A Titleless Poem

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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A Titleless Poem

Somehow you are too bare and raw
without a name
Emptied of a banner over you
Hold a quiet pause
as if your very breath
You appear to
Come to me as
All the unknown people
I have never met
Wrapped in a place that holds
The unmarked spot
Like the tombs of soldiers
Never named
Known only
Unknown

So I will name you
With what I have been given too
Embrace you with my words
Call you all the Grace that ever lived
Poured down from Heaven, unto the Earth
Transform you with vibrant
Pantone color of the year
Shade you with every one
All life and color that has come before
Pull you into the company
Of those who share the name
Amazing
What a name can do

Grace looks good on you

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Joining my friend Laura and her beautiful community

Beauty, In The End

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Beauty, In The End

Bold proclamations do not come easily to me
A tentativeness attends my tongue

Couched in qualifiers are my words
Shy with if’s and but’s

Strength and power are on the rise
And I can bravely say
Though whispering only, truly, to my God
In prayer

My eyes are set on beauty
Bent in the folds of deep despair and pain
Rising up from ash and cold
Bubbling up like Veuve Clicquot
Dancing in a narrow flute

Beauty, grace-laced beauty
Will find us in the end
Set my eyes on its horizon
Find me always searching there
For

Love, so beautiful through my lense
Lend me Your eyes
So tender, holy and Divine
Rain down your love and shower us
Drench us
With
All that is beautiful

In the end

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One Beautiful Mistake

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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One Beautiful Mistake

Perhaps redemption looks a lot like this. Or a little like this. Or something like this. I’d like to hope that there is a splash of brilliant transformation on the mistakes that we have made. Brushstroke by brushstroke. Wet with the tears of remorse and cries for forgiveness and new starts.

Forgiveness and new mercies sent to Earth on the wings of His amazing grace. And I whisper the prayer, give me the eyes to see Your loving arms around each one of my own, Beautiful Mistakes. Made beautiful by Your grace. Washed clean. Changed into holy beauty, by Your unfathomable, unbelievable, unending, and unmerited grace.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One Beautiful Mistake

Red bleeds pink from the sky
one night
Writing cryptic messages

Heaven’s hieroglyphics
I run to it
I run away

Catch what is lost
My breath

I see the beauty
In one beautiful mistake

Redemption
Written by The
Sky-writer
Lover of my soul

I nod a billion times
Each a nod of gratitude
They number,
Mirror every unseen star

Feel
You dry my leaking eyes
And hear
You whisper
At the start of night

There was a fire in the sky last night
Before the earth
Was wrapped
In skies of frigid cold
Remember long, the beautiful
Remember long, the warmth
Hold loosely to each gift
And wait for the Beautiful’s return

Red bleeds pink from the sky
One night
Writing holy messages

Just One More

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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Just One More

Is there room for one more

In a world of crowded words and broken hearts

Why tell another story of the fiery nighttime light

Am I right

Or am I wrong to write another

Poem about the moon
Many will not remain to hear

Captivated
by his winsome wooing,
he carried me from the warmth that was my night

In the quiet of our home
in the quiet of my heart, I heard him speak in muted tones

Many married, many longer, many sit
hip to hip
shouldered
by the night

And we
belie our age with our posture
Heads of every shade of grey
more akin to two
retiring into

Their final moonlit night

Of life

We

Seek nothing loftier
Than the
Fullness of our moon

++++

And so if I fail
To write this poem, to which the world may not respond

One more word gift, packaged by a poet’s bow
that the world
may not want, nor read nor need

About the moon and me

And you

Then it is I who die a little as I live

Let fizzle out
the gift

That was your whispered words

Let them fall into a world, cold and dark

Burn out like every other love that lost its fire

Flame extinguished  by
cruel ignorance
of the simple needs of love

++++++

Just one more
maybe just for me

A poem about the moon and you

And how you spoke
gently

Into our love
on one bliss-filled winter’s night

The poets cannot stay away

From subjects on the moon and love

But neither can the moon

Good company, I am in

When I am held so sweetly
by both the moon

and you

+++++

I may never know

If I was right or I was wrong

But I will know
that I was

Simply, loved by you
In the winter
Of our love

Once more