Spreading Your Wings

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

 

 

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Spreading Your Wings

I read that the brain has an odd way of interpreting cliche
Don’t quote me but
We can do better
Recycling phrases until they lose their punch

And then I wonder

How do they rise up and take power
Stay around, refusing to leave
Numbing us with repetition
Like the pileated woodpecker
In lieu of the pecan tree, he chooses the neighbor’s metal roof

And then I grab one
Line of low hanging fruit

Because I am so weary from watching you leave

It is easier on my heart to go
There
Onto the well worn path of tangent
Paved with pithy phrases, past their prime

To speak of you in tired worn out terms

I am loathe to say you’ve spread your wings

You can not find yourself in my words these days
You should know

Darling, I could write only of my love for you

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At The Goodwill

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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At The Goodwill

This is how I remember it
Or this is how the poem demands the retelling.

You can break a word apart
Not unlike diagramming sentences.

(I loved that part of English class.
Chalk board, chalk, eraser, eraser dust, teacher

Back facing class, front facing board

All the tools for dissecting a sentence,
Splayed out on the operating table

They dosed off, classmates to my left and to my right
Unwilling participants, missing the point of the drill.)

The word is a brand, is an adjective, is a noun
Is too often lost on me.

Before I made it through the swinging doors
She snuck up on me in the parking lot

It was never about the bargain, the search, the thrill of the hunt
After all

It was never even about the monetary charitable contribution
(Who are we kidding?)

This is not the first time I have been tripped up
Just the first time
At the Goodwill

Blessed are the lonely
For they will go to the Goodwill in search of conversation

I give myself a C-

 

 

 

 

Upon A Second Glance

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

 

 

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Upon  A Second Glance

As frequent as blue moons and thousand year flood levels
Highly coveted is the second chance
I cashed in on the leventy leventh
One

My lab Wendy, English and fourteen
Blind and blonde
Crossed the street, narrow, often void of traffic
Mostly it’s the shrimpers who speed toward the docks
Their boats bear names like Mary Margaret, wait or don’t for their return
They dodge my  girl, she can only smell them coming
Age has racked her sense and sensibilities
Leaving her with but one
She wobbles and plods, our paces are kindred

My beloved has dodged a million near misses
Intrigue lies in smells deposited on other sides
Not too far from home
She is cured of wandering
Wondering cannot be cured

And I have missed a chance or plenty more
To penetrate what lies right here
My eyes can cut the surface, or carve deeper still
Into those pleasant offerings of now
And just
Right here

I am guilty of hoarding them
This is my confession

Here, by the sea I learned to see again

I use the stars on bright nights

measuring stick whittled by grace
Barometer of gracious plenty
Far from a city with its blinding bulbs
I count and count and count
Again

Gazing back and gazing forth
I increase my chances of remembering
In all the double takes, exposures doubled in my
Mind’s eye

We run from dementia by running into joy
Recording Beauty is our defense

The hands that cup the sun
Cup me

On a second glance
Highly coveted is the second chance

 

Omega

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

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Omega

Eight lost, some stillborn
Others born, still lost
Sons and daughters of Willow
One remains or so we believe
Alpha and the in-between-ones
Are all gone
Our deposit has not been sent
Hope is a currency all its very own

We are uncovering poetry
It’s what remains now
Well into her eighties
Grief grinds its way through
Those of us remaining
She deposited words
Like shiny gold coins
Rare
Into the safest of places
Poetry, her currency

Page after aging, age-less page
Reveal what Agnes’ life did not
To me

Distance and years
Wedges like a bank vault wall
Kept me at bay

She never knew that mother penned
“For Elizabeth our aspiring poet”
On the inside of Oliver’s “Evidence”

Surprise would have attended us both
That pens are passed into spheres of
The unknown

And just after we grieved for a good long while
The gone-ness grew
The no-going-back-ness
The place where the mind comes back from a long hiatus into dementia
Just to hear “I loved you”
And now
Your poetry

Omega was the last
Black English Cocker puppy
Born alive
In Oklahoma

A sign that one of nine
Remains
For us
A sign of hope
At eight weeks
Omega, should she live
(Meg for short)
Comes to live with us
Eight others rest in peace

Epiphanies born from death
Poetic embalming of her secrets
Now shared
Beauty birthed on every page
Life revealed in death

I cannot crown my favorite line of hers
(It may take a lifetime of catching up to dog-ear my favorite page)
Alpha and omega
And poetry in the in-between’s
She rests in peace
I wrestle with regret and grief

She wrestled with life
And turned it into poetry