The Piano

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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The Piano

If white is joy and unbridled grace
Laid out in broken pieces

Waiting to be played

Ivories laying in a long reflective  line
Fragments
Where I see my own dim
And shadowed
Face
A sea of
Cracked and smoothly worn
Puzzle pieces
Waiting to be played
Mixed and written into
A harmonious melody
Unmerited
Of amazing grace

And black is pain
And cruelty

Life holds a concert
Every day
There on the stage

As I choose
Where to send my fingers
Up and down
These slippery keys
Laced with a mix of
Boldness and timidity

I muse
And whisper to myself
Self, What part I am to play?

Apprentice
Learning still
How to make it
Beautiful
While
Sounds from those who
Bang out  cruelty
Those
Notes mixed with dissonance
And pain
Choosing to wreck havoc, injure
Again, again
And still again
Repetition of an unwanted verse
I hear her weary, worn out
Wracked by years of
Fill in your blanks
With her, a sister
It is amplified
Years of it
Grant this one peace
How could she possibly bear it
Any more
He beats her with his words

I sit rigid on the backless bench
Consider how to
Write a song
Blending it, her sadness into beauty
Sounds of rich tones, flat and sharp
With chorus heavy on redemption
In each refrain

Take the cries of despair and pain
And news of cruelty
Coming through
The telephone
Loud and clear
Again
A sister beat down by
Meanness
Blends into the second verse
Sounds of disappointment from  one
Who hoped with childlike
Longing
For joy to  come merrily
She’d roll along

Every single note
Woven into redemption’s song

We wait
Sitting upright
Straight and tall
Fingers curved, rounded
Cramped
From waiting longer, just a little longer
Till
Come thou font of every blessing
Will come
And wipe the tear
But until then we need the song
Of hope
To wipe the tears

Play the keys of faith
Loud for thee and me

The notes are faint but grow louder every day
There is a hallelujah chorus
Arriving on the wind

We write a ballad
Paired  with another saint
To pen a lovely
Hope-filled song, a duet

White is joy and unbridled grace
Compose your song of waiting
Now
And make it beautiful
Somehow
Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
Make music from this
Broken heart of mine

 

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photo credit: Wikimedia – Wikipedia -Creative Commons

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Joining Laura

Poetic Revisions Of A Familiar Verse

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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Poetic Revisions Of A Familiar Verse

Forgive me
It is perfect as it is
But in this fallen, sinful world
And at the heart of this fallen, sinful girl
And at this broken, busted moment in a
Broken busted world
As
We cry out for a collective
Mercy
And lament
While we suddenly identify more and more
With poor old Job
And snark was never my thing
Really but
Sometimes lamenting
Can take you down that path

There is a season for sadness
Weeping and wailing
Wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth

Burying one’s head in the sand
Has its season too

There is a season for turning from the news
It is all so terribly sad
And one for mowing through
Kleenex by the fistful
And burying one’s head in the pile of pillows
While hiding in four hundred thread count sheets
Poster child for First World Problems
At first glance

Oh but and and and however there is also
A time for new birth and  hope
A time for hummingbirds to dance
And songbirds to sing 
And old gardeners to get out
And scratch in the dirt
Lingering in the sunshine while there is still
A sun to shine

There is a time to sit and breathe and count
The mushrooms sprouting wildly on the hill

A time to notice dark green moss
Reaching out to hold your hand
Their tiny fingers seem to reach and wave
And call you to slow down

There is a time to hold on to what is past
And a time for sweet release 
In love
To let it go, loosely

There is a time to say Im sorry and a time
To say
I meant to say
I am really really sorry
Forgive me for my pride

There is a time to say you silly goose
A time to laugh and play
To sit with piles of children’s book
With a child  at heart
Two women who have long turned grey
Slowly savoring each page

There is a time to scatter grace and a time
To count your gifts

There is a time to grieve and say
Life seems so very fragile
Especially today
Oh most especially today

There is a time to call a friend
And talk for hours upon hours on end

To bite your tongue, to hold that thought
To let it go, to take a bite of every piece of
Spirit fruit, especially long-suffering

There is a time to read old words
Savor them once again
To pull out pictures of the family
And tell the old familiar stories
Re-visit your childhood, yet again

To trust and hope, to extend grace
That’s been said before
A time to dance and to rejoice
To whirl and twirl, make sure your music’s
Turned up very very loud

There is always time for poetry
For poets to play with words
To make up random lines
And there’s always time for prose

There’s time for resignation and a time to
Begin anew
A time for patience and a time for even more patience
And a time for ….
Well you see where I am going with the patience thing
I’m preaching to myself
Not at you

There is a time for humor
For belly laughter and tears
To live as a child again
To look past life’s pain
And old worries, anxieties and fear

Rejoice with me in what is good and holy
Celebrate the beauty risen from the ash

And in the end
Settle in each season
Not wishing it to pass.

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Joining Jennifer Dukes Lee

 

Joining Laura for Playdates

Remaining In The Shallow Water

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Remaining In The Shallow Water

We push off
With both feet
Hot like two fiery embers
Smokin’ hot
From the splintered dock
Equipped wtih
Everything we’d need
Vienna Sausages
Lance Crackers
And Diet Coke
Iced down in the Coleman
Beside the beer
Along with plenty of desire
And hope
That this would be the day
We’d fight
He’d flail
Then lose
And we’d prevail
Conquerors of salty brackish seas
My love
And me
Dreamers
Dreaming of elusive trophies in our nets

And
At the end of day
Fatigued and wearied travelers
We
Arrive home now
All canned potables gone
Under a canopy of every shade of
Pinks and oranges
We’ve nothing
But a panoramic view
Of summer’s 
Sluggish setting sun

But hope 
And 
Yet
Now
We realize
That the one that got away

Would have sunk us
Capsized our little ship
And we
With wild desires and dreams
Seem glutenous
As we Monday morning
Quaterback
A bit

Now that we arrive
Back home
Tie up and wobble weary
Down the sun-bleached dock
We discover
From surveying our
Wet and empty nets

We are happier 
Having bagged
No treasures
Nothing bleeds
From the bent end of
Rod or reel and rusty hook

No noticeable triumph
With scales or gills
No victory
From our time 
Away at sea

Simply, home now
Empty handed

The treasure was
The journey

In our small
Blue-green wooden
Boat
Out on the great big salty
Sea
My man and me
Settling for nothing
Conquerors, we won the battle

We bagged 
Simplicity

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Joining my friends at Tweetspeak Poetry for their poetry prompt: The One That Got Away

The Other Half Of The Glass, The One That Is Half Full

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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I watched the frenzied Monarchs
Flying, flitting hurriedly
From behind my steering wheel

And later on my porch
And in between
The
Somewhere-in-between

As if they were
Wait, how strange
Following after me

Pursuers of one
In dire need
Of learning
And settling

One very old
Debate

And it seemed
That either
They were flying
Fleeing
From the pain
And darkness
Going at full throttled speed

Or racing
Headlong
Toward the joy
Starving to ingest
Grace

Afraid it might
Evaporate

And leave them craving
Joy’s intoxicating
Taste

As if in a state of panic
An alcoholic in need of
Drink
Bouncing between every
Shade of
Lavender
And blues
From there
Hop-scotching toward
Sweet marigold 
And sunburst
Summer colors, blended and
Reconstituted
Attracting them
Like their cousins moths
Flying toward a flame

Heading full-speed
Toward another hillside
Filled with
Blinding
Brilliant
Color

To him the glass
Is more than full
It is abundant, overflowing
And he
The Monarch
Is rejoicing in the banquet
His epic summer feast

And I thank him for the lesson learned
As though he could really
Hear
My whispers of humble gratitude

And as he flies away
He leaves me alone to dream
By both brilliant day and inky night

To the sound of a sad
Lonesome
Whistle, from a passing train
Whose tune sounds
Like one written by Willie Nelson
Or Johnny Cash
Or another deep thinker singer
Who tries to say
No, Oh No
It wasn’t full, your glass
No not at all
After all

I go with joy
I go with gladness
I go with gratitude

And go in peace
Gripping my half full glass

For the one who tipped the vote
And settled this
For once and all
Finally
Was a pair of hummingbids
Dancing a pas de deux

Whose nectar dripped from
Fullness
With sweet gladness
As though

Mirroring
My joy

Overflowing, sweetly
Overflowing

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Joining Laura Boggess