Longing For What Seems Lost (a Covid-Weary Canadian's Nostalgic Lament)

I had no idea just how precious the ordinary was

before everything changed!

How beautiful the cleated feet of players, baseball-proud

How wonderful are words like, ‘could I have a refill, please?’

How lovely to be buffeted by elbows in a crowd

Ah, what a neon masterpiece, flashing ‘no vacancies’

How perfect is the planter, pruner, picker’s glistening brow

How handsome are the calloused, blistered hands of honest toil

How holy is the ground we trample and the heads we bow

As mourners merge around a grave where death collects its spoil

How utterly breath-taking is a church-house with packed pews

How hearty the handshaking, back-slaps, hug-comradery

How sacred is the gathering where worship pours its dues

How gorgeous is a dinner table set for company

How priceless is the freedom to come and go as we please

How pretty are your eyes, nose, mouth, wrinkles and double-chin

How nice, the music some call noise, that comes with families

Because we’re running late and someone’s patience has grown thin

Oh, lucky you in the parade behind stop-go school bus

(It never crossed our minds, how precious was the commonplace)

To think that in those dear old days we used to fume and fuss

Before we grew accustomed to people with half-a-face

How precious are the plans for proms, performances, menus

A wedding guest list open for 'all welcome to attend'

A kitchen full of giggling girls, reasons to buy new shoes

A dinner-reservation for a birthday for a friend

No deafening applause now, for goals scored in overtime

How hesitant the glance across the six-foot ‘safety-zone’

How stiff the shoppers move to keep their steps between the line

How foreign feels the world where fear has made its presence known

How beautiful, the bustle of a busy workaday

How wonderful are words that come from smiles seen and not guessed

How lovely to be to planning a much-needed getaway

How good to be reminded to count the ways we are blessed

© Janet Martin

Of Stumbling Block or Stepping stone...

PAD Challenge day 8: 

For today's prompt, write a metaphor poem. 

A simile is when something is like a something else (example: I am like a tree);

 a metaphor is when something is something else (example: I am a tree). 

So take a moment to consider possible metaphors and then poem them out.

Not quite the metaphor poem I was going for, but this is who it 'fell'

Which one are we?

We take up such a teeny spot

But what a sacred role we’ve got

For by our acts, we will be known

As stumbling block or steppingstone

We may not notice at first glance

While caught up in the circumstance

How composite of skin and bone

Is stumbling block or stepping stone

For we all have a part to play

Life is far more than day-to-day

It is a footpath that we hone

With stumbling block or stepping stone

We feed the flame of fear or hope

Rock solid ground, or slippery slope

We, with the grit of pray or groan

Are stumbling block or stepping stone

Do we indulge an idle mind

Or strive to be useful and kind?

Where little feet wait to be shown

By stumbling block or stepping stone

Such a short time, we take our place

In a long line of human race

Where act-and-react sets the tone

Of stumbling block or stepping stone

© Janet Martin

Let us not therefore judge one another any more: 

but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock 

or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

Romans 14:13

Delight and Disappointment's Crown

...the sun rises,

doles out its daily dose of delight...

and disappointment...

then tucks another page of time to the archives..

Delight and disappointment

Compose life’s harmony

Where love’s perfect contentment

Mingles with misery

Where trying could mean flying

Or face-plant in the dirt

Where holding means untying

Those heartstrings where they hurt

Where life is always teaching

More than seen at first glance

Where hope is always reaching

Beyond the circumstance

Perpetual estrangement

Of moments, echo spun

A rose and thorn arrangement

Shadows cast by the sun

A bittersweet concoction

Of dazzling dreams and shards

A motley interaction

With brutes, beggars and bards

Where prayer is never nothing

So prayer, dear comrade, pray

For there is always something

To learn along the way

Delight and disappointment

Seem to go hand in hand

One thrills us with enjoyment

One tests creature demand

But somehow as we weather

Dismay and happiness

The two of them together

Crown us with thankfulness

© Janet Martin

Battle Cry For Faith Warriors...

"His divine power has given us everything we need 

for a godly life through our knowledge of him 

who called us by his own glory and goodness."

  2 Peter 1:3

For now we see through a glass, darkly;

 but then face to face:

1 Cor.13:12

The cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day,

and fire was in the cloud by night, 

in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

Exodus 40:38

Though we do not have a visible pillar of cloud by day

or pillar of fire by night, believers have the Holy Spirit, indwelling them,

'his divine power giving us everything we need for a godly life'.

He is as present as a pillar of cloud and fire!

Though feelings may ebb and flow and understanding falters

it is not what we feel that counts, but what we know!

How Firm a Foundation...

Fernando Ortega

Get thee behind me satan,

Sire of doubt-fear-lies

Of scorn, prideful and blatant

Of wolf in sheep-disguise

Faith fixes its survival

On what it cannot see

It fights life’s brutal battles

With bowed head and bent knee

It does not ask for reason

Or evidence or proof

But trusts God through each season

His Way IS Life and Truth

Get thee behind me, satan

You evil, hateful foe

Faith is a firm foundation

In God, who loves us so

© Janet Martin

This poem also works into today's prompt at Poetics Aside

 PAD Challenge day 7: For today's prompt, write a villain poem.

Elemental Metamorphosis

PAD Challenge day 6: For this Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

Write a change poem and/or...

Write a don't change poem.

The gold-etched puddle caught my eye this morning providing

the springboard to today's poem-prompt!

Dawn...

Gold etches remnant sketches of gray’s shattered aftermath

It gilds the place of tears to cheer the pilgrim on life’s path

From what we cannot change to what we can; where young and old

Are at the mercy of the Hand that begilds gray with gold

What is soon changes; elemental metamorphosis

Father Time soon estranges us from everything that is

So, before we begin to fret about all that is not

We’d better take a better look at all the good we’ve got

Because before we know it, we will look back on today

Change is on the horizon brimming with both gold and gray

Where for better or worse is always never very far

And change is often taking place exactly where we are

© Janet Martin

Change is on the horizon brimming with both gold and gray...

Dusk...

...and points in between...

The First Step Toward Happiness

 PAD Challenge Day 5:

For today's prompt, take the phrase "The First (blank),"

replace the blank with a word or phrase, 

make the new phrase the title of your poem, 

and then, write your poem.

The first step toward happiness is, Love the Lord, Your God

The second follows on its heels with cup of coffee laud

and tea parties with friends and neighbours!!! 

Oops, until reason's rhyme

Decided get-togethers 

was akin to deadly crime

(but getting high on cannabis is A-okay as long

as there's six-feet of outdoor space 

between what's right and wrong) 

okay, let's start over, I got a bit off track, sigh...

The first step toward happiness is, 'do not hold a grudge'

The second follows on its heels with 'let God be the Judge'

(But never mind His Word designed to have the final say

That will not fade even when heavens and earth pass away)

Oh dear! One more try!!!

The first step toward happiness is, to put on a smile

The next is not a second step but rather, second mile

For when we help our fellowman we find, to our surprise

That loving one another is where true happiness lies!

© Janet Martin

Yes!! That's what I was trying for!

Thank-you😘

Grand-sonny puts on the BEST smiles...

His sister is a bit more camera-shy

To Become a Champion

PAD Challenge day 4: For today's prompt, write an active poem.

I can still hear my mom and gramma encouraging us 

when we were children and ready to quit,

 'deah veah ohaldt, winned'. 

Translation from Pennsylvania Dutch,..

 'the one who keeps on wins!'

Jordan Spieth is living proof!

The one thing he did not do was quit!

'sometimes I shot balls till my hands bled

and nothing seemed to help' said

Jordan Spieth in an interview 

after his win at the Valero Texas Open

Anyone who follows golf is surely celebrating and rejoicing

with Jordan Spieth, after yesterday's triumph at the Valero Texas Open

  ended a four year victory-drought; his first win in 83 starts!!

Eagle, birdie, bogie, par

What a lot of ways there are

To test confidence and grit

Suffer long and do not quit

Grimace, grumble, grapple, grin

Take a few knocks on the chin

Weep, pray, rant, rave if you must

Slam your club into the dust

Weather heat and wind and rain

Take a deep breath, try again

Perfect drive or bunker-shot

Sometimes high-five, sometimes…not

Sometimes fairway, sometimes rough

Sometimes ace and sometimes duff

There is no way to win but

To keep on with drive-chip-putt

If you want the winner’s cup

Do not, oh, do not give up

This is the only way, son

To become a champion

© Janet Martin

Love Language of God

PAD Challenge day 3. For today's prompt, write a communication poem.

We in Ontario are just on the verge

of bursting into first glorious green!

Meanwhile....(enjoying our neighbour's puppies)

You burst forth, glorious and green

To both pious and libertine

Your showers fall to tame earth’s dust

On both the just and the unjust

Your buds unfetter Beauty’s fleur

Whether gaper is rich or poor

Your sunshine is so warm and sweet

On every shape-shade of bare feet

Your puppies, mischief-cute and soft

Your woodland fair where zephyrs waft

Your sense of Something wonder-wild

Your laughter of unbundled child  

Your brook and bird warble unfurled

In kindred hymns around the world

Convince this bard without a word

Spring is the love language of God

© Janet Martin