These Are My JOTtings...

Décima de Ecuador: "Joy Completed, Joy Before"

The joyous time is at an end.
We've learned and shared so much all through.
It's time to part for me and you,
but hopes to bring us back we send.

The joyous time is at an end
with days of test and things to do.
We've helped our minds learn skills so new
that old and new begin to blend.
The ways we work as life we tend
mean just as much as what is made.
The process bids me never trade
each day of hope 'til lasting Day.
All joyous hearts use think and say
to part with hope each life we prayed.

From young to old we need a friend.
We've learned and shared so much all through.
The parting times have made us blue.
Reunions nerve the poet's pen.
The low days change. We start to win.
What grace of Christ has been obeyed!
Salvation's cost is fully paid.
Our hopes on Him we all can lay.
This lasting Friend of brightest ray.
Beneath His wings, we find our shade.

Our sharing times, a great godsend,
our towns be far we always knew
It's time to part for me and you.
Our loving hearts now cry and rend.
Let's think awhile of life, My Friend.
Together we have always stayed
through days of challenge, hearts that frayed.
We drank our cup and rode the sleigh.
We saw the lights in dusky gray.
The peace we needed came to aid.

Our joyous times have start and end
with hopeful days to pull us through.
I miss the friend I know that's you
but hopes to bring us back we send.
For days of life, we'd love to spend
unending joy, unhurt displayed,
but life is full of thoughts dismayed.
A joy that lasts in better Day
will come and ever we will stay
in Presence of our Hope portrayed.

by Jay O'Toole
on April 27th, 2018