Time

You're a man, you've seen the world––

The beauty and the wonder and the power, 

The shape of things, their colors, lights and shades, 

Changes, surprises–– And God made it all!

Robert Browning

Time

By Elece Hollis

Time for vases of daffodils on the windowsill.

Time for filling the hummingbird feeders.

Time for sunny warmer days and thunder-stormy evenings.

Time for treefrogs singing after rain.

Time for listening for the returning song of the scissortail.

Time for goldfinches bright yellow in the dandelion patches.

Time to start mowing grass.

Time for azaleas blooming in the park.

Time for bumblebees investigating the first roses.

Time to eat asparagus for supper.

Time for watching the sunset from the porch swing.

Time for wonder. Time for renewal.

Time for dogwood.

Rose

Rose

By Elece

gold and honey stirs

the mind, soul with soft sunlight

singing in the garden

Left Behind

"Every moment of this strange and lovely life from dawn to dusk is a miracle. 

Somewhere, always, a rose is opening its petals to the dawn. 

Somewhere, always, a flower is fading in the dusk." 

 Beverly Nichols

Left Behind

by Elece Hollis

I love to find the spaces where the flowers bloom and grow,

Places where once frame houses stood ... abandoned long ago.

I love to see the trees strong standing like sentinels on the land;

To think of the generations these farms and orchards spanned.

I love to think in years gone by—sweet on a springtime day,

Long before the family changed and faded soft away,

A housewife knelt with flower bulbs, a garden trowel in her hand,

Turned back the dirt and snugged each bulb like a promise to the land.

She watched them sprout each springtime—watched them bloom in time;

She knew they'd make the heart glad ... like God's poetry and rhyme.

Pink hyacinths, dancing iris, bright sunny daffodils,

Come suddenly through the brown loam of winter's dreary chills.

Through many years of happiness, perhaps a few of woe,

Those flowers sprout back up again when soft spring breezes blow.

They push up through life's seasons. They speak of days gone by,

Of births, of deaths, marriages, moves—changes the blossoms belie.

One day the house stood empty, one day the roof would fall,

But those flowers would come for decades—legacies outlasting all.

When houses and barns decay and fall, and fences totter and lean

The soil reclaims its expanses, but time winks his eye at these.

A good man leaves an inheritance for his Children's children...

Proverbs 13:22

Helen Steiner Rice poetry with devotions by Elece Hollis

Click here to find a copy of this book

Come See!

Come See!

By Elece Hollis

Come see—come join in the song!

All earth sings praise to the Creator

Who has from time immemorial 

Raised His hand and created the seed,

The tree, the leaf, the bud, the flower

Anew each day—fresh and beautiful,

Bright and color-filled, light-kissed, and sweet-scented

Again and again—yet never has His paintbrush

Failed to make men and angels

Gasp and sigh in wonder

At His creations. 

 Come now—join in the song!

 If we be faithless, yet He remains faithful, because

 He cannot deny Himself.

2 Timothy 3:13

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness,

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Thomas O. Chisholm 1866–1960

Red Bloom

Under the flower's soft petals

Under the bloom's bright spray

Sepals that once housed and guarded the bud

Support her on her crowning day