Hate hopes the worst for others and ignores their misery

Love goes the second mile without ever missing a beat

Hate doesn’t even stoop to help the fallen to their feet

Love heals, hate wounds, love smiles, hate jeers, love listens, hate condemns

Love does not seek itself, hate does; love waits while hate demands

Love gives and gives and finds fulfillment as mercies out-pour

Hate takes and takes but cannot find what it is looking for
Love loves at all cost and builds up, hate tears down and destroys
Hate celebrates another's troubles, love celebrates joys

Love fills the heart with hope and peace, hate is full of torment

Love forgives but hate seeks revenge with self-pity’s lament

Love is from God for God is love, hate crucified our Lord

Let’s love each other while we can for rich is its reward

© Janet Martin

2 John 2:9-11
 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister^[b] is still in the darkness.  
 Anyone who loves their brother and sister^[c] lives in the light, 
and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.  
 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness.
 They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.
 

Candidates for Love

 It's February!

The month for some extra love-'stuff'

Hear the above poem of love by William Blake read aloud here

Happy-sad,

Wonder-glad

Always interlace

Hunger-hope,

Yes and nope

Always hinged to grace

Young and old,

Bashful-bold

Always not enough

Proud and meek

Strong and weak

Candidates for love

© Janet Martin

 This is how God’s love was revealed among us: 

God sent His one and only Son into the world,

 so that we might live through Him.

And love consists in this: 

 not that we loved God, but that He loved us 

 and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.…

1 John 4:9-11

Here's To Us (life's students)

 How swift those years when problems could be solved with a cuddle and kiss!

When houses were made out of shoe boxes without mortgages,

and dreams didn't need dollars...

(we're cleaning out closets and going through things that have been stored away for quite a while)

In ‘parenting’ one of the hardest tests for us is stepping back
as live-and learn begins, in our adult children
the grueling courses that we ourselves had/have…

 As we learn

Action=consequence,

Faith is hard and full of unanswered questions.
( Faith is the substance of things hoped for)

Numbers don’t lie

That happiness is not found in things

That pride goes before destruction.

That love is not always enough

That life really is short no matter how long it is!

That the small things are the big things 

That everyone eventually needs the Part that turns 'I' to 'we' 

That this too shall pass

That nothing takes the place of a kind word and helping hand.

Holding precedes the letting go

Joy is always hinged to sorrow

AND SO MUCH MORE!

So wherever we are in our live-and-learn courses
 here’s hoping we all seek direction/instruction
 from Someone who sees the whole picture,
while we still see 'through a glass darkly before face-to-face'

Here’s to the learning that we are all earning

Credits and scores never tendered to page

Here’s to hope’s reaches while time always teaches

We are all students no matter our age

Here’s to the pupil of passion or scruple

Stunned by the factors beyond our control

Here’s to a ledger without an eraser

Only God’s grace can absolve and console

Here’s to the dawning of our keep on ‘on-ing’

Never give up in spite of kicks and stings

Here’s to the scholar of dream-dust or dollar

Happiness happens in love’s simplest things

Here’s to the wedding of moment’s soft-threading

Past-present-future’s determined outcome

Here’s to the holding that precedes the folding

That seals the tally of Time’s total sum

© Janet Martin

February...

do you notice the heart in the above frost-fretwork?! sweet!

You paint the windows with feathered abandon

Frost field and fell with soft yellow and blue

One day a wild thing untethered and random

The next a stunning still-life avenue  

You mark the hour with cotton-ball flowers

Pummel with pillows a landscape at rest

You spark a sonnet with snow-stenciled bowers

Steal our breath with beauty’s brumal best

You draw us nearer to that dear exodus

When the bud breaks beneath Time’s pulsing push

You are the shearer of woolly white stratus

Tucking the earth beneath dazzling plush hush

You make the miser forget about money

If but for a moment, with geysers of gold

Your five-star meal of fresh-baked bread and honey

Makes us feel happy, whether young or old

You ready us for love’s headier romance

Highlights and low-blows, a mixed company

You form a frigid mosaic with moments

Warmed by a kettle-song’s afternoon tea

© Janet Martin