Tag: Joy

The Years, My Friend

Winter by Farhad
The Years, My Friend

The years, my friend, have not been kind
upon your marble face —

I hear the river songs
tinkle with the cymbals,
I see your eyes shrivel
like unpicked grapes on the vine,
your mouth a wounded cherry
pecked by restless robins.

Take my hand, my friend,
let us go to the calling fields
that blaze with diamonds
under the eternal skies,
to the orchards in the midst of winter,
where leafless branches stand dauntless
in the endless cold,
telling jubilant tales
in the blizzard of their days —

Hearken to the legends
of root, of bud, of sun,
and to the promise
(believe the promise)
that warmth and springtime
will return,
(they always return)
once again.

by D. G. Vachal © 2013, 2025

*** Photography by Farhad

“Petals Under Moonlight”



Petals Under Moonlight

Petals under moonlight
on a night when the month of May
is blooming:
owls play their piccolos
upon the branches,
crickets, their castanets
upon the watery grass —

Rejoice
in the muted colors of the petals,
foliage,
sepals,
beneath the cloak of temporal
greyness —

When daylight alights,
the greening of things
innumerable will blaze
across the fields of this fertile
continent,
drenched in the early rain,
warmed by the beams of the morning
sunlight.

D. G. Vachal © 2013, 2025

Photo Credit: Richard Thripp

The Teacup of Today

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24

 In the midst of a frenzied afternoon at work today, I paused to read an email from my daughter Amy:

“I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately:  “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”  The last two words, “in it”, are what have me thinking. The phrase makes it seem like it’s a special place – a porcelain cup, specially made, specially prepared – to rejoice, to revel, to live fully in — when you are in something like a cup of tea, surrounded.”

Any given second, any given breath, we are within the walls of a day. We can’t see tomorrow – and so we can only treat it with what we can’t see – with hope (but how great is our hope when we think about Jesus)? We see only today, and our hands, and our feet, and our loved ones, and whatever else God has given us for today. “

What Amy wanted to tell me is that today is not only a special time, but a unique and wondrous place designed by God for us to live and breathe in.

The porcelain teacup of today.

I smile at the thought of today and of pink porcelain cups.

D. G. Vachal (c) 2012, 2025

Silence Among the Lilies: A Summer Sonnet

Silence Among the Lilies:  A Summer Sonnet

She walks in silence among the lilies
dressed in white against the purple twilight
as verse and chapter fade into the night,
lost chords of song, unfinished symphonies,
jigsaw puzzles of life’s perplexities —
time to let go what once was held so tight
let darkest hours await for gleams of light
when morning breaks with possibilities.

I bask in the linen warmth of summer
rejoicing with the creatures of the field
on a warm July I will remember
when doors closed shut, familiar pathways sealed
I look to topaz days of November
to start anew, heart’s joy will I not yield.

D. G. Vachal © 2024

Image by Ox Coffe @pixabay