Snow Snooze

I love this day.

It’s new and crisp and layered in a mantle of white.
Just a touch of snow, mind you.
Someone was very thoughtful in not letting the stuff go crazy.

My Husky is curled for a nap in a fresh dug hole,
As Huskies are want to do.
He lifts his head to glance my way,
Then chooses the snoozes.

I do love this day.

©2015 Joann Nelander

Ring Out, Wild Bells – Happy New Year !

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, by George...

Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Now for Eternity

All days have led to this day.
Yesterdays march up to the edge in Time,
But cannot enter upon my Now.

As precursors they stand,
Peering onto this Today,
Blind as bats.
Their edges approach
But halt at the Present.

Here I reign with my will.
If all my mistakes
Shout for change,
Am I now the fool
Who fails to learn?

With the sun,
I am begun.
Eternity beckons me,
Where Time cannot go,
Invites, “Come.”

He, Who sails on Eternity’s Wing,
Would be my Mender,
Not in a breaking of the Past,
But a knitting of it,
A seamless cloth,
As His very own.

The morrow begins as a Way I choose;
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Are gift to my being,
And beginning in this Now,
I am His.

©2015 Joann Nelander