Tag: Simplicity

Joy: The Anecdote For The Blues

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

two bikes in charleston

Joy: The Anecdote For The Blues

This thing called joy
Scarce commodity, some of these days
Other days more plentiful than tree frogs
After the summer downpour
Singing their hight-pitched song
Harmonizing
All wet, wild and wonky
While the steam rises from the pavement

Perhaps we learn best when we go
Creeping through life
That joy is a by-product of slow walking
Slow talking
Pedaling places and savoring sentences
Scavenging for joy
In a world full of pain
Seeking beauty in the slower pace
Downshifting to meander
Instead of full throttle

Slow is a multiplier of joy
Some days
Quencher of thirst
Chaser of dark shadows and bad news
And evil doers
And what lurks underneath the bed

But joy fills in the cracks
Calks the gaping black hole places
Where the dull and dark
Need light and love

I know a story or two
About sadness and pain
You do too
I re-tell them, wear them out
On rewind

But I know some stories of miracle
And surprise
Of overflowing joy explosions
Like a whole box of Hot Tamales
At a buck a box
Poured into your mouth, in the best
Movie you ever have seen

I think if we spill it
Like sticky Coke on that movie floor
The sweet joy might
Just grab on to someone else

Lord knows the pain is deep

So spill that uncontainable joy
Share your news of good, great and excellent
The by-products of your prayer
The miracles in your life
Whisper it in humility
Or shout it shrill, roller-coaster ride loud
Hollering at the top of your lungs

Cause Lord knows we need
To wash that pain away
Like an ice cold sweet tea washes down
BBQ smothered in liquid heat

Wash me in your joy
Spill it out on me
And catch the happy tears I weep

Tomorrow may bring
A new flavor of pain
Share in my joy and I’ll share in yours
Remind me when the ebony clouds roll in
That Joy will come
In the morning, or the day after
Tomorrow’s morning
Remind me, soul
And re-tell the good, good news
You just lived

Joy is the anecdote
For the blues

Color me
In every shade
Of joy

joy boat leland

 

 

 

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joining Lyli and Jennifer

An End, A Middle, A Beginning – Three Haiku

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

poem-a-day-dare-tweetspeak

An End

Traces of grey smeared
Left by Winter on the pane
She’ll be back again

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A Middle

Somewhere before moons
And sunsets the noon squeezes in
Evening, I long for you

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A Beginning

Mark new starts with Spring
Sit beside the pear tree with me
Earth’s ripe and ready

 

 

Ode To A Two Hour Lunch

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

wpid-20140207_144631.jpgOde To A Two Hour Lunch

Tell me how it is
And why it is
That we ever arrived at
The drive-by lunch
Through windows for ordering
Past windows for grabbing
In lines and by speakers
And change dropped and left
At the last window on the
Left
Always

Tell me how we ever evolved
To a primitive way of eating
In our laps and on the run
Chewing
At the red light
Swallowing whole halves of
Meals
Not taking sodium laden small
Bites of
Food
And is it still even food
At all

Come with me and sit
Then linger
With napkins and conversation
Raise your cup to your
Lips between words of
Living life
Sip
Cool water wiggling between
Cubes of ice and wedges of lemon
Sliced thin where yellow fades
To ombre shades
Of citrus, pale to bright
The rind a reminder
To live on the outer edges
Of civilized dining
Not on the thin line of
Fast and furious
A dollar and sofa change
Does not a real meal buy

Laugh between bites
And nod your head
Hear and listen, listen and respond
With words
Lick your tongue along
The rim of your salty
Mouth and retrieve the remnants
Of seasoned scallops seared
Cut slow in quarters
With a knife and fork
If you remember
How
And pause
Before you place the tip of a wedge
Of pineapple
Sweet and pungent
Juice runs
Between your teeth
And gums
And you squeeze and suck
Every bit of juice
From this golden yellow
Fresh fruit
Swallow, breathe and speak
Of the book
You are reading and the one
Lying in wait
And the one due any day from
Amazon
And the one you are writing
And the one about which you are
Still dreaming
And you pause
And breathe
And choose between greens
And another sip of soup

This is communing
This is a feast
This is your living breathing
Ode to slow

While you listen to her tell
You a story
Or two or more
As you linger and beg
The waitress to kick you out
If you have stayed past closing time
Which you have
But there is grace and you
Are welcome here
Where lunch and life
Are slow
And you are surrounded by those
Who know the art
Of

A two hour lunch
Oh that we would
Slow
Down

The bowed head
The table and chairs
The knife and fork
These
Symbols of a life
Slowed

An ode
To a two hour lunch

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Joining the folks at Tweetspeak Poetry as we explore the “Ode

This Post Is Not About Anything: A Guest Post From Christie Purifoy

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

I have the honor of having my new writing friend Christie Purifoy guest-posting here today. If you don’t yet know this beautiful soul and her art, you are in for something simply wonderful. Though I have only known Christie for a short while, I feel I have know her as long as her Victorian home, Maplehurst, has been providing a backdrop for living in southeastern Pennsylvania. Christie is real and fresh. And her writing speaks for my own tired soul on days I can only mumble, “me too”.

You will hear a deep thinker but one who is unpretentious. And you will fall in love with the art and the heart of this woman. Christie, I am honored.

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The close of day one of Daylight Savings found my husband Jonathan and I washed up like wreckage on our old green sofa. We could hear all four kids still awake in their rooms. Maybe that is why we left the dinner dishes on the counter and the toy dinosaurs on the floor and simply sat right where we happened to be. We were too tired and too irritated by the noise to attempt anything productive.

We had no energy for choosing or making a plan, but the evening chose something for us. Something lovely. Jonathan opened the laptop left lying on the floor. He hit play on a recent episode of Austin City Limits, and we let the sounds of one of our favorite musicians wash away every irritation and tired distraction.

Listening to these songs, I remembered that the lyrics have always been indecipherable to me. I have no clue what this singer is singing, and yet these song have been some of my favorites for years. They are soaked in beauty, drenched in emotion, and, listening to them, I found myself floating in a rich sea of meaning.

I don’t know what they are about, but I seem to know just what they mean.

***

Living my ordinary day-to-day, I often find myself tripping over the same question. Something like, what is the point?  What is the point of sweeping this floor, what is the point of baking this bread, what is the point of putting the toys back in the basket? The floor will be dirtied again in minutes, the grocery store sells bread, the basket will be upside down in no time at all. If my life is made up of these seemingly pointless activities, then what is my life about?

I am afraid that my life is not about anything beyond time wasted, tasks repeated and minute-by-minute survival. Yes, the minutes might be adding up to something good, but when the minutes are messy I can never feel sure.

But what if I am not asking the right question?

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The film critic Roger Ebert used to say, “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”

These are important words for more than just movies. These are words to remember for novels. For poems. For paintings. Whether we are making them or enjoying them. These are words that help us appreciate the wholeness of a work of art as well as the small grace notes.

These are words that honor the joy of creation.

We do not ask ourselves what the sky is about. I has a purpose. It is far from pointless. But its meaning is blueness. Spaciousness. Openness. Its meaning is shelter and canvas. Its meaning is the joining of heaven and earth.

What is my life today about?  I don’t know. But how is my life about this thing called living?

My life is about fresh clean skin after a shower. My life is about butterfly kisses on my baby girl’s cheek. My life is about lighting a candle. Brewing tea. Even the back and forth beauty of my arms holding the broom.

I focus on the how, and I am convinced.

My life–yours too–is about great things.

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Christie Purifoy writes at an old desk in the parlor of a Victorian farmhouse called Maplehurst. After earning a PhD in English literature from the University of Chicago, she traded the university classroom for a large kitchen, garden and a henhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania. When the noise of her four young children makes writing impossible, she tends zucchini and tomatoes her children will later refuse to eat. The zucchini-loving chickens are perfectly happy with this arrangement. The chickens move fast and the baby even faster, but Christie is always watching for the beauty, mystery and wonder that lie beneath it all. When she finds it, she writes about it at There is a River (www.christiepurifoy.com)

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Joining Jennifer Dukes Lee for #tellhisstory and Emily Wierenga at Emily Wierenga dot com for Imperfect Prose