Tag: Remembering

Back In The Day

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

box woods and bench WH's

Back In The Day

Circa 1908
You left ghosts
Good ones
Memories
Mark corners
As a dog every tree and bush
Buried bones
In cracks in floors and ceiling
Bust open, every door
We escape
The heat
Of the day
Going out then in
As if it were an Olympic sport
This sitting on the porch

If you can’t stand the sitting
Stand up
Get outside awhile
Air your dirty laundry
Everyone below can hear
Your voice carries

Rising up and through
The oaks

Down the road the sanatoriums
Sprang up
A million mushrooms
After the rain
To house the sick

Breath deep
The air it heals

Did you sit as long as we
You visions of the past
Rocking back and forth
Trapping every smell of lilac,
Rot, wet earth
From the hills

We identify every waft
That wanders by
Anchoring our living
Senses fully engaged
Right here, right now
Frozen
On the edge of boxwood and vine
Perched like birds for hours
Watching them

Watch us
Lose all track of time
The train will whistle
Wakes us up

You left us more than memorabilia
But a metronome
Set on slow
And barely moving
To pace our days
Tasting wet rain mornings
Pallet cleanser

Come and linger long
On the edges of the sides of hills
Anchor here
Upon the slippery slope
Lingering
Life
Measured in the sightings of the finch
Don’t blink you’ll miss the high point of the day

How strange
We may live  even slower
When we come through the gate
Than
You, ghosts of
Circa nineteen hundred and

oh eight

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Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturday

The Art of Aging

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

cropped-cropped-mckenzie-beach-sepia.jpg

The Art of Aging

Holds mystery in the folds
Unfurls surprises from the hidden
Places of memories from
Girlhood, childhood and inbetween
Details
From long ago move from sepia toned
Images
Imagine a reframing of a life
Displayed in all its glory
Revealing what it stored up
Rooted in deep
Living
Someplace near a haloed edge
We teeter on the brink
And sense a gilding
Brush stroked over moments, laced
With pain and grief
Goodness gathers up the tattered
Faded
Dark age spots
Replaced now
A birth occurs within
Her
Life unfolding, wait
In case of emergency you may break
The glass
It is time
Emerges
Rotates on the very  edges of
A new and different dawn
Age will take her rightful place
A crown
Up on her head
Jewels for every moment
She waited years for her new birth

Joy,
In the end
The art of aging, a masterpiece
No science can explain.

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OneWord2013_ArtBl

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Bullseye, The Peach, and A Blue Thread : A Trilogy

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall

Bullseye

bullseye bike

You did not miss the mark
The feather-tipped arrow of your release
It did not fail to land
In the right spot, spot on
Perfect imperfection
A bullseyed penetration
Drilling through the target
Seen by eyes of love.

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The Peach

peach 2013

Sitting on the counter
Inviting me
To open up
Summer
rsvp my intent
And begin the ritual
Tradition washes over me with sticky memory
And sweet my taste buds eagerly await
Weigh the choice of
All alone or mixed with cream
Perhaps thrown on a bed of greens
The remembering is the beauty halved
Of the ripe flesh and soft warm skin
I peel back to find the gift and enter in the dance
Peach and I
Our summer can begin
We cannot hurry
Nor can we wait
In blinks and nods and a few short days
September will arrive
And memories of sweet ripe fruit
Will dance alone
Like visions of summers past rolling around in my mind, a dream
Of days in the past
So I must eat a peach
And savor all that is ripe and good
And ready for the picking
These are the days
These are the hours
Of grateful living
Peach and I, I and Peach
Our summer has begun.

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A Blue Thread

modern trouseau charleston

Followed me
Or I followed it
Unknowing
On the way
To Blue Bicycle Books
Everything was shades of blue
Cars behind at red lights
Who knew they made dump trucks
Blue
In front he lead me down Highway 17
And then I crossed the bridge
Under a canopy of blue
With white monstrous clouds waiting to release
Raindrops
And hit the sidewalk like a blue streak
The storefronts presented me with blue
And I wondered if this occurs everday
This theme of beauty
Threads through a day
Some days it is red and others gold
And greens of summer, water’s aqua too
If I would look in front behind and closer
At this one  life
That like the two  young men on the news
Not yet at the age I am
Could end like that
And have it all just stop
Out of the blue.

The Fear Of Forgetting, The Art of Remembering

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

heart bright in woodShe recalls the smallest detail from years ago.

She recalls the long ago.

And she forgets the half a moment away.

Mystery in the mind, mystery in the aging

of memory.

A life gets blurred like watercolors on a canvas.

Color present, color faded, lines and detail run away and off the page

Until a version of  blurry new is present in the present.

And what will I recall.

What will I remember.

Will the written anchor memories of each, of the three, the best, the challenges

I dream a dream of  capturing it all in bell jar, lid light,

In marked detail , the love and laughter

Growing up at my feet, at my bosom for years

If you add them, all the days between the three

It would make one old child, but they are three

And will the words help bury memories, encase them in a time capsule

Just in case the mind and memory fade as it does and as it did for her

She says remember when you and how could I, barely I do, I barely recall

I the child she the mother of this obscure event, no event is unworthy of recording

All are worthy, all are worthy.

If I write and when I write may it be a doubled effort to recall

The smallest moments in their, our, this life.

Branding, blazing all the breathes in ink, in stone, the sacred ones

The what He gives, the what we take

No it is what we receive, and remember and  offer back

By recording, all the moments in an effort

To remember.

She remembers the smallest detail from long long ago.

May I remember the smallest details from long long ago.

And begin to see through her eyes, a glimpse, a slant of how

She saw and how she sees

That is grace.

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Joining Emily at Imperfect Prose for her one word prompt this week…Mother.

one word button

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