Tag: Writing

Poetry Calls

~ 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

~ 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.

The Final One – Grace, God,and What’s Next

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 12 Comments

Today is Day 31. It’s the end. It’s the beginning. The collective is here for the unwrapping.

Chapter One

Thank you for walking out October with me. Or just joining me today. Its Grace that you do.

The words. They have been stirred up and scrambled a bit. These words our tools.

And they have been fragile, tender, chosen with some care. Delicate the words. And each a shade of different.

As prayers, worshipers, delighters, praisers, writers, poets, bloggers, mommies.

It is  our words. They are our tools.

To pray to our God, to worship our God, to raise our children, to sing our songs, and lift our voices.

They lift up, they give voice, and they give Hope.

When I began I started this series walking out a plan to write daily. You can reflect with me on my dailiness. here. (Or lack thereof, or good intent, or best laid plans).

What grace it is to write at all. If writing is your passion. What grace it is to write and meet a friend along the way.

What is this writing journey but a step and a step and another. To touch a soul with a phrase or a word. To write of life and have another lean in soft or lean in hard and say I understand or better, so much better that speaks to me and it is sweet. And it is tender.

Your eyes here with me are a gift. He brings them to the page.

Your heart beats, steps in stride with me, walking it out with me. Gift.

And all these words that have been and words to come, are reflecting, praising, processing, speaking, telling, of this life He gives. And to Him glory.

Of the Grace He gives, and its delightful amazing.

Of the Hope that’s in Him and its radiant.

May He be the audience of one for whom we write the words of our life.

To serve Him, praise Him, seek Him, and abide in Him.

Chapter Two

Once upon a time there was a blogger who found a hope-filled community of writing friends along her way.
And it is good.  And it was very very good. And it is great and safe and a wonderful delightful place.  And there were the  words woven, words shared, words prayed, and words passed like the peace in love, back and forth, from and to. And a life was richer because of the words. Shared.

And stories were written, life was written, and bumps and bruises were written out, and fears released, and hope captured, and God praised.

And she thanked her God for the words , for  breathing through them. For bridges built with them, to others and to her Gift Giver. For Joy found in them. Each one full and rich, like figs picked from the tree,  placed on the lips to delight and consume.

And there was Grace, abundant and amazing. Grace when time was multiplied, time was hard, times were filled with questions and seeking.

And there was Grace, abundant in the extending of words, out. Releasing them. Freeing them. Sending them out, to go and tell.

Out into the bloggy world.

This very imperfect prosety. These very flawed proems.

The voice that trembles, seeks to be and form and speak.

He gives another day to pick it up and form the words. To build community and simply sing a song. To tell of Him and His amazing Grace.

Another Day. A gift.

Its Grace.

And I am writing of those moments, when Grace has appeared, wrapped in Love, dipped in Love, signed in the wet ink of Mercy.

The eyes of the heart record and tell. And thank. And the words keep marching out, prancing out, dancing out, this narrative, this story, of this one wonderful life.

The one He so graciously gives.

Chapter Three

What’s next?

Surprises. Trust. Expectancy. The beautiful. The wonder. The very very ordinary.

And the leaning in and bending the ear to Him, for words and inspiration.

Thank you for reading, journeying and always encouraging.

As a thank you I am giving away a piece of wonderful jewelry from Tracey Anderson Cooper, a friend. Just leave a comment to be entered. It can be a word. (These are examples of her line,.I will choose a piece in stock. It will be lovely, truly.)

{And when you leave a comment or a word, would you consider your own little dream of what would be next, here. Your own little wish of what you would want to read here. If you do. If you shall. An idea, a thought. Its Gift that you would.}

Are you journeying daily, here. Humbled if you would. Be here daily, just me and you and the words. Click here to receive daily emails and join this community of words.

Joining Duane, Emily, Ann, Mary Beth, and Jennifer.

Horse, of Course

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 14 Comments

 

Days 26, 27, 28, 29. This writer’s creative license to catch up on the series. The collective may be found here. Or by clicking the 31 Days 2012 tab at the top of this home page.

Joining Amber and others for her abstract writing on a concrete word. She is here, at
The Run a Muck. Today is HORSE.

It is like a full head on train wreck of the senses.

Down in the deep it lays dormant but when it is given some air, water, fertilizer and freedom it bursts on the scene like a herd of wild horses.

There is power in a word. And we don’t always know how much.

Or we don’t know how much to give it, or allow it. Or release to it.

There is power in words and there is memory there too. You can let it out to graze and give it roaming privileges in the pasture, unharness the power, unleash it.

Let it rip, unbridled.

Loosen the girth. Loosen the grip.

I am young and leaning in the saddle, feeling the first passion of my youth. The challenges there in the ring, on the trail, in the stirrups, over the jumps.

Brushing the back and combing the mane, smelling the hay.

Learning to post and blistering up, bearing the pain on the boney knee, as a dancer on pointe feels it on the toes, and on balls, and in the ballet slipper. The pain of struggle. The passion mixed with pleasure.

The smells mingle in the air and they say that it is  the longest memory or is it the strongest memory. The smells , they linger in the heart.

The smells of childhood and all the senses’ memories, mixed in a toxic remembering of joy and loss. Blended in a batch of story, the narrative of your living. Rooted in early youth. A launching pointing, a jumping off.

The dirt and dust and leather. The blends of animal and barn. The grasses and hays and helmet, black velvet hard a smell like no other with sweat of brow blended in and staying.

We take all the pieces of a life. Don’t we.

And ride off into the grasses greener, grasses leaner and carry them in the saddle with us. The horse that was an elusive dream. The one I never owned. A longing of my childhood. Spending  hours at the barn. Longing for ownership. To name an animal, train it up. Call it mine.

And when my knight in shining armor rode in and swept me up, they came back again, the horses.

And later too, in a mid-stream season of intersecting with the hooved loves of my life.

And even just a few nights ago, they came racing back, trotting back in.

A blaze of happy memory. The wild ponies on the coast of my youth. The stories. A thread between the life of an old salty captain who crossed my path and smiled his toothless grin as he shared with me a co-mingling of memory. Captain Froggy, the Shrimp Boat Captain and I. And the horses.

(Captain Froggy and his guitar)

The wild ponies of the banks were a piece of me and a piece of him.

And these threads that run through a life, they can keep running if you watch carefully.

This thread of memory, the horse, of course.

The earliest memory of passion for getting on the back and being free, happy, brave and scared all together. Of breathing smells and waving manes. Of feeling strong and feeling the hearts beating in tandem, human and horse. Horse and human. Rocking in the leather, galloping through at break neck speed, taking a jump.

The rocking in the saddle, like a baby in the sea of uterine waves. Rocking. Like the baby in the cradle lulled to sleep by the slow pitch to and fro.

The holding on, steering the bit, to the left to the right in the ring and beyond. Guiding in love. And it was always the eyes. The deep piercing orbs that pierce the heart and poke into the soul.

A word can wield a lot of power.

And we take all the parts and pieces and they are living metaphors. Or are they life itself. Following the thread, woven and weaved. Seeing the messy and the missed, the beauty and the treasure. In the all.

And the horse is not through with me yet.

Joining Laura for Play Dates at The Wellspring