Tag: poetry

Redemption’s Beautiful, Remember

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

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Redemption’s Beautiful, Remember

I wonder what the years will do to today
Take it and shrink it
Shred it and fade it, peel it, tone it down
Today can never be brighter or more glorious
Than she is in her now
The slow fade comes in the looking back
Over shoulders and in glass, in memoir
And in remembering
Reflecting, recalling
Reaching back into archives of the mind and of memory

So I will hold today up to the light and make it
Tell the truth to me
Beg it to be generous in its gifting of itself to me
Beg it to show me details wrought in sharp hues
And bright shades of this moment
Desperate for every ounce of pleasure I can squeeze
From it, from sunup to down
Draining it of all joy and grace
A woman starved for beauty
As if the sun would never shine again
As if it hasn’t in a decade now

The dark and dormant winter
Has been asked to retire
And we usher in, on a red carpet, rolled out
For the now and today
Fit for Kings and stars and starlets

The belle of the ball
She is today, dressed in her finery
Her seconds of fame and glory
Ticking away as she spins and spends
Herself

And I
Recording
Knowing that the clearest
She will ever be
Is before me now
Tomorrow and the day after
Bring me a dimmer version
Missing pieces
Forgotten parts
Losing memory of herself
Losing detail and sharp lines
Blurring the focus of what it is
As it becomes what it never was

And I may not even remember
Today
Tomorrow
Oh the pain of a fading
Past
The currency of the current
Spend it wisely
Record it as a wise man would
Regret robs today, regret robs tomorrow
Regret stole some of yesterday
I wonder what the years will do to today
Redemption revises
Restores
And today is beautiful again.

Joining Deidra and Sandy and Laura

The Bowing Out

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

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The Bowing Out

It started as a slow waltz
Front porch rocker, book in hand
Slow
Friend to the left
Friend to the right
Sun up
Cool breeze
The dance was an old soul
Disguised by youthful ignorance

Someone turned the volume up
The metronome cranked up too
Warped speed
Weary-making, manic the music
Syncopated beat
Too fast, too loud the pace
The rate, the chatter, and the speed

She bowed out for a bit
Dove under the water to the ocean floor
The one of wet and cleansing grace
She swam down where the sediment sits
To sift and filter, like a sieve
Her mermaid tail was all she’d need
To rest on the muddy bottom in the dark
Muted and muffled is the world
Down
Down
Down there, on the bottom of the sea

She swam under the radar’s rays
Away from the burning sun’s
Rays too
For forty days and forty nights
She swam alone
To think and pray
And consult her muse

There in a sapphire pool
One colored in redemptive rest
Her dance shoes parked
Up on the bank, in the dirt
Exchanged them for
An emerald green
Bronze and azure blue
Mermaid tale, custom made for
Her

It wasn’t so much that her feet
Were blistered, tired or sore
Or had been stepped on by the
Other dancers out on the
Over-crowded floor

She feared she’d stepped on her own
Self-inflicted, friendly fire
And maybe another one or two
On the floor
It was best now for her
To swim alone

She told me her story before
She dove deep down
And asked me to tell you too
The woman swimming in the deep cool
Sea of  salty turquoise seas
The ones which will restore her
Soul
And heal her dancing feet
She’d like to bow out
With dignity and grace
And if you were wondering
She took her blessed muse

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Remind Me Again: A Lenten Poem

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

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Remind Me Again

Remind me once again
That facades hide reality
Deep behind a trompe l’oeil truth

That love melts frozen tundras
Of a winter weary soul
Taken to her bed, tired of it all

That invisible things mark,
Change and temper, unseen
Is Holy, Spirit moves through even now

That firm mattresses, hard wood and marble
Audi’s and big screens, gyms and gems
Lie about what they can do for man

Remind me, again that forgiveness heals
Like salt water on the back of a ruby red throat
What it is to be meek, humble and mild

Bathe me in a warm bath of humility
Wash me clean from pride and ego

Because truth be told
I am prone to wander, prone to forget
To stray to a place where pastures look green
But in fact are astro-turf
Wolves lie in wait for the lamb that is lost
Searching for food when plenty grows tall
Hiding the gifts
Show me eternal, again and again
And hide from my eyes the temporal,
Fleeting, the things that will die and lead
Me to the death of my soul

Because truth be told
I am prone to follow the mirage, the shiny, the glittery
Things of the world
On the desert road that leads to nowhere
And ends in the dark

And faith is a compass
With one true north

I was blind but now I see
You focus my eyes on the eye chart
The Big E was all I saw
Now the smallest line is in my
Plain view

You oh Lord, my strength and Redeemer
Turn down the volume of a noisy world
Let me sing the broken Hallelujah’s of my heart-song
Off key and shaky

And press pause and off and down
On the sounds
Of Diamonds Are Forever
And the false promises
Of the Cadillac commercials,  face-lift,
Cruise ship ads

Give me eyes to see
I am happy to remain with You, and
Ash Wednesday is not a hump day
And help me to remember

Oh Lord, I am prone to forget
Place my eyes back to heaven
And away from the green line
That leads to my retirement

Oh Lord remind me again
To ignore the likes, shares and follows
And to place my trust in You
Alone
Are Worthy

Remind me again
I give you myself
This Lent
Take me to the desert
And whisper sweet words of remembering
I am weary and I am not alone
Amen

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Joining Lyli, Emily and Jennifer

Memory Is A Lady

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Memory Is A Lady

She is a traitor
Rub the slender bottled neck
With the waist of a teenage girl
And pray she pops out like a genie
Powerful, potent, able to grant wishes
Instant and endless
In three’s
Memories

She is a hoarder
Holding on haughty and hard
To the ones you try desperately to find, to grasp
Was it one kiss or two
Nine months or three
Stingy and stubborn, relentless is she
White-knuckling scraps of time
Scenes from the movie reel of you
And of me
At her mercy
Mercifully begging for more
But she hoards
Memories

She is a temptress
Releasing parts, never wholes
Holding on greedily to finite detail
Showing fuzzy black and white reruns
When you crave HD, 3-D
Accurate truth
Memories whole, not halved
It is your life and you
Demand it back
From the shallow grave
Buried and hidden
Hungry you cry out
Longing for more
Memories

But she is protector and guard she must.

She is creative, witty and wise
She shades the blue teal that you thought grey
You swore it was azure, she insists it was slate
Erases and deletes
That year in New York you were swallowed up
In pain, by fear
Give her permission
She has taken it
Anyway
She decides what to include
And what to completely
Leave out
Then out of the blue
She shows you a scene
A day in the life
You’d dropped like a dime on the street

The timing is perfect
Like a fig picked from the tree
Ready to  savor with honey
And goat cheese
Like loaves and fishes are multiplied
So does she
Find the best days and parts
To amplify, embellish and increase
And release
Memory of you
And of me

She is a lady holding the keys
To the life, the story, the telling again and again

The story of me
Not exact, not perfectly remembered
But just
As she has determined
It should be
She is a lady
Gentle and kind
Not cruel

I must tell myself
Again and again
Lost in my own
Memories
Fading
And dim

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Joining Laura and Michelle