Tag Archives: loss

Poetry, Writing

I Lotioned Your Feet

Leave a comment

(Poem 48 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

My Mema passed away this morning. I had the privilege of spending 50 years in her presence. I will miss her something fierce. She has a husband she was married to for over 70 years, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, not to mention every other possible connection to people far and wide.

Mema and Grandad

I lotioned your feet, then hands
with white jasmine-scented
Bath & Body Works Miriam gave me
and tucked you in the way you like,
brushed your hair and read you your texts,
then some Bible verses of comfort—
Isaiah 40, the first one that surfaced.

The steady sounds of the ICU create
a strangely soothing white noise as a
backdrop to your labored breaths.
Lydia is here again to hold your hand
just one more time; one of many
one more times over the last few days
because each time could be the last.

The you I know is no longer here,
but the shell remains and deserves
gentle petting and reassurance.
Goodness knows how many times
you had to ‘there, there’ me in the last
50 years, buoying my spirits and righting
my sails with your steady faith and calm.

Boaz sat vigil until I arrived, and your
children and husband will take over after
I leave — we are all branches of a grand
candelabra you have lit with exuberance,
spreading across states and time, thankful to
have been influenced by the life you lived
and the love which from your cup overflowed.

@ICU Room 1 St. David’s Round Rock Hospital & Home Studio – 48th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

The Mirror of Erised

Leave a comment

What would stare back

from the Mirror of Erised

should the chance arise

to gaze into that smooth pane?

 

Only the deepest desires

of the heart reveal themselves;

neither knowledge or truth

reside in the likeness.

 

It is said that the happiest

on earth would see themselves

exactly as they are, no magic

greater than reality.

 

Do the broken-hearted souls

whose sad countenances

look longingly for the lost

ever make peace with reflections?

 

This poem was written during a Harry Potter marathon with my friend Debbie M. while watching the first movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 

Image credits – The Mirror of Erised by Daan van Genechten (Harry Potter Illustration) https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bKgG0g

Health, Writing

Waking up from discouragement…

Leave a comment

My last post was in October.  I reported that I had not written since authority figures in my life slammed me with judgment, censorship, and criticism…not only of my writing, but my discernment as a human being and professional.

Now my job is in jeopardy–not connected to my writing, politics above my station.  I am working from home due to the coronavirus and quarantine and all that bizarreness that is occurring in this world right now.

I have also taken in grandchildren temporarily while adult children fix their worlds.  I’ve had a winter of sickness and slow recovery.  I’ve battled a time of sadness.  And I’ve applied to begin working on my master’s degree.  Big things are happening.

And all I want to do is write…and read…and write some more.  Enough pouting, sulking, brooding, etc.  It is time to get back to finding my joy.  I cannot be derailed by others whose opinions I don’t even value anyway.  It has certainly not been a conscious decision to take a sabbatical from writing, but that is what has occurred.  And it has not been good for me.

Here and now, I resolve to get back to writing.  I declare this time of non-writing ended.   Rebekah the writer is back.

Essays, Writing

Discouragement

Leave a comment

I had what felt like a setback last week.  I can’t really go into detail, but was required to remove my books from a library, change aspects of said book, and accept feedback I did not want to hear from people I did not want to hear it from.  Sigh…

I have allowed this incident to discourage me to the point that I have not written since then.  I sat down with a cup of tea and tried to write a poem this morning and couldn’t get through it.   Now it is almost bedtime and this post will have to do as my attempt at putting myself back into writer mode.  A blog at least counts as something.

I know many writers have faced discouragement, rejection, rewrites, and edits that destroy the soul of the work.    They have to pull themselves out of funks and get back to the craft.  And I will.  I am temporarily in mourning.  This depression will not get the best of me.  It is simply a detour on my journey.  I will find my way back.  This post is a start.

Poetry, Writing

Goodbye, my dear friend

Leave a comment


-For Mary by Rebekah J. Marshall 1/20/19

Goodbye, my dear friend.

“The earth has arranged her skirts

and taken you back so tenderly.”

I know you have “vanished

into something better-”

“the dark hug of time.”

What is it like “after the last day?”

“Did you float into the sky?”

I know “you never intended

to be in this world,”

yet you still got on with

“building the universe.”

“Everything dies at last and too soon,’

so I will bathe in the

“moon’s bone-white eye”

while whispering

“prayers made of grass”

until “all the locks click open.”

No matter how “humble the effort,”

I will “move my grains on a hillside”

one by one if need be

for “neither power nor powerlessness

will have me entirely”

and “I am willing to be dazzled.”

Yes, “my spirit carries within it the thorn,”

but I “keep on trudging.”

And every so often

“green leaves emerge from the tips of my fingers.”

A “fox on his feet of silk” found

“a bride married to amazement.”

I “have changed my life,”

“announced my place in the family of things,”

and “invented the dance with the wind,” for

“death is a little way away from everywhere.”

This is the very reason that

“every morning the world is created.”

Thank you for living

“your one wild and precious life.”

I will “remember your beloved name”

until I am “washed out of my bones”

because “death isn’t darkness after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us.”