Tag: Love

A Dog Named Grey: A Love Story With Fur

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

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A Dog Named Grey: A Love Story With Fur

When you stay on the lookout for love in life
You begin to see shades of love show up
Everyday everywhere’s
Dance on the horizon

Hoisted up on the crow’s nest
Three-hundred and sixty five degrees
Of love on the line
Sail into view in the folds of skin, flesh and fur

Wrapped in a  lean package
Of muscle and sinew
Scars and heart
These eyes of a light gray soul and a rugged man

Tell a love story
Fragile and strong, a paradox
File the sharp edges
Of a jaded heart to see

You can take measurements of
Love’s capacity
In many ways
I know the heart of the man

Mission work called us to go
A thousand miles
You can measure a man’s
Character and heart in service

Sacred everyday acts
Simply tell a  life story of loving
Best of all, so
Watch a man love his dog

The one who father’s not a child
But loves the furry child deep and wide
And stewards well the heart
Of one whose silhouette is shades of gray.

Then soak in every minute detail of the care
Invested in the one
Best friend of this man
Perfect specimen of man’s best friend.

Love explodes in the hearts of those
Whose love goes places
It is welcome
Friendships and the lives of men.

Poured out fully into
Charity and love
Tending the hearts of the church’s children
The community’s poor in need of a leg up

And into the life of a dog named Grey.

Burnt Toast

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

Nearly 25 years in
I decide to ask for burnt toast
Villa D’Este can wait
Napa can ripen longer
On the vine, time sweetens
And Blackberry Farm ,well
The longing after this place and that
Over the Blue RIdge Mountains and beyond
Can’t match
The burnt toast, smell it, love is in the air
Behind it there is a love story
Of trying and failing
Trying and succeeding
Routine and change
Marmalade mornings
Love  wafts in the air, the fan dispersing the stale
Ruined, never
Broken, neither
Saved by grace, always
Love lingering somewhere
Cut and scrape
The black crumbs down the drain
Make it new and lovely
Paris is perfect for lovers
And no greater Francophile lives
Than I
But for me, on my anniversary
Champagne and burnt toast
Please
Living the dream while
Going nowhere
Love carries us everywhere.

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I Was Just Wondering – Because I Am Weird That Way

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

 ame churchI Was Just Wondering – Because I Am Weird That Way

If every church, every where, literally not figuratively
Speaking
Of church
Do you think every pew in every town everywhere
Has the quiet griever in its midst
The stranger suffering in our midst
We are too busy singing from the old blue hymnal
Traditional words could, no
Would help the one who has the quiet thoughts
I really miss my wife who died last month
Everyone is facing forward looking straight ahead
Of me
And behind me too
well, and to my right to be exact is one
Who has the silent prayer trapped inside
I hope my friend with cancer doesn’t die


But we watch our watch and wonder, tea or diet coke
At lunch when will this sermon end
Is it too much
To ask
The lady hunched over in her chair if she knows how lovely
She looks today
Barely hanging by a thread
Beside the man sitting worried in the pew
His insides churning
It’s hell, this recent divorce
Keeps him up at night
If you’d just ask he’d be happy to tell you
And if you even spoke in church
He might ask you to pray
I was just wondering because I am weird that way
Maybe the church
Could close the hymnal every now and then
I love music more than most
But let’s
Seek the hurting, silent ones in our midst
Faith without works is dead

We
Could pray and say and love
I don’t know anymore but somehow I don’t want to miss the boat

Perhaps a  little more love would
Cover a multitude of sins
And I was just wondering

Maybe we should love our neighbor
Literally

Speaking
Mine wept in church today

Quiet never saying a word until he was spoken to
And then he cried
And so did I
Strangers we until he voiced his pain
I am weird that way
I was just wondering.

Giddy-Up

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

the nets - mcvl at night the mary margaretGiddy-Up

Yesterday I felt the sad creep up
Mixed with confusion
Draped around my soul
I swallowed my tears, the hurt in my inside
Places, deep and dark
Pushed them down
With all my might

And all the while I wrestled
Joy was creeping up and in
Waiting to soothe me with her balm
It was the words of a sister friend
And news waiting to rock me gentle
Balm on gaping throbbing
Places

And faith restored in me
In eyes that met
Mine
In love standing on the dock
Reminding me of love
That overcomes
Screamed the breeze
That brought the joy
That raised me up again

And I recalled the moments giddy
Cheered me up
A flash of scattered happy
At small and wondrous things
And I recall the look of kids at work
Hanging over sides of boats
Beside a mender of the nets

So I raise mine
In hopes of catching giddy joy
Even while I stand graveside today at two
Especially there
Remembering that life will always
Bring me joy
If I raise my net high, in the breeze when it blows hard
When it comes gentle
Always
While I raise my net
Untangling sadness from the threads
Breathing deep of sweet forgiveness

And reminding and remembering
The days of giddy-up
Are here
When I stand beside the grave
At two o’clock today