The Snow Globe

Welcome to Day 13. Thank you for joining me during October for #write31days.

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To catch up on the series click on the page link at the top of the home page. I am honored that you are here.

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The Snow Globe

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Strange little egg shaped metaphor
Just as the dust settles,
No snow
Frozen tranquility is restored
To your glass sanctuary
Slowly
Fake flakes fall gently on the plastic turf
Your home’s floor
Photo-shopping beauty
We settle in to a Norman Rockwell-esq
Version of life
Frozen in time and place and space
How perfectly boring you become
With no movement
Living in your glass house
It is when the shaking comes
That the blanket of beauty is laid
The turning of you upside down
And right again
That complex mix of calm and peace and static is restored
Until
The next time
Your perfectly calm snow lined streets
Get wondrously shaken
Again and again
World without end
amen

There in lies the wonder
The beauty
of it all
Globes were meant to turn
Round
And you, little snow globe
A little upside down

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Joining Laura today

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It’s Okay to Change Your Mind

It’s Okay To Change Your Mind

Decide you want to stay another day
To wake the morning of the First

And then
With the whole Earth

Rub the sleepness from your tired & wondering eyes
Wash  your weary face
Look up to the heavens
Feel a hundred flakes of confetti,
Crimson gold guilt leaves
Blow over you, thrown in celebration from the sky
Oh what a party it shall be

Then choose to find sweet beauty moments in

The midst of almost
unbearable

Pain

See

Over the horizon, this new and glory-filled day

Made by The Artist, who loves us

And knows well the grief of pain

Decide to look out on this life

To hear we love you

And embrace mankind’s collect cry

We’re so glad you chose

To see the Earth unveil her love

What amazing grace,

You changed your mind, its okay

You chose to see another day

We’ll name it, call it, celebrate with you

Your miracle,

Your second birth, your

Changed-your-mind birthday

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To read the series in its entirety click here

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Dear Ones, Chiaroscuro

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Welcome to Day Two.

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Dear Ones, Chiaroscuro

Outside
Heel, then toe
Slow
As you begin, again
The bend
will widen,open
as you go

Step, as a child
Eyes wide with wonder
Framers of the outside
Art
Chiaroscurro

Then dance among the shadows
In the road
The first step, forward
Is now well behind
Walk, steady, brave one
Regard the spectrum
Shading, bright
To light, then dim to effervescent shades of
Gold
Yesterday’s darkness is well behind
Look under every leaf and twig and vine
Smell the cedar and the pine
Encouragement, these whispering scents, to carry on
Aromatic shades of forest green
Tilt your foggy lens
Wipe it clean, until the faded yellow
Dull and pale
Returns to shades of smoky amber glass, shades of autumn
There
Right around the crooked bend

Wrapped in barely hidden places
Creation
Waits

What glory
Chiaroscuro
See the beauty in the shadows
Lying there, in quiet
Wait
Fear has faded
Now, dim and faint

I will walk with you
Be your sojourner
Friend
There is beauty, still
In every shade of dark
And light
Woven

Tapestry of life

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To read the series in its entirety, click here. #write31days2014 – Postcards From Me – Elizabeth W. Marshall

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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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