Tag: Simplicity

Of Note To Me And Perhaps One Other Soul

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

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Of Note To Me And Perhaps One Other Soul

I am lost in the memory of some marvelous moments.

They settled in my treasuring place

Where captured thoughts are trapped

And I can pull them out with remarkable remembering

 If I am fortunate to remember them

Even dimly, even faintly

They were these

A daughter singing hymns in my ear so sweet, on the back pew of the church

And a wiggling soul dressed in smocked white dress, with the restlessness of two or less

And they included this

The sound of one whose soul’s been sad sound happy at long last

And  hear her speak of hope and sigh relief of all the what’s to come

So I will lose myself in thoughts of what was artful, beautiful in this day

And in the writing and remembering I suddenly can see

The more I see, the more I look, the more I write

Of life as art

And the  beautiful in life

With eyes wide open on the heels of January arctic cold

Both losing and finding as Merton wrote

The day she handed a book of poetry to me

On the back row of the church

All this of note to me

And now perhaps one other soul

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Joining Deidra and Michelle at Michelle DeRusha dot com

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For The Love Of Peace

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

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Cloaked, by a robe, soft heavy on my soul
Worn, yet too often shed
Wrap me in tight, like a swaddled child
Bind my arms, all my limbs, my heart in the warmth
Of Peace.

Wrapped in the bubble, wrap of your care
Clothed in the cloak of your finest content
Lay me down in the black still of the night
And bathe me in wash me in cover me in
Your Peace.

Restless and wobbly as wet calf on new hay
Uncertain, her mother nudges, protects
Shore up and hem in a spirit which seeks
To step into lockstep with strides of
Your Peace.

And not to lay frozen, guarded from life
Not to stay boxed up like porcelain plates
Not to rest, fragile in a place of comfort, from all
But to bask in the glory and know without
Doubt, that peace which  lifts and buoys a soul
Will carry us as deliverers to a world plagued by hurt
Passing on, in love, a deeply held

Peace.

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Have I Told You Lately That You Bless Me?

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

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Have I told you lately that you smooth  rough patches and make soft grooves of grace in my very soul?

Have I whispered lately that your words are balm and healing ointment on my aching head?

Have I breathed  gratitude and thankfulness over all the spoken, written, holy words that come from You and yours?

When I read the words of Yours and all the Saints who drip and drop the words of gentleness on an stirring soul, I have to stop and say,

Have I told you lately that you bless me?

Do you know the power of words so tender on the tough dry patches, where the world can wear a callous on the spirit of a child?

Where all the tears and rips need healing from your very lips, the words, a  salve on grooves left by salty tears?

Have I told you lately how your grace poured out, blesses in the crevices, running deep and staying there, a soothing sought after lather on the wound.

I will tell you often that you bless me.

And bury my soul in the words from your Holy mouth and listen gently with a tender heart to the words from all your Saints.

Can you hear me tell you that you bless me?

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Joining Jennifer, Duane, and Ann.

The Simple

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

When Hurt and Pain and Death play hopscotch on your very life road,

The heart circles all pumping blood flow back to the vital. To the very critical need.

The life blood, crimson seeks to triage the need and it deems it is the need to see the simple.

Simply see the joy in the simplest. Of gifts, of life.

To circle back and gather round, all the heart beats round the life givers. Life enhancers.

A word, The Word, bread, The bread. Feasting on the written, feasting on the life bread. Feasting on His gifts.

A  Feast is pumpkin bread grilled cheese, say grace around the simple. Feasting senses on the just enough. Not more. Satisfied by simple.

All bells and whistles, accoutrement and clutter cast off for the bare boned simple.

Allowing simple to sing her song of lovely, sing her song of living. She leads us to her simple stream, a trickle flow enough.

Return of beet red male bird at the feeder, he who fights with self on glass. He beautiful. He a one man performance teetering eating seed. Act One, a simple show on window.

Art, the paint. Art, the song. Art, the page. Art, the wiper of the dusty dirty off the soiled  soul places. Art, the interchange of actors in the play of living.

Art, life’s extravagant simple embellishment. Art, worship. Art, creative man gifts back to Creator God. Simply seeing art in all.

And love in all its four greek meaning forms, the greatest though of these simply love.

He serves in small trips to the market, long trips eight hours round trip to provide for us.She speaks simple I love you. He calls, he smiles, he thanks.

All wrapped up in beautiful family love. Love, simple poetry.

And simple takes the chalk out of the hand of that hopscotch threesome on the life-road,

Writes instead we love here, love lives here, cursive on the black asphalt.

So all who drive, see simply, love.

See simple living, savoring of the gifts. Breathing deep the fullness, hope-filled breathes.

Simple  signs her name on the last line of the day, it is beautiful, isimply beautiful.

An alleluia chorus on an amen day.

This is Day 11. I am joining 31 Dayers at The Nester’s place for this series. 

And I am linking with Michelle.