the art of taking note
Sharing a bit of poetry which I recorded on Sound Cloud many moons ago.
As I head off on a brief journey up into the woods and hills, I am anticipating the time I will spend with my mother. Dementia has hijacked so much and yet there is still joy. There is still beauty.
And poetry remains. To be excavated, dusted off, writen, savored and read.
We will read hers. We will read Milne.
We will crawl into the waiting arms of poetry. A refuge in the storm. A card catalog of now and then.
If I Tell You A Secret
Well, tell in the figurative sense
Tuck them in the cracks and creases of places
That demand some unraveling
Shallow dives into the mystery, the murky
Really
Chip away
Would you, or toss aside unknowing
Wait don’t tell me
It is better that I don’t know
You have told secrets
Laying in wait
Listen for the poetry
Dormant in the pages
Some beg, others ask
To be told
I listened to an artist once
Then tried to stop
But eye to eye it was hard
To listen, well
Hubris got in the way of an otherwise great story
Telling is the artist’s gift
I grew thirsty, parched
Really for her to pour a tall glass
Of humility
She dipped her brush, the fat one
Into the loud colors, neon’s and school bus yellow, hospital wall green
Drops dripped on the canvas of her telling
On the places that begged to remain white
I found my breath
At the end of her pride
I used to say I wish I could paint
Repeated it until it grew dull and lifeless
As a phrase
I birthed my own cliche
Now, it seems
I long to tell more secrets
floating just beneath the surface of our souls
where the healing lives
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One Word 365
The word found me. And I linked arms with it. The word doesn’t dictate the other words. It shades and reminds. It doesn’t boss. It leads. It doesn’t demand attention, it whispers inspiration. It doesn’t seek the spotlight. It shares it.
It is marvelous. Because I want to marvel more in 2016 at the wonder and the beauty. Tease out the threads of extraordinary in the ordinary. Leave the dull and life-less on the shelf. And dip my pen into the inkwell of all that this word whispers to me.
Thank you for journeying with me in 2016.
peace and grace,
e
That is no secret
That is the truth
The old and new are colliding. Merging. Blending. I am coming back. To my writing after a long period of silence, here. My writing home. I joke that I lost my blog. It is a joke which is humorless. I have a new computer. That helps. And I have new hope and new joy. They are infusing me with renewed passion, purpose, energy. Funneling life-giving fuel to my soul which is finding its way to my fingertips. Onto the page.
The fog is lifting. The marvel, mystery and curiosity about the ordinary are returning.
Many would say that the muse left me or that I lost my muse. I wouldn’t say that. That gives the muse too much credit, perhaps. The broken computer, the lack of an essential tool. That created white space. I think the time of rest would have come. Broken computer or not. I may never know.
I have written here, on my newsletter. But only very recently. I began my most recent tiny letter there with an apology. It should be extended to you too. It feels worthy of a sincere “I am sorry I disappeared after you so graciously chose to follow along on my writing journey.”
If you are still here, that means you waited. I hope your wait was worth the wait. I hope we can see through the lens of grace and beauty, together. I hope we can unveil the hidden beauty in the simplest of stories. In the lines of poetry. And in the paragraphs of prose. Here. Together. (I am still turning over and over again and again, the idea of a book. I will turn these ideas over here too. For your consideration and feedback.)
I have written here too. At Gracetable.org, where I am honored to be a contributor. And where I write in some detail about my time away. If you are interested in some of my story of fading into a quiet place, I tell a bit about it there.
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As my writing waned, so did many aspects of my writing life. This is not as much a confessional as it may sound. Nor is it whining for whining’s sake. It is actually a story. Of new beginnings and fresh starts and regeneration. Those are always good to pour out. In the pouring out others, even just one other, may find hope and slivers of optimism in the words.
Sometimes when we connect the dots, others begin to connect their own.
I have been wanting to read “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert. I enjoyed hearing her speak once. And I somewhat followed the build up to the release of this new book of hers on creativity. So many books have been left in the wake of my sabbatical. Will I ever catch up on where I want to be with my reading and with my art.
Eager for a little of the book and yet knowing that we are at somewhat different places in terms of our faith perspectives and perhaps life views, I downloaded a sample on my Kindle. Of all the samples Kindle could have offered up to me, I received the story of a poet. The beautiful story of Jack Gilbert. More fuel. I will move “Big Magic” up higher on my list of books on creativity and inspiration. Elizabeth Gilbert writes this of Jack Gilbert, poet:
“He seemed to live in a state of uninterrupted marvel, and he encouraged them [his students] to do the same. He didn’t so much teach them how to write poetry, they said, but why: because of delight. Because of stubborn gladness. He told them that they must live their most creative lives as a means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world.”
So maybe that is it. I have rediscovered delight. I am called to press into the gladness, with determination. With persistence. With poetry.
One sample, one book, one sliver, one other poet’s words.
One fresh start.
Here’s to new adventures on a rather old blog. Here’s to the old and the new. And to the beauty in the simple, the beauty of grace, and to a gentle flame, a fire in the belly of a creative. And as Jack Gilbert wrote to fighting back against the “ruthless furnace of this world.”
With a keen and unblinking eye on the beauty which He has created for us and in us. And to its revealing.
One
It is a strange thing, your leaving
In increments
This slow fade, pains us
The dialing down and dialing back
I wish for your speedy recovery
That you would return to us
It is a strange thing, your leaving. like a dismantling
We are all coming apart at the seams
I never liked one thousand two hundred and fifty piece jigsaw puzzles
Now I like them even less
Pieces are missing from what I can see of you
This slow fade, pains me
I watched you leave us slowly
Someone took the big fat pink eraser to your mind
Long minutes of searching drag by
And you’re still unable to find that lost piece of your vocabulary
The elusive word “chipmunk” escapes
Cruel game of cat and mouse of the mind
But peace attends us in its mercurial way
In a blink we are somehow fine with it all
A fractured picture
It looks nothing now like the photo on the box
Somehow, it looks like this
It is how we are meant to be
Hinged to the past by ligament and thread
Bone and blood
I will be your memory
And you will always be mine
Two
August has come with her goodbyes
I count and recount
Pack mules on every corner
Of every street, the scene repeated
A stuttering and stammering of goodbye
A grand exodus of fallen leaves
And gardens burned past recognition
Once full of promise
Now the leaving has begun
Can you see me waving my hand in hope
Of what will come
I know a secret of these cycles
Spun round more than once
I know the story’s end
The one this Earth is writing
Three
I seemed to think you would remain
Laden with fruit
A freak, an anomaly
Bearing forever
Always dripping with abundance
Your branches
Like a run-on-sentence
No break in the chain of goodness
A train-wreck of the overflow
And last time I checked
You bore one, singular and sweet
A parting gift for your beloved
For that I am grievous
That it is over
The faucet stopped its once endless flow
I let myself think it would never end
For that
I am a fool in the shadow of your love
elizabeth w. marshall 