Thus, Begin

Sometimes you must lose
To learn to win graciously.
Sometimes your heart breaks,
To make room for love again.
Suffering can teach you
How to live more freely.
Disappointment gives a chance
For an increased appreciation of joy.
When you hit the bottom
Your energy renews for the climb.
When you are left empty, alone,
You discover your faithful friends.
When everything is gone, nothing left,
You reach for God and find Him there.
If your happiness disappears, with delight,
Jesus can restore your pleasure, full-measure.
If you need more than you are able
God can provide fulfillment plentifully.
Nothing is over unless you quit
Winners like you, keep going, getting up.

Beknownst

Time devours all things
In its forward mystery;
What it leaves behind
No one can wrestle from it
To alter, much less retrieve.

This time – a present –
Written upon every life
Turning the lush soil,
Allowing bountiful growth
Sharing LOVE in all moments.

Future hides its face,
Body pressing on drawn drapes
Breaking through the gaps,
Bringing breathtaking wonder
Beauty engulfing the spheres.

Each minute, hour, day
Is become, owned, shaped, written
For progress, helping
LOVE’s universality
Before nature fades away.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan

Prompt: As you read, pick out a concept and create something that expands the thought. Any form of art or wordsmithing is appropriate.

Five Tanka

Five lines written in the syllabic pattern of 5-7-5-7-7. Here I have five of them to be read, each, as a standalone. Prompt: If you like simplicity, you should try your hand at the form. Tanka are an excellent warm-up for any writing you wish.

Lost in and out of
Times relativity and
Space’s imposition.
Where can I wander without
Myself, who finds me yonder?

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You dance me around
Margins following the lines
Imagining we
Return to those moments when
We were one, reality.

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We thought we could learn
To live without each other,
But storms battered us
Until we came back calling
For the people we once were.

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Touch is mystery
Boldly original with
No filters, constructs;
It is always what is, no
Denying precedence, no.

//////////

Love is like ice cream,
A tasty high calorie
Treat, providing energy,
Delighting all our senses,
Yet trickles away with ease.

Eschew/Renew

We sketch our lives in
Invisible ink on these walls
Of air, earth, fire, flesh;
We pass like roses, beauty,
Only present a short while.
Our hands busy, selves,
Creating foundations for
Futures never ours,
Generations we offer
Our best gifts, accomplishments.
Now, we sing against
Doubt, fear, insecurity –
Fighting shadow blight
Where the fruit will flourish, brave,
In gardens of delight, saved
From degradations,
We erase with consistent
Labor over years
Paying in earnest, never
Letting faith, hope, slip away.
Love, our guiding light
Though we fade in brightest glare,
Almost completely
Unknown, contributing hearts
To lives, we wish to see free.
Words cannot bring
Every dream into being,
But speaking, a tool,
Purpose-built to encourage
Change within lives reached, inspired.
Plentiful, we, examples
Scattered over time, what minds
Mend, creating more sublime,
Love, part an art, taught hands-on
Driving history toward grace
Still, counting every life, face,
A precious gift to embrace,
With confidence, each person
Has meaning, purpose, reason,
Position in time and space.