Walk

Posted for Poets United Mid-Week Motif – Walk
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/

Walk

Can no longer walk
without a cane or proffered
hand to lend support.

Yet, my words in black ink
on white paper, create
a meandering path far easier
to follow.

Back to Indigo Blue mountains
of Montana, verdant green
trees of Connecticut, or rushing
waters racing to smooth granite
boulders just beyond Michigan
borders.

A hawk sitting silent sentinel
in metal tree limbs of utility
pole just south of city limits
near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Or wobbling turkey buzzards,
dark V shaped wings riding currents
above Missouri Interstate. Slow
moving prickly porcupine, sole
greeter at entrance to Yellowstone.

Wavering light of small bonfire
where we sat to listen to echoing calls
of Great Horned Owls filling dark
night with their repetitive chorus.

So many more of these, can only thank
that younger self for gathering
into words that now allow me
to freely walk, once again
in memory.

Elizabeth Crawford 6/26/2019

Notes: After sitting in a wheelchair (for mobility purposes) for two hours at the doctor’s office yesterday, and coming home exhausted, I had to laugh when I saw the one word prompt for today. Actually thought about a one line response, “Only wish I could.” But then that first stanza marched into my head and I wrote it down and the memories started flowing so I went with it. Memory is definitely a means of walking, and having written them down, they are quite quick to rush to center-stage. The real problem was in choosing from so many. Knowing I would probably end up where I am today, was the major incentive for all the road trips we took while I could still walk without too much effort.

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In Way of Remembering

Posted at The Sunday Whirl
https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

Words: vulnerable, struggle, talk, soul, exist, way,
stories, magic, courage, messy, lean, mantra

In Way of Remembering

Struggle with reality
of being old and vulnerable.

Have long talks
with my soul and together we recall

messy stories from a past
when means to exist were lean

of all magic and courage.
Until we remember mantra

found in bumper sticker
glued to dashboard of faltering Pontiac.

Success is the best revenge.

Elizabeth Crawford 6/9/2019

Process Notes: Biographical. Still have a few people around who want me to believe I am not okay. The bumper sticker was a gift from a friend who understood, and it remained on the dashboard of that old blue Pontiac until I drove it into the ground. But then replaced it with a much newer one, paid for in cash that I had earned and saved.

Image is a rainbow photo, put through the kaleidoscope app

Where Does it Begin?

Where Does it Begin?

What is peace? Where
does it begin? In cessation
of all hostilities? Between
countries, nations, ideologies?

Lack of a need for all boundaries
between states, communities,
cities and towns? End of
competition between schools,

religions, students, rivals, sisters
and brothers, fathers and sons?
But then I remember that single
moment of utter stillness.

Years ago, buried under time
passing, other lives lived, both
remembered and sometimes
forgotten in need to continue.

That one moment, silent and still.
World stopped, Universe holding
its breath, everything waiting
for me to hear sound of my own

single heartbeat.

Elizabeth Crawford 5/29/2019

Process Notes: Biographical and true. At age 27, I had a spiritual experience. A singular moment of awareness in which I knew that the only thing I could ever change was me. I am now 73 and still see myself as a work in progress. Image is a template I made from one of my doodles and colored it with India Ink, then gave it a digital background.

Butterfly Light

Posted for Poets United Mid-Week Motif: Light
http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/

Butterfly Light

Words are the light
that helps to define
whatever I find
in my silent darkness.

Like the eye of a storm,
brings comforting stillness
to surrounding chaos
and utter confusion.

Flickering candle of fluttering
brightness, like butterfly wings
that quickly banish, transform
whatever fear might prevent

forward movement.

Elizabeth Crawford 5/22/2019

Process Notes: Already knew the first line of what I would write when I came online. So looked for an image and found this old photo taken many years ago. I have a thing about ‘cloud action’. The second verse came directly from the photo. And then finally noticed, for the first time, the butterfly at the center of its light. Butterflies are a symbol of transformation and metamorphosis. 

About Those Boulders

Posted for the Sunday Whirl: Wordle #403
https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

Words: permit, siren, shoot, insight, live, tracks,
lights, blocks, style, clues, shift, alley

 

 

About Those Boulders

Have lived life by seeking its light
through insight and following tracks
left by others dropping clues as they move
through sometimes darkened alleys
where shadows shift, changing definitions
as they twist through meandering blocks
of how’s, when’s, and always why.

Have learned that only permission
needed is my own, while honing
ability to shoot straight, using words
whose siren song forever leads me
forward, through dense forest of trees,
running rivers, and dragon sized
boulders.

Elizabeth Crawford 5/12/2019

Process Notes: As soon as I saw the word list, I could see how many of them would, or could fit together. It made that first stanza somewhat easy to create. The second stanza fought with me a bit. But once I decided to change “permit” to “permission” the rest fell in place. Image is a photo I took at a park a bit North of the city. It’s main attraction is a narrow ravine that is accessible by a wooden staircase that leads down into its interior. I did use all of the words in one form or another.

Barefoot Reverie

Posted For The Sunday Whirl: Wordle # 402
https://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/

window, charm, orphan, off, fly, sigh,
stifle, sense, city, sing, float, dust

Barefoot Reverie

Sometimes feel like an orphan.
Sighing on desire to fly off
out window, float away
from city dust that somehow
stifles sense of rightness found
only in forest, beside rippling
brook that sings its own charming
song of laughter, while dancing
bare-footed from one stone to another.

Elizabeth Crawford  5/5/2019

Process Notes: Image is a “happy accident”. Was doing a pen and ink sketch and spilled water on the page. Grabbed a paint brush and used the ink for a wash. Did use all of the words. And again, am reminded of how much I came to enjoy these wordle puzzles.

Thirteen Ways of Looking At Memory

NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 30

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Memory

I
Stone border wall keeping one
from entering dreamed of place
called Freedom.

II
Being constantly locked into
space of exhausting
repetition.

III
Grains of sand
that linger long
after leaving the beach.

IV
Becoming only an
irritant in need
of being brushed away.

V
An echo bouncing off
mountain of buried
emotions.

VI
Ghostly apparitions
come to shatter peace
of present moments.

VII
Dark shadows that swallow
dreams of a distant
but different future.

VIII
A light switch
mounted on wall
of remembering.

IX
Poem, like a star, dancing in darkness
waiting for someone to look up
to see.

X
Greening path of footprints
offering steps toward growth
and healing.

XI
A chance to redo
what has already
been done.

XII
More than fleeting probability
to smash bricks in stone wall
encasing Freedom

XIII
Opportunity to live, to breathe
inside wider place
of grace long promised.

Elizabeth Crawford 4/30/2019

Process Notes: This one has been slowly building itself for about two weeks, as I noticed that most of the poems I’ve written this month are about, or based in memory.  And during those daily writings, the phone rings at least once and I always wonder if it is the woman who calls me occasionally to share a Bible verse with me, seemingly forgetting that I told her the first time that I studied the Bible, long ago, taught adult Bible Study classes, and view it very differently than she does. I believe that the Artists, especially the writers of any generation share the same energy as the prophets of old.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves”, tells us that ‘nothing is ever lost from the human psyche’. Think about that for a moment. Our skin holds all that gives us life, and also each moment that we have lived. In this present moment we are the culmination of all of those moments. They hold both purpose and meaning. When we work to heal past moments of wounding, we are freeing our future moments for something better than what came before. Creating that wider place in which to exist.

The image is a photograph taken in my niece’s backyard, then put through the kaleidoscope app. It has long been one of my favorites because the boulders in the original photo, became stone birds flying in the four sacred directions. Creating that wider place in which to breathe, to live.