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

A Man Who Could Make a Rose

A Man Who Could Make a Rose

 By Elece

What Color?

What man has written man may read; 

But God fills every root and seed 

With cryptic words, too strangely set

For mortals to decipher yet. 

CHARLES DALMON

What Color?

by Elece Hollis

Some colors we cannot define.

Here is blue. No red, maybe purple?

 There is gold of light and white 

Color bleeds through

Layers itself, bunches up

To make it's heart stronger,

Then shies back like
A young girl showing Daddy her new dress

November hydrangea

Tinged with wine and buttoned with sky

Lined with indigo 

Streaked and speckled with snow white 

Back-lit with orange and brown and green

Color not waiting to be named,

 But changing every second 

With the song of the autumn wind,

The warm caress of afternoon sunlight,

 The cold touch of night's hand,

 The frosty breath of 

Morning.

©2014 Elece Hollis

Read Elece's book for inspiration every morning.

 Click on the previous sentence to find a source and order your copy.

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

A Thousand Voices

Earth with her thousand voices, praises God. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Oh beautiful sweet scented roses

Unfurling after a rain,

At the first glimpse of overdue sunshine,

At the soft breathe of God on the wind.

Your petals, white as summer clouds,

With freckles of pink-pinpoint-pearled

You lift to dance and sing the praises

Of the artist who paints our world. 

©2014 Elece Hollis  Find a copy with this link:  Limitless Grace .

Swallowtail

Swallowtail

By Elece Hollis

All among the flowers

 She fluttered, she flew and she lit,

Again her wings opened and closed like doors

On hinges

Windows that know the sky, the wind, the voice

Of the creator who called her from a chrysalis

Before that from an egg on the underside of a leaf

From the egg she crawled a caterpillar

Along the leaf eating, eating—so hungry

Always full and still hungry 

 To the under-edge of a twig

 To wait and grow—curl up inside a tiny room where 

She sleeps, she waits again and longer until the day 

She fits no more—her natural plastic splits

 Off she goes and her wings expand with fluid pumped in

Her moist wings dry in the warm sun 

She flaps them the first time

Flies off to be somebody's miracle,

Somebody's message,

Somebody's angel

Somebody's delight.

 Now she is mine.

©2014 Elece Hollis , author of Meet God in the Morning, Poems from the Heart of Prayer,
 a devotional book with poems by Helen Steiner Rice. Find this book.

Summer's End

Summer 's End

What a sweet time is summer, with picnic-y fun,

Lots of long days to bask in the sun,

What a wonder the fresh foods we so much enjoy

A treat for the each girl and for each smiling boy.

What a great time for travel, for trips and vacations,

Time to go visit our friends and relations.

Summer's the best time to slow with the heat

To sit down and share something special to eat.

There are not many arguments, problems or fights

That couldn't be solved—at last set to rights

Over corn and tomatoes, melons, and such

That's why in summer we don't fuss so much.

Summer's the best time for joy all around

It's the time when our most happy feelings are found

 Time to pick flowers—to play in the shade

Summer's the time our best memories are made.

©2014 Elece Hollis

Author of Taste of Christmas -Cookie Cookbook 

&Inspiration for the Season

 http://amzn.to/1q9w8dZ

                                  Just click here to find it:   Cookie Cookbook   

Song and Dance

Sing a song of seasons,

Something bright in all,

Flowers in the summer;

Fires in the fall.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Song and Dance

By C. Elece Hollis

Come Summer late with marigolds, with zinnias, and with cosmos

Splash the green with colors like the sunset from the hill

Come Summer, sing of Autumn—prepare us for her visit

Let us store up warmth and light within our souls—until

We can dance the dance of winter;

We can shout the joy of spring!

We can wait for seasons changing—passing

Learn to trust what God will bring.

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, 

and summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.

Genesis  8:22 nkjv

© 2014 Elece Hollis, author of Meet God in the Morning Poems for the Heart of Prayer, with Helen Steiner Rice with devotionals by Elece

Marketplace

Marketplace

"I think God's love is meant to be encountered, received, embraced, even guzzled and gobbled by famished souls, but not necessarily understood."

Steven James

Marketplace

By Elece Hollis

To the market we go 

To buy zucchini squash and carrots,

Peppers, peaches, tomatoes red as fire engines.

 We go for glads and dahlias to put in a glass pitcher,

To grace the breakfast table,

For fresh baked bread and goat cheese.

To watch a woman weaving baskets, 

Listen to a singer belt out his version of 

Amazing Grace,

To watch a juggler spin plates.  

We are not leaving without being

Inspired by this place, these people, 

Pieces and parts of patterns— 

A patchwork quilt-top.

We won't leave without thanks

Swelling up in our hearts 

At the sounds, 

Music, voices, laughter, water splashing in the fountain;

 At the sights—the colors, the diversity, the flavors!

We won't leave without feeding our souls 

A feast of flowers, 

Watching butterflies and dragonflies fly,

And bumblebees bumble.

Without watching gray-suited doves strut on the sidewalks,

Winging to the overhangs of nearby buildings.

 We won't leave without speaking to God's children, 

Without drinking in the freshness 

Without looking upward to the blazing blue sky 

Singing Hallelujah!

 Without knowing what a great God

Our God is, 

 Without hearing his eternal message

"I love you," 

Without hearing His elegant electric voice.

 Hallelujah!

"Life is a church." David Phelps

© 2014 Elece Hollis, author of Limitless Grace,  available  at Mardel's or on Amazon http://amzn.to/1uEcfUM
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