Abundance Masterpiece

Poem-a-day challenge day 7: For today's prompt, write an abundance poem

But do not weep, no one can keep

Night’s undoing at bay

Upon the east dawn spreads a feast

Abundant with Today...

A smile, a bird, a gentle word

Dear little girl or boy

A nature nook, a brimming brook

Rouses abundant joy

A cup of tea, a hug, a tree

Eager for spring’s seamstress

Wakens a woo that turns into

Abundant happiness

Dream-streets to roam, page for a poem

So many yet to write

Can tune the part that thrills the heart

With abundant delight

The Hand that brings to little things

The speechlessness of awe

Opens our eyes in meek surprise

To love’s abundant law

…where He bestows to thorns, a rose

To winter’s waning, spring

In flowers, frogs and puppy dogs

Abundant anthems ring

Like rolling seas, life spills with ease

Across dusk’s shadow-shore

Gold-gray, blush-blue all meld into

Abundant worlds of yore

But do not weep, no one can keep

Night’s undoing at bay

Upon the east dawn spreads a feast

Abundant with Today

Where faith lifts up hope’s battered cup

Where Mercies/wonders never cease

But fill time’s frame to earn the name;

Abundance Masterpiece

© Janet Martin

Psalm 86:5,15
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; 

and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee…

Lam.3:22-24

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[a]
    his mercies never come to an end;
 they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Reality Checkup

Ps.103:11

For as the heavens are high above the earth, 

So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;

CN Tower, Toronto, Ontario

It’s easy to find in life’s day-to-day grind

Of lessons that teach what they must

So many a reason, no matter the season

To fret rather than pray and trust

Its easy to miss in the muddle and kiss

Of hurry and worry and more

Midst giving and taking and dream-castles breaking

The Hand that is holding the door

Where doom and mayday groom longing with dismay

It’s easy to shift our gaze

From ‘Greater is He’ to the trouble we see

On pedestals of Numbered Days

It’s easy to be overcome with the plea

And thus, numbed to mercies that pour

God’s goodness unfurled in a beautiful world

That thunders with wonders galore

© Janet Martin

(not even close to daffodils this year!)

Psalm 117:2
For great is His loving devotion toward us,

 and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

 Hallelujah!

What in the World

Poem-a-day challenge day 6:For today's prompt, write a blank in the blank poem.

wishing all a day of purposeful happiness

(or, in some cases happy-mess😅💗💕)

What in the world would be better than trying

To be the person we would like to meet

Always the hour’s fleet flower is dying

Scattering echoes beneath our feet

What if we tried to be part of the beauty

On today’s canvas, soon splattered with paint

What if we honored dictations of duty

Rather than airing our curse and complaint

What if we counted the ways to be grateful

If living kindly was our true delight

What if we saw each new day as a plateful

Of blessings whetting worship’s appetite

What if we turned fisticuffs into handshakes

What if we didn’t ‘bite-back’ quite so much

What if we softened this journey of heartaches

With often-uttered endearments and such

What if, because we so cherished each other

Words would be gentle and patient and sweet

And we would see, through the eyes of a mother

A world full of people we would like to meet

...how, in a world full of fasting-fading flowers

We can be part of love’s heart-throbbing song

What would be better than scattering hours

In echo-petals of fondest so-long

© Janet Martin

Job 14:1-2

“Mortals, born of woman,
    are of few days and full of trouble.

They spring up like flowers and wither away;
    like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.

1 Peter 1:24
For, "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field;

 the grass withers and the flowers fall,

Handful of Seeds?

 

Poem-a-day challenge day 5:

For today's prompt (the first Two-for-Tuesday prompt of the month),

write a make sense poem and/or don't make sense poem.

It doesn’t make sense that something so little and brittle should kindle such joy

The rush of elation roused by contemplation of what waits within its employ

Of places to wander and graces to ponder as wonder its plunder beholds

Completely breath taken by what will awaken, that raindrop and sun-kiss unfolds

Each April as surely and sweetly and purely as winter’s traces disappear

A feeling comes stealing, nay, reeling and pealing like bells tolling in the new year

As seeds for the garden (so seemingly common) then, utterly awe and amaze

And fill heart-recesses with thrilled happiness-es that spill into anthems of praise

Because we remember stunning petal splendor, the fruit of our labour’s reward

The way that a kernel begets virgin, vernal abundance of goodness outpoured

Instilled with cool bowers, bright rainbows of flowers, provision for needs great and small

So little and brittle, ah, handful of miracles; Perhaps it makes sense after all

© Janet Martin

Because we remember stunning petal splendor, the fruit of our labour’s reward...

the fruit of our labour's reward...

Defying Common Sense of Sequence

Poem-a-day challenge day 5:

For today's prompt (the first Two-for-Tuesday prompt of the month),

write a make sense poem and/or don't make sense poem.

Why is it in the night

sweet slumber 

will not shut my eyes

but oh, sleep shuts them tight

around the 

hour of sunrise

Janet~

Beyond Comprehension (John 3:16)

Poem-a-day challenge day 5:

For today's prompt (the first Two-for-Tuesday prompt of the month),

write a make sense poem and/or don't make sense poem.

There Is A Fountain

You loved the world so much You gave your Son; for none could earn

Enough to pay sin's ransom; what can I give in return?

For whatever I think of in the name of love seems small

Compared to what You gave; sinless, You came and gave Your all

No matter how I ponder it I cannot comprehend

Such height and depth and breadth of love all sinners to defend

The cross you bore, the bloody gore to redeem human race

Defies all explanation except one; amazing grace

 

...and all that You ask in return, redemption to receive

Is faith to take what none can earn; to repent and believe

Thus, surely it makes sense, in the light of eternity

That I should trust love so immense, that You would die for me

© Janet Martin

John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;

 but that the world through him might be saved.

Can You Smell It?

Poem-a-day Challenge day 3:

For today's prompt, write a smell poem.

It fills picnic baskets with quilt-and-book dreams...

It flutters and twitters in finch-frilled treetops...

It gleams in each sunbeam...

It gleams in each sunbeam, streams where brook-song brims

It sparkles in jewels that gild barren limbs

It quivers and gushes from heaven to earth

A river that rushes death’s graveyards with birth

It lilts in the lyric that landscapes compose

Hint of minty tincture and pink wink of rose

It wafts in the softness of purple mist-crowns

Hiding yonder hill, still steeped in grays and browns

It billows in breezes that test laundry lines

It melts in mosaics of last summer’s vines

It purrs in the fur of pussy willow trees

And laughs in the garden that wakes from its z-z-z-z’s

It spills like a love-song we had long forgot

A duet of bluebell and forget-me-not

It fills picnic baskets with quilt-and-book dreams

The shrieking of children knee-deep in cold streams

*It romps in the rollick of puppy and cat

It makes happiness feel so jolly and fat

In spite of mud-messes and shivery show’rs

Washing dowdy tresses and waking the flow'rs

It takes winter-weary woodlands in its arms

In renewals wrought only by nature's charms

It reinstates pulpits and preachers named Jack

And carpets its chapels with violet bric-a-brac 

It flutters and twitters in finch-frilled treetops

It shimmers in puddles, glimmers in raindrops  

It runs in the sap boiled to maple-sweet yum

First harvest's gold gathered in drum after drum

It flings wide the sense of a rust-jaded gate

Where havens of trillium and daffodils wait

Where choruses warble in numberless laud 

It rouses from slumber the gardens of God

It bobs in the step of farmer’s pep restored

It steams up from cups where outdoor tea is poured

It makes home-sweet-homers feel like queen and king

The pure, pungent, heady aroma of Spring

© Janet Martin

* click on link for a pure-happiness treat

Catch Me If You Can

Poem-a-day challenge day 4:

For today's prompt, write a catch up poem.

I'm playing poem-challenge catch up today after a busy weekend!💖

Always so much to do/love/write...

This morning was no exception...

Beauty dangled its poetic lure for all the world to see!

Morning to morning, night's mantle is rent

With the renewal of love's covenant 

So between Beauty and Duty...

Poetry

So much to cherish in so little Time

Moment-mementos to capture in rhyme

Duty's staid summons to tend and disperse 

Beauty (never common) to secure in verse

Love-lassoed lyrics so when day is done

Though the dust settles the music plays on

So much to whisper to He who resides

Over the glister of dawn-to-dusk-tides

Morning to morning, night's mantle is rent

With the renewal of love's covenant 

So many sins to repent of, oh my

 Praise God, redemption's fount never runs dry

I know, no poet can ever deplete

Ink-wells refurbished with bitter and sweet

Still, the bard blissfully pledges to try/dare

Desire dredges its deeps with a sigh/prayer 

So many syllables to twist and tease

Into haiku, ballads, odes, elegies

Darling, I do believe poets are kissed

With the loveliest unmet to-do-list 

Forbid that ever I should live to see

The consummation of all poetry

For the fulfillment of poet's delight

Is the instilled bent to write and to write

Garden and galley, brook-creased countryside  

Hilltop and valley, fleece-cloud, blushing bride

Babies and butterflies, loved-one-come-home

Forming the font that turns into a poem

Turning what might be a most mundane day

Into a breath-stealing hip-hip-hooray

The alphabet fills an infinite pen

Spilling and thrilling, again and again

Thoughts become children we hold then let go

 Page after page falls like epical snow

Where want and wonder grapple and set free 

Life-sparkles canonized in poetry 

Blue, twilight shadow falls, troubadour's bliss

Snaring a madrigal from farewell's kiss

Only to be wakened by dawn's hellos 

Morn, noon and night; ink-delight ebbs and flows 

Where, no matter how many poems span

One more is calling 'catch me if you can'

© Janet Martin