Poetry Calls

November 7, 2012November 8, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 36 Comments

(photo courtesy of wikipaintings.org)

She twists, she turns, she tumbles and falls.

Like green Gumby rubber-man/ child wide-eyed in wornout toy box,

Nimble, pliable woman,

Is she.

When the wind blows, the cradle may fall,

But mother catches baby, husband, parents,

And all the rest.

In the middle of raising parents or is it raising kids,

She yearns to sit at the feet of the master acrobat,

Learn the art of dexterity,

Living nimble, bending, twisting, turning

Corners of her life, with skill and ease,

Stretching limbs to meet the needs

This world of hers throws at

Her, life, a whirlwind, whirling dervish, world.

She, Mary Martha ambidextrous hybrid, serving and loving

Longing to learn the art of balance.

To live and love and serve in the right measure of, mix of

Both. The proportions just perfect.

Art, not science.

Caring for self, she bends back into the page and writes

A love song to the world, her passion bleeding on the page.

And hears a cry, piercing knife-like in the night

To walk outside, plates and balls all tossed up in the air.

She longs to fold back on the white noise page and write,

Right where she lives.

Folding laudry, folding bedsheets, folding words.

They mix and mingle, they tug like moon at tides.

The words call,

Come play with us today.

The tempting taunting call of passion on the page,

To write.

The tension tears.

Joy comes gently in the sweet release

Of words.

She bends her ear to hear, what’s right.

And leans her head, blood rushing to the brain.

To write the words, her playful playmates posturing for a position

In her life. Right beside mother, sister, wife and other.

To write the balance out, the story,

That is her life.

Words winning, winding their way down the rows.

Poetry calls come play.

Joining Emily & Jennifer.

And at Thought Provoking Thursdays.

And I’m joining the folks at Tweakspeak Poetry for this month’s word prompt, Surreal. This is my offering on the prompt. (More to come, this is “fun”, sort of). #TSSurreal on Twitter.

The Sweater

November 5, 2012November 5, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

It is comfort food for the body, the soul. The nubs and knit one pearl two’s.

Knit in love by hand by many. By hand somewhere, perhaps, in the glorious imagination.

I know she knit, she knitted, she still knits. So that is what I see in the eyes of the mind, the heart. Not the factory woven ones.

I pretend they are each created by the hands of mother, women with love.

Birthed by hand. Birthed on a lap, in love with each spectacular skein feeding the woven art. Twisting threaded tendrils turning the corner, row on row.

The colors mark the masterpiece like a box of Crayloa’s, sixty-four times tenfold or more equals a sea of blended, love.

The colors bleed, each row into the next. The love bleeds into each loose or taut loop of yarn, over and around they twist, over needle, round the corner to the finger, worn out working, in love.

Love looks like nubbies. Love feels like threads, soft or silken. Knit with care.

To me. A sweater knit by hand. With care. Time invested in each row, warmed by lap.

These patient working hands.

I see her sitting with the tools to make the throws or scarves or sweaters.

Woman weaves her wearable art. Woman weaves her warmth.

Creates a vehicle for a body. Warmth to hold the heat that stokes the life. Its love.

She makes the woven shield, to block the elements of life, guard against the cold life winds.

She knits one and pearls two, more to make body armour. Protection for her family, the one she loves.

It wraps around the body, hungry for her art. Of her hands.

Comfort food to warm the flesh and bones that she birthed, with woolen woven, love.

What woven woolen warmth she creates, breathing love and making love.

And warms her family with the tedious movement of the threads, of love. Each movement of the needle brings the yarn to form another row of woolen love.

A covering for her precious. A sweater. Comfort food to feed the weary soul.

An archive of her love, her art for years to come.

They represent, her love.

The quilt, the needlepoint, cross-stitch and all created beauty of her hands.

A sweater, shorn from sheep she shapes her love onto her flock and forms, love.

Wrapped up in woven wooly work of women, a sweater made of love.

I’m at Amber’s today with this Sweater piece. You really will love it there. Come read and wrap up in words over there.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling- A Reflective, Part 1

November 5, 2012November 6, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Life looks different in the looking back, from the reflective posture.

The way you look back over the simmering of the events, the narrative of days, unfolding, shades the past with different colors of a back traveling mind.

Changes.

The heart, the mind, the soul have time to envelope the days of the life in a love note.

Stamp it, seal it up.

Mail if off to the memory holder of the heart, to treasure forever.

This is the way of a life, and this is the way of this adventure.

The one in June. We boarded at the last minute, not the final minute, but late by standards of planners and plotters.

We packed our expectancy, excitement in bags, zipped up our longing for adventure in a sack of joy.

So in the marinating back over a journey of the heart and body, it takes time to sort it out.

We process, look back in love, look back in time, look back in longing.

And the wheels of the heart go rolling, rolling, rolling back over it all like a wooden pin on biscuit dough. Like the wheels on that bus we boarded in June, in Brooklyn.

We live life forward but we go diving for treasure in the past, sometimes, we do.

For a buried memory, a tucked away time and place, a once-in-a-lifetime adventure is not once after all, because of rolling back in memory.

We pick through the memories like birds at the feeder, knowing there is delicious nourishment in the mix, finding it, pulling it out and savoring it deep in the soul.

Tasting and seeing that He is good.

The eyes of the poet’s heart tread lightly through the story. Waits to tell when her heart feels it is just right.

Unveiling memories like red velvet curtain on the stage, the players, the memories must be ready to step out and step forth.

So it is with this.