Go Love

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Go Love

On the day when the news burned, a flame of pain scorched the earth
Beyond any before
When shock and awe were heard round the world for all the world to see
There was love
Birthing and breathing in a small space in a world that I curate
But in fact, no it’s all grace
Raising and loving
Pregnant pauses of hope and wait
Douse the fiery news
Run across the earth like meteors crossing paths in heaven
Landing here
Locked and loaded with Love

On the day that the news seared my soul, I could not sleep
But for the remembering of him and his love
He told me in trust, a lifetime lead up to this
His words, like a shooting star
All cliche for some, but not for me, he shot his bow
As a warrior for Cupid
He told me of his Love

On the day that the burning down of hope in good shattered my soul, as never before
A new howl for the hurting echoed the canyons of the living

Love raised from the ash
Head on the pillow
Heart filled with dreams of full moons and meteor showers and shooting stars
I pray Lord have mercy in octaves higher than
Ever before
I look heaven-ward and say again
Go Love
Go forth, in Love

Muting the cries of the moaning
Love wins in the middle
Of a life
In the middle of a war

I’ve drawn back my bow
Go in Love with me

For The Hanger-Oner’s

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

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For The Hanger-Oner’s

It wasn’t the wind that called my name
It was the rustling
A restlessness whipping through the parched Palmetto leaves
Death had shaded them in brown, brittle breaking
Was their song
The only color, parchment brown, silhouetted against the monochrome canvas
Horizon bleeding into sky
Sky bleeding into earth
Every shade of gray

Morning comes for those who are ready
And for those who are not
The sun did not rise today, in my imagination
It remained at rest
Holding out hope, it will rise tomorrow
I will listen to the wind reveal her whispered secrets

Gray mornings come and go
Generous in their appearance
Coming uninvited

But the birds are the storytellers for me, on this day
Washed in hints of gray on gray
A water-colored sky awash in a single shade of void

I watched them on the naked tree, black on black
And wondered in that whipping wind
How do they bare up against the wicked wind
They swayed on boughs, beaks braced and facing into the gusts on gusts
Coming from the East
Breezes warm, this morning, from the sea

The birds would not release, their small clawed feet
Riding out the storm
The rain, the wind

They hang on
Gripping hope, imagining tomorrow
The Palmetto leaves will once again be green

The Mirror

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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The Mirror

I look back
My eyes jump, dart, make every effort to look away
From  the chain of our DNA
Sitting here in the polar cold
It is time, while there is still time

Fingers frozen, numbed by the January winds
Blowing up through the hundred year old pane of glass
I pause my own poetry
Raise the mirror that shows me more, of her and me
And of our love for poetry

And with my nose, whose tip is cold
And with my fingers fighting hard to write
I fight back
At war no more
With the past

Warmed by old words I may have read
But never truly heard
I raise high my white flag
And rest my eyes, in peace on the page which holds years of her steady work with words

The echo of her heart and mind, mirror image of bits of me
For she penned words of beauty, in the back of her chapbook
Beside the photograph of her
Beaming bright, dressed in canary
Her color, not mine
Before dementia came and stole so much
I could close my eyes and swear
Swear, these words were mine
But I would not take, what is not mine
But she has given me, parts of her
I swear

“She takes delight in emptying on paper an
image that haunts her and carving it until
its beauty and truth emerge. Only then
does the poem speak.”

I could close my eyes and swear