For All The Poets: A Letter of Gratitude

Thank you for joining me while I journey through gratitude framed by poetry. Always a pleasure to have you along.

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For All The Poets: A Letter Of Gratitude

In the beginning was the Word
And much later for me poetry
I would credit you if I could
Remember
The seed scatterers scattered many
Milne and Mother
And Mother Goose
Among them, along with
The multitudes of songs
And Psalms
Left a well worn trail to my door
Two roads diverged
One was less poetic
Frost was right, this one is less travelled

Poetry knocked
Gently, would you expect
Anything different

Perhaps I could name just a few
Of the teachers
But no, knowing them
As humble
And quiet souls
They would rather I not
Until the rejection letters come
And then you’ll hear from them

We woke up
My pen and I

We woke up
Hidden, buried deep,
Artist side of my
Brain
Head and heart teamed up

Prayerfully I say
I hope you look at me and say
You took the gift and used it well
Soulfully I weep
Salty gratitude
To every poet who came before
Dancing on the pages with lyrical delight
Rhyme and rhythm

And it all started after His part
With you
Poets
Ushering me into the beautiful
World of condensation of words
And still I am learning
For this letter of gratitude
Needs a good editor
And I still need my poets

From which to learn
The artful way to
Say thank you
More poetically
Scratch that
This will have to do
My display of gratitude
For fear I will get lost
Buried in my own world
Hidden by this
Pile of words from which to carve
My art,
Forgetting
As I did the last verse of Wordsworth’s
I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud

In Just A Moment

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Thank you for joining me.You breathe life into this space and into this series. Your presence here is a tremendous gift.
Today is Day 4. To catch up and read the series in its enirety, click here or click the tab at the top of this home page marked #write31days2014-Postcards From Me, elizabeth w. marshall
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In Just A Moment

The earth will tilt and lean
Press her face against the foggy
Glass
Look at us
As we at her
We play a game of stare
Poker faced, straining
To not  look away and miss
The micro moments
She presents

What if every moment
That we see
Capture with our glassy pupiled lens
Was meant to savor
Fragrant earthen soil
And well-lit canvases
She lends

To gather up the
Remember when’s
In just a moment

She will tilt again
Continue
On her race around the galaxy

Each moment that she gives to me
In fractured minutes as I blink
To tuck into my memory folds
Filled with all the grainy, dull and fading
Remember whens
But
I will still say

I remember when
The sun rained down on the precipice of stone-grey rocks
Magnificent
And magnified by a gurgling
Rushing mountain stream
That perfect October day
Destined to meet
The beauty of the earth and I
For I was there
Gifted
With a front row seat

And in just a moment

We were gone
Fragile is life’s middle name
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Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturday

Joy — The Beauty Of Surprise

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Your visit breathes joy into this series. Such a pleasure to have you here. To read this series in its entirety click on the page tab on the home page entitled #Write31days2014-Postcards From Me – Elizabeth W. Marshall

Thank you for choosing to spend a moment here.

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 Joy – The Beauty of Surprise

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Joy, multiplier of Surprise
I cup my hands and close my eyes
For when my soul has written every
Line and verse
And ended stories,
Blinded, my own way
You step out
From behind
A dark and shadowed
Hiding place
Hidden under beds of dormant bulbs
Blanket mulch, a cover for
Your loveliness
Quilted warmth, a shield
Made of
Fallen parchment maple
Royal veiny oak

Leaves,

From gradient golden guilted shades
Paprika, hydrant red, yellow of
A yielding sign
Pantone’s infinite color wheel

The ending is no longer mine
Joy is colored
By Surprise

Wave on wave of Joy
Crashes like a tidal wave

Carves out the old
The former things
With steady surgeon’s hand

You parse and peel
Remove the dead

Redemption’s steady hand
The tool with which you operate

Mercy, signs the Artist’s work

The Beauty of Surprise
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#Write31Days2014 – Postcards From Me

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Yall I am so excited.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a little while don’t hear me “talk” very often. Usually it is all poetry up in here.

But I just got so incredibly pumped up thinking about this writing challenge that begins tomorrow that I had to give you a little recap. I wonder if I will lose readers with this 31day thing. It is a lot of words, isn’t it, flowing off the page.

As a writer it is challenging, exhilarating and intimidating. But I enjoyed participating in The Nester’s challenge the last two years that I decided to dive in again.

I am joining a huge group of writers who are joining on of my favorite bloggers, The Nester, for her annual  October writing challenge. If you visit the link up of writers, we are all categorized by topic. You can find me in “Too Awesome To Categorize.” How wonderful is that. Ya’ll I think this is going to be fantastic. I truly hope you can find me over there. But this is where my words will be. So just come back to the mother ship. I plan to write about five times a week. Maybe more. Maybe less. How is that for precise.

Here are the links to the 2012 and 2013 challenges. Do you remember way back when.

31 Days of Wonderful Words – 2012

31 days of wonderful words

31 Days of Noticing – 2013

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And this year’s series is entitled, Postcards From Me (#write31days2014).

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So here is a little bit of the “back story”. I am a big back story girl. I love to know the history of things or how they came to be. I do think this may be a little risky, naming this series Postcards From Me, ummm BORING. Who sends postcards anymore, ummm “old school”. But I am not aiming for boring. I am aiming for excellence. Originality. Whimsy. Art. And to give you all something extra-ordinary.

This is my first year with a pseudo-empty nest. (Long story, tell you more later.) And I have been changing it up a bit. I am getting out and traveling “close to home” and enjoying paying attention to the world, its beauty, and always searching for the poetry.

Though I am not traveling to Europe or to Greece or to Patagonia, I hope that my postcards will reflect ordinary snapshots of life. Honing in on beauty. Highlighting the poetry. And giving us all a chance to remember and focus on simple beauty and simple joy.

I don’t go far. There are no airplanes involved. But I am trying to savor the small, the beautiful, the delightful and the lovely. And send them out for others to see too. In poetry, prose and sometimes in a mix of photography and words..

Join me. I believe it will be an exciting adventure. Don’t worry if you can’t read every day. I might not be able to keep up and write every day. And if you have to unsubscribe because it gets too “noisy” oh I will truly miss you. And I hope you don’t. But there is always grace.

On the other hand if you like what you read and see would you consider sharing my art, my words, with a friend. That is always a super lovely accolade for a writer. It is wonderful to see my words flying around and landing places outside of this blog. I pray that they will bless, inspire, encourage and bring joy and whimsy.

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I am still trying to decide whether to change my series logo every few days or to just select one.

You are seeing me work out the final details. Hope you don’t mind. Here’s another possible button. This is fun. I have some decisions to make before tomorrow, don’t I.
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Have I forgotten anything. Did I mention I hope you will join me. I want to make it easy for you to follow along. If you have questions or suggestions or comments  feel free to leave one. If you will look up to the header of my blog, where the pages are listed, I have added a new page for this series. #write31Days2014. The series will be updated daily and readable by going to this one page.

Thank you for choosing to visit and thank you for choosing to subscribe. If you aren’t following along on twitter I am @graceappears there. I would be honored to have you “like” my facebook page. There is a place to do that in the right sidebar.

See you tomorrow and every day in October. Well, almost everyday. I am planning on bending my own rules and writing perhaps five times a week. This is an adventure and I am just sort of “going for it.” Not terribly poetic, but honest.

Warmly and with grace,

Elizabeth
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