Tag: Inspiration

Simple Is The New Fill In The Blank

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

I cannot tell you if it is a matter of thriving, survival or choice. I cannot tell you if I am preaching to self or sharing with you the leaning in. I simply know that simple is taking me to new places. Simplicity is saying no to good things. I do not know if I left my days of rushing behind me, buried in a heap of ruin or if slow has chosen me out of grace. Perhaps slow and I are choosing each other.

Simple is soulful and rich, uncomplicated and fresh. Simple is joy in a bar of soap, sitting in a chair by the chicken coop watching my growing babies, six of them, enjoy their fresh picked clover.

Simple carves out time for hope and prayer and sweeping the sidewalk.

Simple Is The New Fill In The Blank

I noticed
And then again

Senses on guard
I cannot quantify it
With a poetically pithy cliche
Or, rather, I shall not
But if you can stop dead in your tracks
Still as an August Southern day that does not breathe
Pull off the road
And watch the soulful shrimpers shove off from the shoreline
Let your eyes light on the ebony skin of hard-working men on the Parker D
Strong-leaning against the rail of the vessel, teetering on the verge of passion
Almost find the whites of one man’s eyes as he dreams of feeding his family
With the fruit of the sea in his net
Surely, you are on your way

And perhaps if you
Linger longer over the radish bed
Smell a third and fourth time the pungent cilantro as you break the leaf
(That which your garden gifted you, out of love for your labor)
You’ve moved closer in love
With the ordinary

Uncomplicated finds the cracks
Hears the faintest sound of wind chimes playing a tree-bound symphony
Feels the cold Hershey-colored soil, turned up and over by the dog’s nose

Simple is the new lens

Finally it chose to have its way
With me
And love is new
This Spring

Undoing me along the way

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Joining Laura Boggess

What I Wanted To Tell You, One Tuesday

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

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What I Wanted To Tell You, One Tuesday

I went to meet the sky last night
Awash in bold pink, we could not look away
An eighth world wonder sort of night
At 7:51 she came to tell a story
Skywriters capture messages in a language I am still learning
But you see this as hyperbole mixed with cliche through your veil of gloom
Fools run out into the night, while pink rains down
(He went to see it too. We are both fools).

Miles away a friend wrote
Told me what I did not see
A double rainbow
No big deal
And yet it is
I did not decide this. The counter of odds and percentages and trackers of skywriter’s journals call it rare.

Blinded by beauty I missed the more beautiful

I wanted to tell you it is there for you too

But you insist on seeing with one eye closed

That is not what I wanted to tell you on a Tuesday
It was that I hope you are around to see the next pink sky
And the one after that
And double portions of scientific cool stuff
And glory

It was this too
You are more beautiful than all of it
And I am a fool

Curating A Simple Life

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

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Curating A Simple Life

While the cheese toast begins to bubble under the broiler

And the tip tops of the Himalayan Mountains parade through the Instagram Feed
The child plans the trip to Spain
(as your suitcase morphs into a receptacle for dust bunnies and household tumbleweeds)
The pro’s and con’s of matters of state and faith
Land in a rubbled heap

The teams have been picked
And you sit on the bench
Warm, where the bystanders go

I remember asking him
Rhetorically
Yet, not really so

The trips in the black of night
Dark the color of two thirty a.m.
I find my way lit by the light of his song

He is out of tune with the world
As am I

Why, I asked does he sing at night
A morning song
(I know the whip-or-will well)
Utterly confused is the night-owl
Mockingbird

But he sees the light

And decides to sing

When your heart beats at the rate of simple
Mysteries present themselves
Questions bolden-up
Deciding to invite you into the mystery
Determine to unfurl complex curiosities
At your aging size 9 feet

Mercifully
You see glory all around
Places you used to go bump in the night
Stumbling around in the metaphorical dark

Day after day

And pray
No one turns out the light

By which the lone bird sings
Leaving the slice of avocado off your toast

Decisions made
As curator of your one simple life

+++
Joining Laura

A Matter Of Life And Death

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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A Matter of Life And Death

Everything pointed to life
(Doesn’t it always, at death)
As I watered the wall-to-wall carpet
I don’t know the color, but it soaked up my grief
Strange, the mind can find solace in stained glass and wood and the smell of Methodism
Trace the patterns and grooves to avoid the casket in front of the grieving widow
The windows bled pink in the April sunlight
Hat tip to last Sunday
He died on Easter, oh Jack

And afterwards there is so much life
Every bite of food explodes in your dry mouth,
Starving for more from the sweet Earth
Family feels warmer, blood pumping fast in a panic, white-knuckling life
Praying you’re not next, not just yet
And you could swear you heard him whisper from the grave
Odd how the breezes blow by your cheek like any other Tuesday’s breeze
But it is Thursday and you don’t know how many Thursdays are left
But you count it a matter of life at all costs
To gobble up the Wednesdays too
All of it like he did

But of all the tributes
And all the testifying
The greatest part about this man who loved Jesus
Because he did

The mold was broken after him
And the mold was broken after you and me
And that is a matter of life and death

This, loving people, as they are
Who they are
Mold breakers everyone
In grief life is clearer

My eyes took a poll of the room
They loved him
Well, oh so very well
His daughter held his hand in death
(I vow to hold hands more Mondays and Saturdays in my life)
And he wasn’t like you or like me
He was just Jack

Go live life now
I heard him “loud” whisper from his new life,  as I left a trail of regret in my wake
And please remember to laugh at all my jokes, through that precious impish grin

My heart took a poll at the graveside