Sunday - Rejoice

A to Z resumes tomorrow with M.
This is for National Poetry Month...
a Sunday poem...

I decided to try a Rondine for the poem today. Maybe I'll try another Rondine on the day for R.  It wasn't that easy, but it worked itself out.

Rondine Poem:
12 lines - 8 or 10 syllables per line, except in the 7th and 12th lines
2 stanzas - 7 lines in the first stanza; 5 lines in the second
7th and 12th lines are a refrain
The refrain comes from the opening word or phrase of the poem
Rhyme pattern: abbaabR/abbaR

This is a plate from my collection this year that works for a Sunday.  It almost doesn't need a poem.  The word is a poem all on it's own. 

Rejoice

Rejoice with them, as trial’s embraced
For patience sprouts from those base seeds

Growing knowledge of truer needs
And happiness that’s been erased
with greater joy will be replaced
though still unknown just where it leads
Rejoice with them

Weep with them but decline to waste
A breath on unrequited deeds
For surely goodness all proceeds
From each test to be grace replaced
Rejoice with them.

by Donna JT Smith ©2019

~OR~

Joy

When joy returns again and again
When joy pours onto paper from pen
When you tell the world your heart's content
Though the road you're on has twists and bends
It’s the joy that you were meant to live
The joy that's given meant to give
And others see there's some unknown
More than the bit your life has shown
When joy pours out and freely spills
To where it overflows and fills
the space in other hearts and souls
both quenching thirst and flaming coals.
My greatest hope is in the voicing
Others know my heart’s rejoicing.

And they will also see that life

is not devoid of joy in strife.

by Donna JT Smith ©2019

I began the second one, JOY, first.  Got interrupted, and lost my momentum.  Began again and gave myself a challenge with the Rondine, and wrote REJOICE. Then I went back to my original poem and picked up from where I left off.  So which do you like better, or neither one?

Verses on the topic of rejoicing:
Luke 10:20 - Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.
Isaiah 65:18 - But be ye glad and rejoice for ever [in that] which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
Romans 12:15 - Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Romans 5:3 - And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;