Please Pass The Words

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

Welcome to Day 7 in the #write31days series, Postcards From Me.

I am celebrating your presence here. It is a gift. Words without eyes and ears to ingest them can get a little lonely. You know. Crickets. Quiet. Pin drop quiet.

To read the series in its entirety click here

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Please Pass The Words

There, beside the heap of hot comfort, mashed potatoes
Steam rising up, like Old Faithful
Butter running down, like sweat off the brow

There, beside the pickled beets
Garnet red bleeding wild and running free around
The cracked blue willow plate

Please pass the words
Excavate them from the deepest parts of you
Chisel, unearth them with a horsehair brush

Brush them gently as an archeologist would
Handle them with loving care
A mix of lover and scientist

Cup them in your hands
Clothed in moleskin gloves
Breathe the word fragile, over them again

There, resting beside a decade ago and
Many decades before that, hiding still
Please pass the words, they’re getting cold

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Join me won’t you as I journey through the challenge of writing 31 days in October. I am joining over 1000 bloggers at The Nester’s writing home. Come and read along.

Things That Never Were

September 23, 2014September 23, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Things That Never Were

If all the words that never were
written down
never were allowed to
leave
the fingertips
and all the souls that were called
to come
never came and sat a bit
lingering on the warm sweet breathes
never hearing the sound
of every silent word
that never left
a heaving heavy laden chest
swollen, wrapped in anxiousness

never stopped to stay awhile
nor sit
and tell the stories of the simple things
in a wooden chair
creaking, slow
while rocking back and forth
side by side out on the wide and open
porch

and all the joy that was due
a pregnant waiting
never giving birth
never delivering

you or you

and all the colors that were mixed and meant
to
stamp out dreary shades of
white and black
melancholy of a two-toned world
never were

and you had never come to me
never with a kiss upon your lips
nor flowers, mixed bouquet
picked from the garden
that was never planted on our land
and I had never come to you
what a love-less nothing
life would be
untold stories of un-lived lives
that never were

left out of all the dreams
and even out of our imaginings

void

the never were’s

of you and me

amazing grace has written
instead
stories too beautiful to tell
or so it nearly seems

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joining Laura at The Wellspring for Playdates With God

Sepia Tones

January 24, 2014January 24, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Sepia Tones

Living slow, writing fast

It was more of a feast than a fast
Living slow, slowly living, lead to writing
Fast
The comma and correct grammar mean everything,
Change the meaning in a New York minute
But this is poetry
I digress
Then go came along

A distant cousin to wait
And then the cold
Which was more like an artic covering

Margins grew wider
Yet like the moon
Poetry waxed and waned

And then in the slow fade
Of the day
Words fueled more words
Infusion of encouragement
Stoked the flame
More hat tips
And head nods
A symphonic explosion
Of pure unadulterated
Grace

And surprises
Peek-a-booed into her soul
And in the shadows she
Began to see

A poem
Neither slow nor fast
But traveling just right

And in the sepia tones
She found inspiration
Dancing in the shadows of the roman shade
Of light
That whispered stop and stare
There is poetry in the window
There
Framed
There are lines that
Need a home

And the muse he whispered:
You will find a
Poem shivering, cold
And waiting there
Penned like hieroglyphics
Piercing through
By light of day
Blanketed by quiet
Wintry air

A poem raises
Up her golden brown
And faded head
In tones of sepia
Freshly inked
Nuanced meanings
There

Living slow, writing fast.

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Responding to the poetry prompt, sort of, from the creative folks at Tweetspeak Poetry “How To Read Poetry” #howtoreadapoem in celebration of the release of Tania Runyan’s latest book “How To Read A Poem”

In Which The Moon Talks Back

September 23, 2013September 23, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

In Which The Moon Talks Back

So much happens by the moon’s bright light
Radiant beams
Poured holy rays on stables where Christ was born
One dark and sacred night

Entranced, we the people of the Light
Bound by grace
Poured out on moonglow
From heaven down to Earth
Thrown-out
Cast like nets, its light remarkable
When seen upon the sea

And we
Gaze skyward
Spend countless
Hours, living breathing
World without end, amen
A people
Held agasp
Struck by evening’s light
Moonstruck by a blinding power and might

Love has been made
Lovers have swayed
Drunk on the liquid earth-bound light
That drips from way on high

Dreams are dreamt, then
Swept away, by
Every phase
Of our neighbor in the sky
We count our days, wish and
Plan, mark the calendar by the wax and wane
Look out the window panes
To see a world, lit as by an ember’s glow
Mourning and in pain

The tides
A pattern that rules the sea
Rolls at the spoken word
Of that man
Up in the moon, it seems
They
Come and go when they are told

Is it not his turn?

Synchronized by the one
Whose chiseled face
Stares back at us
He’s always been a man
Faintly smiling
Like a profile on Mount Rushmore, carved
A face held hard and fast
His eyes mirroring the stars
Steady, rock of ages suspended
In a galaxy God-created

But why have we not asked him
Does he not have something wise to say
Subject of story, songs and tales
Mentioned early on
In Genesis, I’m just curious

What would he say
If he could speak, write
A story of all he’s seen
Would he whisper
A cautionary tale, did he
To our men who took Apollo there
By the light of his own
Making
Would he dare say what he has seen
Or she
Or it, the one who lit
The world so bright, continues to light us
Night after night
I suppose it is time
For the one-sided conversation of moon and man
To end

Let’s give him a turn

Dare we listen,
For once, hush so he can speak
To what his broken heart has heard
And seen

Could we stand to learn
From one who has seen a million
Sunsets
Preceding his own glowing rising

Does he dare to tell his side
Or is he simply content to spend
His nights
Counting bovine jumping over stars
On their way
Leapfrogging
Child’s play really
All this talk of one who cannot talk

Or even speak to what he sees
Or is it she
Would tear a soul right in two
With words
The beauty and the beast
Of life right here
On planet Earth

Dreams are held
And he won’t tell
The prayers deposited in secret
Under his bright light

The celestial secret keeper
Holds them tight
And let’s us talk of
Wild imagined things
And dream of childish delight

All under a holy holy holy
Radiant
Moon-beamed light

Quiet yourself for a night, or two
And listen, if you dare
To what hush-toned radiant moonspeak
He’ll whisper in the pitch of night
When the moon talks back to you

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Joining Laura at Laura Boggess dot com

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In Which The Moon Talks Back

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