A Sweeping Invitation (to love)

Today's poem topic prompt from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest

For today's Two-for-Tuesday prompt:

Write a love poem, and/or...

Write an anti-love poem.

John 13:34
A new commandment I give you: Love one another.

 As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.

Romans 12:10
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. 

Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

1 Thessalonians 4:9
Now about brotherly love, you do not need anyone to write to you,

 because you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.

Hebrews 10:24
And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Love’s sweeping invitation crescendos; soft blush and blue...

...Turns gold as renewed Mercy spills, as morning is unfurled

Love’s sweeping invitation saturates heaven and earth

How we reply is crucial; for love is a sacred call

And no one is exempt from its incalculable worth

‘The greatest of these, love, The Greatest Commandment of all

Fathers, mothers, daughters and sons, neighbors and friends, oh my

Sisters, brothers, grandma, grandpa, grandchildren, husband, wife

So much to love, so little time, to utter our reply

To fellowman, but most of all to He who grants us life

The poetry of love is more than ink-endearments penned

(though The Bard and The Ballad are insep’rable, tis true)

Love is a language we struggle to fully comprehend

Beginning, first with God, who IS Love, then with me and you

Look, everywhere the opportunity to love abounds

How we reply, without a word, expresses evidence

Let’s slow down; listen longer where love’s need and creed resounds

And change the world with love’s unfathomable recompense

Imagine if we all did our little part to love

To lend a helping hand or walk a second mile, to pray

To live the loving kindness this old world needs much more of

And leave unspoken bitter words that love would/should never say

Love’s sweeping invitation crescendos; soft blush and blue

Turns gold as renewed Mercy spills, as morning is unfurled

And God extends love's faithfulness to likes of me and you

To help us love each other as we ought, in this old world

© Janet Martin

So much to love,...

Pups...

Yesterday morning I noticed the tip of a tail...😂💖

Neighbor's dog (also mentioned HERE)  had dropped by in hopes of a treat😆

Who could possibly resist those eyes!!

So much to love...

Mothers & sisters...

So much to love...

Daughters and Granddaughters

(watching yesterday's AWESOME eclipse)

Hard-working hubbies...

The list is endless, truly!

Romans 13:8
Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. 

For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:10
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. 

Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Matthew 19:19
...honor your father and mother, 

and love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Unequivocal Eclipse

 Today's poem-a-day challenge from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest

For today's prompt, write a major event poem.

A spectacular start to Eclipse Day...

Today bears an air of excited anticipation/expectation

for what has been dubbed a once in a lifetime celestial event!

A total solar eclipse!

Many have made much ado about this rare event!

Imagine if with similar excitement,  we anticipated and prepared for

Another Once in a 'lifetime' Celestial Event!

Rev.1:7

Behold, He is coming with the clouds, 

and every eye will see Him—

even those who pierced Him. 

And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. 

So shall it be! 

Amen.

(Today's poem can be read as one

or as five poem-lets)

To open my eyes to a front row seat

To goodness and mercy is no small fete

To want nothing dearer that God's Hand stayed

And to rejoice in this day He has made

To live in the moment before it is spent

Makes every Today a major event

***

To feast on the favors/flavors of hope and cheer

And savor the sparkle of Now and Here 

Before Today's Slice within reach becomes

A gaping impression of scattered crumbs

Ah, nothing and no one can capture time spent

Thus, every day is a major event 

***

The would-have and should have of yesterday lie

Like strewn husks beneath Today's beaming sky

Tomorrow's illusions may never unfold

Today's vault gleams with priceless moment-gold

Let's make the most of its measure soon spent

And treasure Today; a major event 

***

How lovely the laughter that dries the tear

How brief each leaf in the sheaf of a year

How hardly it seems daybreak spills hope's hues

Before darkly muffled by dusk's adieus  

How dearly then, before Today is spent

We should be tuned to its Major Event 

***

Each day is like a stepping stone; someday

God will reach down and brush them all away

Someday, each knee will bow, each tongue proclaim

That He is God; holy, holy, His Name 

Someday Unequivocal Evidence

Will eclipse all previous major events

Janet Martin

There's an old quote something like this;

For the believer, this world is as bad as it will get.

For the unbeliever, this world is as good as it will get!

What a (Glorious) Day That Will Be (for the Believer)

How hardly it seems daybreak spills hope's hues

Before darkly muffled by dusk's adieus  

No Minimalist (when it comes to poetry)

  Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest

For today's prompt, write a minimum poem. 

“Enough is as good as a feast.”

— Thomas Malory

Black coffee, wake-up call's delight

Feet touch down; glorious

So many mercies to ignite

Poetic impetus

From winter's drab, depleted vaults

To buds bursting with pink 

From zephyrs turning somersaults

Ten thousand ballads wink 

Heaven and earth's fullness implores

Poetic ecstasy

Each breath drawn from a sea that roars

With unpenned poetry 

Human nature, predictable

Would drive us dearly mad

Without Poetic Canticle

To keep us kindly glad  

Creation pulses, poem-kissed,

Thus, I can never be

An organized minimalist

Regarding poetry

As soon as I awake, it seems

To be my lovely lot

To troll a tugging tide, that teems

With poems yet to jot

A crimson rose, a freckled nose

The tireless march of time

Dusk's diamond-studded curtain-close

Beckon for lilt and rhyme 

A hand to hold while growing old

A lake, mantled in mist

A pansy, purple, white and gold

Poem cannot resist

'Enough is as good as a feast' 

Is good enough for me

Unless this includes an increased

Poem-frugality 

Janet Martin

My poetry book collection used to be contained in one cupboard,

but no longer...because a good poem book I simply cannot resist😅😏

No Minimalist (When It Comes to Love)

 Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Lee Brewer @ Writer's Digest

For today's prompt, write a minimum poem. 

I cringed to write today's poem, drawing from

'Love's Room For Improvement'

Help me Lord, to be more than

a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal!!

1 Cor.13:1-8

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love,

 I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have a faith that can move mountains,

 but do not have love, I am nothing. 

3 If I give all I possess to the poor 

and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,

[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, 

love is kind. 

It does not envy, 

it does not boast, 

it is not proud. 

5 It does not dishonor others, 

it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. 

6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

7 It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

Imagine if God gave only the minimum

of goodness and mercy?!

Instead He left Heaven to the sinner's debt

And break the curse of death and hell...

By speaking uplifting words??

No, by dying a brutal death on a cross!

Love held nothing back but gave His all!

Jesus Paid It All

To give the minimum will always be the giver's loss

A deed performed for duty's sake, a thankless albatross

The key to happiness is not a complicated plan

But is, and has always been love; God first, then fellow man

Love is no thankless joy; the more we give the more we gain

Though its reward is not like the treasure misers maintain

Love startles us with happiness that leaves hearts humbly awed

And filled with incomparable, fathomless peace of God

It is more blessed to give than to receive; can it be

This world groans because of Love's lacking generosity?

Have we become erring experts, defending greed's excuse

Twisting love's tender ties that bind mankind, into a noose?

To give love's minimum will always be the giver's rue

To love only those who love us, even the pagans do

Oh, God, make our happiness and heart's desire burn

With love's invested maximum of Eternal Return

Janet Martin

May the song below  be our life-prayer🙏💕

More Love To Thee

How Deep The Father's Love For Us...

Tell It Like It Is

Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer for poem-a-day challenge

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

replace the blank with a new word or phrase,

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

I Love To Tell The Story

Tell Me The Old, Old Story

 

Oh, tell it like it is

Half-truths set snares, you see

Tell of God’s love but do not miss

Accountability

Cast no shadow of doubt

Handle holy truths well

Tell of Heaven but not without

The solemn fact of hell

Tell of pierced hands and feet

Of pardon’s flood unfurled

Of joy that waits to make complete

The sorrows of this world

Tell of redemption’s grace

But to not skip this part;

Repentance is the sacred place

Where God’s forgiveness starts

Tell of love’s staff and rod

Ah, where can we begin

To measure the mercies of God

Without mentioning sin

Faith without works is dead

Yet grace no work affords

But, tell the words that Jesus said,

‘No man can serve two lords’

Tell of God, just and kind

Lest in life’s brief pursuit

Of happiness, we do not find

The Vine that yields good fruit

With earnest love implore

For the sake of the Soul

And tell the truth in full before

Last Breath unveils the whole

Oh, tell it like it is

Half-truth deception lulls

Its audience with compromise

That Last Threshing Floor culls

Tell of a Shepherd's call

Tell of a Shepherd's love

The Way the Truth The Life that all

Eternity will prove

Tell of the evidence

That transcends verbal claim 

All who love God heed His commands

To glorify His name

© Janet Martin

Tell-tale Signs of Joy to Come (on the laughing tide of life)

 Today's prompt from Robert Lee Brewer for poem-a-day challenge

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

replace the blank with a new word or phrase,

make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.

In Ontario we are in the see-saw season of

'ah, spring, oh, winter, ah, spring, oh-h...'

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace...

Futile to try to pry the bud to haste the bloom, or seize

A broom to sweep dustings of snow from hills and streets and lanes

To everything a season; soon the nakedness of trees

Will don fresh fronds of emerald lace and lofty leaf-refrains

Nature is never anxious, never ruffled by protest

It does not miss a beat, no matter how we rue its pace

Ah look, in the crook of the apple tree, a robin's nest

Beneath the garden bench crocuses beam with plucky grace

Foolish to chase the wind or shake an ineffectual fist

At Old Man Winter clinging to what not-a-one can keep

Ah, let him roar and war against the tug of shores, sun-kissed

Soon soft zephyrs will dance across meadows dappled with sheep

Futile to fret. Let hope whet appetites for joys at hand

As the first tell-tale signs of spring intensify until

Nothing can stem the laughing tide of life that sweeps the land

With green grandeur, pink blossom-blush and yellow daffodil

Janet Martin

Spring Waltz (Mariage d'Amour) Chopin

The first line in the 3rd stanza drew me to Ecclesiastes!

The endeavor...

Eccles.1:14

Ecclesiastes 1:17
So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly;

 I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind...

Ecclesiastes 2:11

Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished

 and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile,

 a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:17

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. 

For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:26

To the man who is pleasing in His sight, 

He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy,

 but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating

 that which he will hand over to one who pleases God.

 This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:4

I saw that all labor and success spring from a man's envy of his neighbor. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 4:16

There is no limit to all the people who were before them. 

Yet the successor will not be celebrated by those who come even later. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 6:9

Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. 

This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

The conclusion...

Ecclesiastes 12:13
When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this:

 Fear God and keep His commandments,

 because this is the whole duty of man.

Making the Most (from mistakes)

 Today's poem-a-day prompt from Robert Brewer @Writer's Digest

"For today's prompt, write a mistake poem.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Yes, even that person standing in the corner

shaking their head to the contrary.

And even those people who don't admit to making mistakes

have seen others make them.

So whether it's the mistakes you've made,

witnessed in others, etc., write a poem about it today."

A few wisdom-gems from Prov. 28...

Many are the mistakes authored by impatience. 

But many mistakes are also simply part

of the human experience of learning;

An education in kindness and humility!

***

Mistakes are indeed terrible if we refuse to learn from them.

***

Yesterday I made the mistake of thinking I could dash from the paint pail to the 

door I was painting without dripping on the uncovered part of the carpet.

I was wrong! thankfully I noticed the drip before it was totally dried

and much scrubbing later it was resolved!

Not all mistakes are quite that easily rectified, are they?!

Sometimes we mistake the mistakes we make as stumbling blocks

And dread the education learned in the school of hard knocks

But fumbles, stumbles and such can be blessings in disguise

Teaching us kinder sympathy and making us more wise

As, looking back we realize the stumbling blocks we rued

Were, in fact stepping stones toward a greater gratitude

Life’s ladders to success are riddled and scarred with mistakes

But they are not for naught if we have the courage it takes

To look them in the eye, admit the fault of it and then

Pick up where we left off, humble enough to try again

Becoming, through the blunder a more patient fellow friend

Because of the mistake that made us wiser in the end

Sometimes it isn’t easy to let mistakes have their say

Human nature wishes there would be an easier way

But, be that as it may, we can learn much from our mistakes

To sweeten the success that follows in its weathered wakes

(But, one kind word of caution as we enter Today’s School

The same mistake repeated often, may expose the fool)

Better to try and make mistakes than be fear’s captive, chained

Better a venture failed than nothing ventured nothing gained

Better to be a student of bungles than stand aloof

Because we are not brave enough to acknowledge reproof

Better to find, along the way, through detours Learning takes

Beauty, discovered in the silver lining of mistakes

© Janet Martin

Oh, bitter regret of The Mistake

But oh, the wisdom in its wake

And oh, the gentler spirit won
From what I wish I had not done

The Original Riverdance

 Prompt #3 from Robert Brewer @ Writer's Digest poem-a-day challenge

For today's prompt, pick a musical act or artist

and either make that the title of your poem

or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem.

Its splendor captures hearts and souls

In arrangements that spill

Through gullies, between hills and knolls

It runs its foaming drill

It thunders through the wilderness

And eddies into bays

Above its cascade, mists caress

Its roiling interplays

It performs without preference

As masterpieces grand

Roll without mortal audience

Through untamed timberland

A lyrist that commands respect

The lure of its appeal

As ageless as its dialect

Of silver, sage and teal

It serenades the fisherman

That navigates its stream

And sparkles like a sequin-fan

Where sunbeams waltz and gleam

It glides, as tame as nameless reeds

Idling along its shores

It clashes where two courses feed

Into one vein, it roars

…and frets and moans and froths and fumes

Until its ire is spent

To slide beneath the willow plumes

That strum its moody bent

Mingling of danger and delight

Of unbridled romance

Heeding a Maestro veiled from sight

Save in the river’s dance

It dips and dives, leaps, jives and falls

Liquid arpeggio

Of promenades and madrigals

That always steal the show  

© Janet Martin

LORD OF THE DANCE RIVERDANCE BY PANDAMIMIH

Isa.43:1-3

Now this is what the LORD says—

He who created you, O Jacob,

and He who formed you, O Israel:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name; you are Mine!

2When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you go through the rivers,

they will not overwhelm you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be scorched;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

3For I am the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;...