storytelling: haiku, time and tides of life laced with grace

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Let me tell you a story. It’s as short as can be, though it encapsulates life, time and eternity, encounter and surrender to a higher Power—no less than God Himself.

It’s a story of how we seek to define our days and soon discover we are a slave to them, a slave to time itself and to our plans and ideas.

Then we cannot help but compare and contrast our efforts with those of others, see our flaws, faults and failings, even as we admire their seeming mastery of things, their coherence compared to our stumbling efforts to speak.

As a poet, I’d like my words to flow well but sometimes they just find a rhythm of their own. A cadence. A voice. A way to break free of the straight-jacket I often want to constrain them in. Like this week’s prompt from #RonovanWrites which I had three thoughts about.

In thinking about ‘Flow&Tear’ I soon saw how each haiku followed sequentially from one another, eager to speak as a haiku vignette story rather than three separate solo acts. Though I offer them to you individually, because that’s how they first came to me and how poetry often speaks best—one small, singular offering at a time.

Tear up the plans

Let’s tear up the plans

set a watch over our hearts

Life flows in God’s hands

©joylenton

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Comparison steals

Comparison steals

our joy—stilled by silent fear

the flow slows, halts, tears

©joylenton

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A fast flowing river

Grace wipes away fears

It’s a fast flowing river

running like my tears

©joylenton

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Moments in time

That ‘Monday morning’ feeling can sneak up on a person. Blues breathe their fumes all over the day, leaking into the rest of the week.

Maybe I’m feeling my age. A body’s aches and pains pave the way to pivotal thinking.

A new week begins and life moves on. There is no way to grasp back time.

Maybe I’m more aware of my mortality.

This life spans out with defined end points. A gateway to the grave.

And I am hungry to redeem whatever time is left. Capture the essence of it all.

Be aware of each precious moment.

Live with an attitude of gratitude.

Listen to my life.

“Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him” ~ Frederick Beuchner

Hear Holy Spirit speaking. Sense His whispers on the wind.

Heed the call to live life as fully and freely as possible.

Because each breath and each day is gift; every moment is grace.

And I know I need to be ready to embrace change ~ even as I cling to God’s grace to let go of familiar.

‘Time’

Centuries chronicle events in cement

Hours herald a pause, point, purpose

Rivers run into tides of transformation

Omega opens a final pathway to tread

No mere mortal can stem the flow

Old originating in the new, ad infinitum

Seconds, seasons and sadness signal its passing

©JoyLenton2014

‘Chronos’

Time on the move 

 a barely perceptible stream

which goes before  

 flows in-between and after

time as the future

 passing through the present

 and becoming the past

 sequential  and eventual

sliding on fast

 to its final descent

©JoyLenton2014

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1

How do you feel about redeeming the time and making the most of the moments?

 

Lost time

Do you ever wonder where time disappears to? Me too.

Each and every one of us has the same 24 hour allocation yet none of us will spend those hours in exactly the same way.

As an M.E and chronic illness sufferer, time may seem endless in terms of hoping for improvement and recovery.

Sleep can prove elusive and erratic.

Rest is far from restful if pain intrudes too much.

The life I dream of seems to slip through my fingers like grains of sand while I scramble to catch them.

Where did all those wasted minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and even years go?

I was laid low,  or slept through many of them.

Moans at midnight.  Sighs at dawn.  A body rising stiff to greet a day already half over for many.

Here I am:

A woman with training and experience that lies wasted.

A nurse needing care myself.

A poet penning in PJs.

A wife without the means to be a proper helpmate or companion.

I wrote the poem below at such a time of introspection. It spoke for how I felt then and may speak into your situation too.

‘Black Hole’

There’s a space

in my life

where time disappears

down a black hole

already littered

with discarded hopes

dreams and desires

enough to fill

several craters

stacked high

or light

a multitude

of funeral pyres

Where does it all go?

How do these things

slip away

from my grasp

writhing hither and thither

with eel-like slither

when all I want

to do

is clasp them

to my heart

and cry, “Stay!”

Maybe I’ve

risked too much

extended thought

and expended energy

on things not

really meant to be

some crazy schemes

foolish inanities

to become

a bonfire

of the vanities

©JoyLenton2013

And yet..

This is looking at things from a limited human perspective only.

Time is redeemable when our days and ways are surrendered to the One beyond its restrictions.

He uses everything in our lives for His purposes. Not a crumb is wasted.

How do you feel about time disappearing?