See Red Over Malaria. Bite Back

April 25, 2013April 25, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 11 Comments

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Ah, they are seeing red over Malaria and coming after me. They are waking up and fighting back.

They hear and read and their hearts are broken; now that they know the pain I cause. I am a deliverer of death. And they are waking up to the heavy toll I take on this world.

I am flying scared.

The souls are waking up and they are fighting mad.

And my favorite weapon is poverty. Because with poverty I can make sure a child is unable to stay protected from disease. And with poverty, I can keep the medicine out of the reach of impoverished children.

And with poverty as my agent of death I am delivering Malaria, killing 655,000 people a year. A heavy heavy toll every 365 days.

There are 3.3 billion people in the world. And because of my lethal weapon I keep half of those at risk of contracting the disease.

But I hear the tide is turing. And I hear they are seeing red. And I see the tears they weep. And I know they are coming after me. And it is a war.
When lovers of the souls in poverty, and tender generous hearts who weep at the effects of poverty wake up, I will have warriors of hope coming after me.

And they are fighting mad. And they are biting back.

I, the mosquito and they the lovers of Jesus, who can fight poverty, Malaria and suffering, we’re at war.

We are in a battle. And it is life or death.

I wish they would all go back to sleep.

(As told through the eyes of the mosquito)
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Compassion is fighting hard against Malaria. Donations from us, the people of hope, the light bearers and the poverty haters, we can donate a little and help a lot.

Donations provide households with treated mosquito nets. And they educate and treat those who are vulnerable, those who are in the cross-hairs of mosquito borne Malaria.

Visit Compassion’s website here to learn more and to hear about ways to give. Click here to go there.
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Consider Pinning or adding this visual to your facebook page today, World Malaria Day. Bring awareness to this deadly disease. It is small but it what I have.

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Joining Emily and my team of writers over at Imperfect Prose where we write about redemption. Let’s help redeem the suffering Malaria causes.

Taming The Dragons And Other WIld Things Under The Moon

April 23, 2013April 23, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

When we were young
We bathed in Milne

Bears and a boy washed away a day.

And when we were young
We sat folded up in cramped desks,
Modern twist on utilitarian form
Pretzel legged
Puzzled by
Poetry in chalky white on a plain black board

And studied Ogden,
silly was in vogue.
The sixties begged for humor, cried even
Laugh In
Rowen and Martin and very short poems
A bear and a boy and silly
grown men

Can take the edge off of a war
And your mind off of
Politicians who die too young.

Pooh slayed his dragons.
There is strength in numbers
Now as then, a friend can help
You fight the foe
together

However wild
However scary

When you cross the river
And you are two

You too may declare
“Shoo! Silly old dragons”

Because you are two, arm in arm
Bear and boy, Christopher and Pooh
Dragons go up in a puff of smoke
And disappear
Into thin air

“It isn’t much fun for One, but Two.”
When slaying demons and dragons
Strength in numbers was never more true

And wild things that go bump
in the night
are easier to fight, as two.
So after you tell the moon,
“good night”
Tuck in your dragon, nice and tight.

Check under the bed, pray and search the room.
Now you are free

To dream by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon.

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joining tweetspeak poetry for their poetry prompt this week, Dragons etc. Click here to discovery more poetry from my friends at Tweetspeak.

The Gift of Encouragement

April 22, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 11 Comments

The Gift

When you stirred a life up with your words
Peeled the layers of your past
Pared the skin, tough and bitter
Chopped the pieces into bite-sized
And pounded poems on paper
You gave a gift to me.
While you were writing
You let us feast on parts of living
The ones that live in poetry
They sit bitter sweet on lips of telling
But the white page holds such sweet redemption
Memories, hold the healing.
You carve, with gentle fingertips, the moments of your youth.
As you use your hands, your words for tender telling,
The ones that loved us all along.

And now the gift will live forever.
Oh the power of words,
Yours.
The love of them, you passed,
That now are mine,
Ours.

Know now how lovely are your words.

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Dedicated to my mother on her birthday, April 22, 2013.

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Joining Laura at Laura Boggess dot com

A Perfect State Of In Between

April 20, 2013April 25, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

A Perfect State Of In Between

When the door opens on the old white ice box
he peels back the Reynolds
aluminum foil, covering the prize he’s purchased
and reveals the blue guys from the sea.

We’ve been waiting for awhile, well a year
for them
and I see myself.
But don’t tell him, or anyone.

Timing is important.
Well it’s everything in fact.
And seasons come and go.
It’s their season now.
The soft shells are ready, and I am too.

I see myself in the metal pan under the foil.
In them, in this perfect state of in between.
Change made them perfect.
Life stopped for them, perfection frozen
At this time of molting.

I hear the excitement in his voice.
The eyes stare up, the pairs of beady blues
Row on row.
We know this soft shelled state.
We know it well.
And we know the seasons too, the ones of change.
Are there really any other.

And it is where we live most of our days,
In between
The shedding and the growing
The softening and release.
Gone are layers, left to float ashore.

I want to thank them for the gift.
An offering, a delicacy.
For stopping at the perfect time
And showing me the joy
that shedding brings

A perfect state of in between.

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