Tag: 31 Days

Window Panes -Day 8

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

She played a game in chilhood. Two raindrops run down window pane, of car of home. She mans the race, Olympic judge of water racing.
Window pane the venue for drops that run like tears.
Eyes the weary travellers, raindrop snails,they wind their way down fogged glass, make and mark a watery zig and zag trail.
Who shall win a rainy droplet race? Which blue ribbon champion wins the rainy dual.
Winner puddles in a pile. Child’s play at the window for awhile.
And she sees the cross, a brace in pane, of wood. Horizontal setting gaze, vertical completes a frame.
Bracing life, and framing view.
Always holding, shaping, marking perimeters of a life view,
The eyes’ view, the looking out and looking past.
Stretching toward the future.
Seeing forward, looking out, a window on her world.
A perfect frame the crossed pane glass, always quartering life.
The pieces become bite-sized manageable. In fours, and eights or more the crossed-paned windows.
Her windcow on the world.

There was the childhood window, bedroom high, peering down below.
Scared of what she didn’t know.
Of monsters underneath the bed and in the closet too.
She sees a hundred stars and moons, the window frames the world.
There were the stained glass windows too.
Sunday sanctuary, art. An early primer into holy beauty.
Gazing off in wonder, with child’s eyes gazing in a trance toward glass,
In jewel toned beauty,
Blood red crimson, beauty contained, beauty framed, worship through the windows.
A gallery of art,young men, the Christ friends stand in solidarity, Peter and the rest.
Sun shines through Sunday windows, panes, azure blue, emerald green.
A thousand Sundays of window art, a portal to her God.
She stares while preacher preaches, lost in beauty, lost in art.
Bold window panes, a masterpiece of glass, windows to a wounded world of which the preacher preached.

And now she looks to frame the world without a windowpane.
Just plane and simple life view lense, with words, a window to her world.
A lense of grace, a lense of love, a lense of paneless gazing
On life, with hope,
All through the blood soaked cross-barred pane.
As much a she is able.

Counting gifts

*Hope for healing wounds of the body and soul
*Joy of family
*Joy of progress with middle man/child’s college plan
*Receiving a hundred dollars for my Compassion Child for a post a wrote. Thank you Compassion, I can’t imagine how my sponsored child will spend one hundred dollars
*More and more and more precious friends in community in this bloggy writing world.
*A increased hope and dream of a book one day
*Safe arrival of travelling loved ones
*Time spent back in my mountain cottage to write and wake to cold mountain air.
*A flat tire, yes in the right place
*My AAA tow truck operator was humorous and kind, good natured, and wearing a cross of our Lord on his neck.
*Seeing my sisters all in one room

Writing in community with The Nester, Ann, Laura and L.L. Barkat

Delicate Balance – Days 6 & 7

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Who has not lived that doesn’t know that dance, the one of in and out, a bob and a weave of a clumsy waltz. Like a prize fighter penned in the corner. The bob and weave in the ring of life. A punch, one two, of difficulty, pain.
Who is not part of this commonman, every man, every woman club, begun by Eve and Adam. Thank you very much.
Who does not struggle to make sense out of the hard and the rough, to soften them down and smooth them out with words and love.
Who has not found a limb or two, maybe all four tangled in a web, sticky, ensnaring our hearts our lives, in confusion and hurt.

And who has not cried out, flailing hands towards the heavens and yelled like a child in the throws of a tantrum at God and asked why?

Is there one who has not sought restoration and reconciliation from broken life, like shards of glass, shattered into pieces sharp, pieces which cut through, bleeding life drips droplets puddle.

It is all that He wants to mend the cut, and cup the chin, and wipe the tear.

It is what He longs to do for child of Eve and Adam too. To mend, restore, the balance so delicate. The delicate pieces and places, He knows.

And in the wailing and crying there is Hope. And when the relationship slips to a place where balance is lost, like life’s level and equilibrum hang in the loss of balance.

Think on these things. Rest in His arms. And look to the Restorer to re-order, rebuild and realign.

The Carpenter, Builder, The Restorer of Hope, Rebuilder of Lives,

The Delicate Restorer of Balance, He mends the lives of the broken.

What Amazing Grace, what Amazing Grace indeed.

Writing in community today with Deidra and The Nester for the continuing series of 31 Days of Wonderful Words.

This is Day 6 and Day 7 of the 31 Day Series which we are a part of at The Nester’s. There a community of bloggers is writing for 31 days in October. If you would like to back journey on this blog and read previous posts in the series please do. Previous posts have included Ordinary, Savor, Hope, The Poetic, and Dancing.

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Dancing – Movement of the Heart (Day 5)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments


Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.

Robert Frost

Dance – Movement of the Heart

Elizabeth W. Marshall

If only all would dance. Simply, a little more.
As shadows, sun’s rays, and white foam waves,
Their rhythmic breaking in and on the shore.
What a gentle teacher ocean is.
Of how to find your rhythm, how to learn to dance.
Water, foam and wave thrust on shelly sand.
The dance of wave on wave, eyes Beauty from the shore.

And we think far too often to save it for the feasts.
For man to do a pas de deux when woman dresses up for out.
But what of the dance of the everyday, the simple celebrations.
Of life and living, joy in the daily, movement becomes art.
And what of running fingers down the page, and letting words join in.
The dance of wordplay, phrase finds rhythm on the page,
Partners up with thought and steps from line to line, a dance.

What if words would partner with the heart, to do a dance of lyrical  along
The lines of prose, does it become poetic and more a jig with steps more
Light and gay, where space is left so eyes can linger, breathing soft and slow.
Creates a space for eyes and hearts to partner up with mind, and waltz and
Sway, no need to rush, the pace is slow, the soul can take her time.
The pace of living can slow and savor, seeking steps which linger,
Long and longer, sweet and merry, hurry left behind.

And do we long to dance, because so early on we did, swayed and rocked as babies
The motion taught so young, to drift and sway and rock and sing, why leave that
Back in childhood. Can’t every movement restore Dance, isn’t life worth dancing truly?
Find steps light and graceful, feasting on the now, with song, and grateful pairing up
As happy partners, loving life and dancing in the moment.
Learning from trees their limbs sway, the tails of dog, like metronome have rhythm.
If only all would simply dance, a little more when living.

(Thank you for joining me on this 31 Days – A Series of Words. This is the Part 5 in the series. Other posts have included Ordinary, Savor, Hope, and The Poetic if you would like to back travel and read. Grateful to have you journeying with this pilgrim.) Note, in crediting Robert Frost’s quote on dance and my subsequent piece, I have placed my name beside my writing. Please know this is for clarification simply and that I highly esteem Robert Frost’s work and feel humbled to even be on the same page. This was to give credit, no form of comparison. Please note this, and extend grace for any wrong association or comparison which was never intended. Thanks, for grace. –Elizabeth.

The Poetic – Day 4 (Part 2)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments


A Plea For The Case Of Poetry

She steps into a world of books, there may be millions there.

Passes under the bold B and the bold N.

The smell of coffee hangs heavy in the air. Pungent dark soil acid rich. Trademark of the brand.

And then her heart begins to race, or rather did it slow. At the sight of the section marked, not prose.

So small, as if a slight. So hidden, as if from shame. So narrow, as if to be a step away from invisible.

It, the section marked Poetry.

And there she learned what others knew, that there would always be just these few.

The precious jewels, ones penned by Oliver, Colllins, Frost and such.

That shelves and rows, long deep and wide would not be needed to house the ones that bind the words of Poet.

Oh there were many in the store. Plenty for the masses.

But the heart goes looking for the ones that don’t take 367 pages to tell the story.

With plots that twist and turn and round the bend, a trail of 95 charachters, all ripe and developed richly.

There is death and drama, suspense and gore, the author delights, you’ve been strung along.

With storylines and subplot and subsubplots thick with trails and tales, long and winding, longwinded, long

suffering. The epic. With perfect punctuation.

Prose, the never ending we are almost there, the author woos you in.

The end is not as you had dreamed, no joy in a poet’s brief and pithy telling.

But now she goes the way of those and wanders off verbosely.

And like the poet in the corner simply lost in thought,

she lost her way to build her case for more bookcases

at the neighborhood Barnes and Noble.

 

 

Joining joyfully with Emily for Imperfect Prose