But One Thing We Know

PAD Challenge day 29: For today’s prompt, write a what nobody knows poem. It’s easy to write a poem about what everybody already knows, though it may be difficult to write an interesting poem about such things. Still, use today’s prompt to explore things people may not know–secret stories, locations, and so on.

Nobody knows, until they are taken

What waits around today’s bends

And nobody knows when we will waken

Where this world’s aging ends

But one thing we know

For sure and for certain

Death will draw

That final curtain

Nobody knows what hereafter looks like

Or then, when we open our eyes

How we will feel, our images trite

In the 'sights' that we surmise

But one thing we know

In this dust-to-dust span

Time will defeat

Every best laid plan

Nobody knows how far Forward flows

Until God’s touch will sever

The chord that binds Time’s worldly woes

To Unfathomable Forever

But one thing we know

This breath-stint on earth’s sod

Ends, then death opens

The Gateway to God

© Janet Martin

But Nobody Knows...

PAD Challenge day 29: For today’s prompt, write a what nobody knows poem. It’s easy to write a poem about what everybody already knows, though it may be difficult to write an interesting poem about such things. Still, use today’s prompt to explore things people may not know–secret stories, locations, and so on.

Nobody knows

though, I suppose they suppose

what perhaps ebbs and flows

in thought's half-closed cell

because our finger-tips 

can drop hints and lips

are a door through which slips

what word-shadows will tell

...but nobody knows

as past casts highs and lows

in love-loss-longing throes

to those walled worlds within

which what-when-where-why

may soft-silver our sigh

with the ruins that lie

beneath our skin

Janet~

Of Living and Loving

Grief is the guaranteed price we pay for love. Ann Voskamp

Ebb-flow, hold-let-go

Glad-sad winnowing

Filling up time’s little cup

With living

Old-new, how-are-you

Time-chime echoing

Where today becomes the fray

Of living

Touch-taste, pause-haste

Love-trove’s take-giving

As we learn the no-return

In living

Small-tall, leap-fall

Flying barely-moving

Lending us the impetus

For loving

Push-pull, empty-full

Kiss-then-miss you wringing

Where joy’s leaf is ripe with grief

Of loving 

and living

© Janet Martin

Poem-matter

Whether writing it, reading it or riding it, Poem is a lovely Word.

PAD Challenge day 28: Here’s the final “Two for Tuesday” prompt of the month:

Write a matter poem. Matter is what things are made of.

Write an anti-matter poem. The opposite of a matter poem.

(An attempt at combining both matters into one poem because Poem is far more than ink and page;-)

As far as I can tell, the well
Of poem-matter never dries
Though I have yet to find the swell
Wherein its pulsing Presence plies
An 'almost Thing' into word-art
For bits of ink can stun the heart

...and steal One's Very Breath away
The tempest of type-print can rouse
On modest forum of blank page
With naught but consonants and vowels
Ageless arrangements of thought-jot
Where we touch-see-taste what is not

Pity the one who cannot see
Beyond the box of Here-and-Now
Nor on a verse of poetry
Traverse, averse to it somehow
For, though sight is a narrow street

They choose its ground beneath their feet

And yet, as far as I can tell,

The well of word-spring has no floor

Nor can a hand chain or corral

The wonderland of troubadour

Where 'almost' is a tasty lure

That only Poem can procure

Janet Martin~

More than Happen-stance

PAD challenge Day 19...write an authority poem.

 

It's a bit of a dull-ish polish today;-)

We, beneath an Authority we cannot fully see

But glimpse in sky-wide, country-side and moiling majesty

Of heaving sea, admit that something more than happen-stance

Holds stars in space yet breath-soft, traces lace upon the branch

That reached into the winter cold, blue afternoon until

Authority we cannot see endowed the bud to spill

Another season of leaf, green upon reef dull and brown

Where we half-stumble, half-tumble between Time's up and down

And cannot pause the turning page or wage a war against

He who rules earth and heaven with far more than happen-stance

Janet Martin

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
Ps.103:8

Honesty's Utmost

PAD Challenge day 14:Two-for-two Tues.; Write an honest poem or write a dishonest poem.

Sometimes the honesty I almost speak
By the grace of God, gets stuck in my cheek
And tumbles out in a kinder, blinder hue
Of my, oh my, how I love you

It is not dishonest to bite one's lip
Leaving Spite Unrequited in an 'almost-slip'
Honesty is honorable and kindness is too
Its utmost quells malice and spells 'I love you'
 

Janet~

Storm-scarred

PAD challenge day 12: write a damage poem. (playing catch-up on a few prompts I missed:)

No retaliation now, wrath

Of word-storm spent

Where skin veils the aftermath

Of damage it rent

Sad, silence reigns

Where shards rained harsh, hard

And all that remains

Are hearts, storm scarred

Dry eyes can hide

The tears that fall

Somewhere inside

On a storm-scarred wall

© Janet Martin

No Good Then...

 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Rev.3:20

PAD has us looking back today...

No good then to look back, when

That last exhale is taken

If we wait, Death is too late

To believe, as we waken

…face to face with God and eternity

No good then to cry,’ Lord, now I believe’

© Janet Martin

I just spoke to my neighbor Arnold's sister-in-law. They flew in from Manitoba to be with him, to share last words with him and listen to his parting thoughts. Arnold has been lingering at death's door for over a week now. His dying plea is this: ‘be ready, before your last breath is taken, know you are readyto meet Jesus!’