you always know why

Have you ever noticed how the loveliest things have no real beginning

Or at least not one that you recall

It’s as though they always were…

And never were not…

Once upon a forever fireflies sparkled in a dear night sky

Even now I can see them dancing before us

Tiny stars, you told me

They left the heavens to embrace we two

In a playful magic rarely known

And so we find ourselves here again

Hand in hand at the dusk of a long long day…

Are you hungry, you ask

I only smile in return

You know why

You always know why

Me too, with a wink and a whisper you softly reply

The offer of your strong and gentle arm

And off we go in search of our enchanting corner

Almost as cozy and warming

As your touch upon my skin

I like it best when the space is nearly empty

With only a candle between us

We have it all to ourselves

Inviting soft exchanges

And lingering gazes…

Let us then venture from our blazing hearth

Closing the door in sweet knowing

That soon enough we shall return…

For now we journey outward

Pausing…where no one else in the whole wide world would notice

I love this place

Soft graffiti swirls tangle in brilliant confusion

I tighten my hand in yours

You know why

You always know why

Hidden among the cherry reds and the lime greens

Of an artist’s dream gone wild

Our own initials are tucked safely in an inky heart

I like to reach my fingers out to them as we pass

Recalling another firefly moment

When in silly tenderness

I bade you stop and turn around

Don’t peek, I teased

You knew why

You always know why

I could feel you smiling behind me

As I carved us forever into being

Then you held me close to your heart and

Loved me for it

I like that part best of all…

And so this eve under a soon to be firefly sky

As we slowly make our way

I tighten my hand in yours

Asking, may we pause

You know why

I love the way you always know why…

****

ellie894 December 8, 2018

Rose

I am sweetly inspired by so very many things. Please visit Val at Colouring the Past to see the photo that settled in my thoughts and inspired this….

https://colouringthepast.com/2018/11/24/young-woman-standing/

I was named by my father,

He so loved to give my mother roses

To see her smile…

With a softened gaze and a silent sigh

I look afar to a place others cannot see

I do recall the sweetest words

Of last evening whispered true

Am lost in the hope of what may one day be

My unruly chestnut tresses gathered up

The best that I can manage

Still they loosen and escape

Blurring at the edges

Much the way my heart does

Longing so to fly

My anxious hands held tight behind

Hiding sweet anticipation

Are you nearing now my love

How much longer must I wait

The ivory pinned close at heart

A cherished gift of our last goodbye

And safe within the locket

At home upon my breast

The smile of my beloved

Doth ever and always rest

****

ellie894 December 1, 2018

If I should write of the wind…

If I should write of the wind

Until my hands are sweetly sore

And the ink in my quill has all dried up

Until it isn’t anymore,

I wonder if my windy words

Would soon begin to bore…

But then…I pause to ponder love

That has been written so dearly of

A thousand, thousand times before

How love once true never tires

Of climbing its towering castle spires

Laced with delicious phrases

Edged in luscious mazes

Of many a moment

Tenderly spent…

Why then should the wind,

Be any different

As gusty he sweeps

and blustery he blows

Lifting me high from off my toes

I need not touch

The sturdy ground below

As He tickles away my fear

To softly declare in my listening ear

All the beautiful wheres

That ever we shall go

All because…the wispy wind does blow,

Rather the same as love I muse

If the wind is such

And love is more and much

Why then should life be any other way…

Than to carry me in the very heart of it

And rock me slow in passion’s sway…

****

ellie894 August 2018

who…

This morning is still…so still that it invades me…heartbeat slows…breath deepens. And, for a moment I believe with all my soul that whatever will be…can be….

The only sound…an owl cutting through the darkness…resonant and pure…

Who, he asks

Who…

Stately and noble I imagine him to be…commanding of his chosen perch and even of the night itself…

The moon is so far away from full that darkness shrouds the world in pitch…making his call more poignant with every moment…

Who are you…who were you once upon a time…who will you be when given the chance…one day…

Who does he ask…who will listen…anyone…or only me…

Who do you sing to across the unknown…who do you dance with upon the deep…

Who whispers tenderly when no one hears…who blows kisses when no one sees…

Who cares for you when all other eyes are sleeping…who do you dream of in your night’s repose…

Who do you silently suppose…

Who makes a difference in who you are…whether near or far…who, my love…

Who, he queries endlessly…flying me high on his wondering wings…

Day approaches and his notes suddenly become as silent as he is invisible to me…

Deeper into the trees he makes his way…once again he waits in solitude for the starry night to return in soft embrace…leaving me to face the light on my own…

With nothing but the echo of his solitary question thundering through my slowly beating heart…

who…

****

ellie894 May 2018

for the little ones…

They will not remember

You

as a

Success

Or

as a

Failure

Only

that you

Showed up

With a smile on your face

a book in your hand

and a song in your heart

Just for them…

****

ellie894 April 2018

if only

Early morning and dark, a hushed reverence fills the air.  The pitter patter of paws follows me down the hall and to the kitchen.  Start the coffee.  Put on my long soft sweater and head outside.  

Stars shining bright and a few frogs still sing.  It’s too early yet for the birds.  Their time will come.  Jack has joined me on the back porch.  He likes the early morning as much as I do.  Or maybe he just likes to be close to me whenever and wherever that may be.  Jack doesn’t show up well in the dark but I know he’s there.  He nudges my hand and leans his whole self against me in his own special way.  

I’m grateful he’s near.  I am as sure of him as I am of the coffee waiting for me.  The strong aroma drifts through the crack in the door I’ve left open.  Soon the scent nudges me as certainly as Jack does.  Ready, it calls to me… I answer with a few footsteps easily made.  I’m grateful for those too.

Pull the cup from the shelf.  A dash of cream to soften the color.  A tad bit of sugar to sweeten the taste.  I caress the warmth coming from the porcelain with both of my hands.  

Back to the porch we all go – me and my coffee and my juice box named jack.  Oh, how that first sip delights!  While I gaze at the stars, I’m still fresh from the dreams that aren’t really ours.  Where do they come from? Where do they go?  Strong places and colors…my own picture show.  I watch it and feel it and live it as well!  Or, so it seems…

My foot falls asleep under Jack’s sturdy frame.  Another sip of fine coffee, my writing can wait.  He’s sleeping so sweetly.  I can’t bear to move.  And, my dream rings inside me like notes with a tune…

Such a storm! So much raging! Darkest gray and sheets of  silverish rain, blowing sideways flooding the stage.  The wooden pier that stands guard over the lake disappears under the onslaught. The man made path of sawn timbers giving way to a force greater than themselves.  But, the grass is just dandy! If anything, it only comes greener as the angry sky falls.

I watch from inside transfixed on the spot.  I am safe and quite sound.  Without shoes on my feet, my toes feel the ground.  Others around me but nary a sound. There’s a roof overhead.  I sense it above me.  I know that it’s there, keeping me in.   It protects from the rain,  far away from my skin.

It’s an odd thing…no windows to let the outside in…no walls to keep the outside out…no doors to be closed… Only ways to move through.  Easily about. There is a knowing.  The spaces, they mingle.  Ever so gently, they are not separate but rather one single.

Candlelight flickers bathing all that it touches with a graceful warm glow.  How it gathers and holds altogether, I don’t know.  It plays and it dances so joyfully on the creamy walls and dark wooden furniture.  Tables and chairs and doorways were all crafted from a reddish wood warmed over time by much use and great care.  Items carefully chosen that fill a home…

For,  home it is…warm and safe…a soft place in which to feel the storm gather round.  The sky above rumbles in response to the chaos it cannot control.  

But here, here is a safe place for one who seeks calm…just a heartbeat away.  At once looking outward and wondering inward.  

A tender gaze moves with me from room to room.  A strength of presence, I feel more than See.  It needs nothing it seems.  Asks nothing of me.  Waiting and peaceful in cozy small spaces.  Content…just to be close, close in my dreams.  Soul to soul, together and whole.

Why… why is there invisible grace…keeping roof on…keeping rain out…safe harbor for warmth…what I See and Think and Feel, so very different but each so very real.  

How comforted I feel! How warm and alive!  Protected and cared for…a light from inside…

In the wide awake world there are too many…too many doors and windows and walls…keeping me safe…yet holding life out…
It’s lovely to be in a place that doesn’t need them…if only for a moment…if only in a dream…

the knot’s tale

I perch here at the island with my spiral open and waiting before me. Always waiting … ink glides across the lined paper with only a little effort.   Words form one sweet letter at a time.  Healthy pauses.  Renewed thought. Words traveling more up than down.  They are like the weight of a stone slowing me and yet… lifting me. I wonder if they come stronger with pain. Or, not really.  They are the same thoughts after all…strung together like carefully knotted pearls.  A lovely circle, never perfect…

once upon a time…

Each pearl was specially chosen and placed.  String was laid out.  By the hand of a master they were tied together, forever as one.  They were not slid haphazardly in a line  leaving them to bump and scrape at one another. That is a good way to lose them all.  No.  One pearl. One nearly invisible knot of love.  Alternating, first one and then the other.  One iridescent beauty.  One common bit of white.  The one to shine.  The other to hold.  All at once they come together as one treasured whole!

Then, one day…a very fragile place wears thin…breaks wide.  But, because of the knots, one doesn’t lose everything.  Without them there would be a chaos of bouncing and rolling, hither and yon…gone forever.  The one pearl at the breaking point must be gathered and saved.  The rest remain tightly together.

The eternal circle is only a line now.  It may be laid out and admired but it can no longer be worn. Put them away for a long while.  It is too painful to look upon them and to remember. At first there is only the brokenness. One separated from the others and rather lost.  A deep sigh. Wrap them tenderly in tissue and tuck them away in a special place.

They will wait.  Until…you are ready.  One day you think of them and know.  It is time…a search for the tissue wrapped treasure ensues.  Unfolded so gently with a beating heart.  It has been so long.  There they wait in a lovely heap not looking as broken as you remembered.  A sweet dawn of hope embraces you.  You had almost forgotten how very much they favored tiny full moons at rest in your palm.  Oh… their familiar coolness so refreshing to the touch brings a warm smile.

The delicate undertaking begins.  The solitary task of starting anew.  An empty space in which to create.  Light to see what lies before you. A lifetime of lessons reminding you of your own true north.  The softest music. The surest hand to guide both pearls and thread. They wait. You wait.  Waiting only for a gentle touch to bring them whole again.

Painstakingly, one at a time the tiniest knot is created between each pearl.   Almost invisible, it surrenders all of its fame to the pearl it protects. The silky white thread bestows space.  Each pearl is free!  Free to be quietly unto itself while still keeping a special place as part of the whole.  Therein lies the gentle strength of the knot.  The smallest bit of string unnoticed on most days, wisely and carefully tied creates the most loving bond between each precious full moon.

The pearl held forever by the strong knotted silk. Oh, how lovingly they come together… circle upon circle always…

Enough time has past.  You are ready once more to enjoy their beauty.  One was very nearly lost.  With patience and loving care they have come round into the circle they were always meant to be.

Only you hold the memory of the broken place and of the one that was almost lost.  A single tear falls for that long ago moment as you clasp them around your neck…afraid to look in the mirror.  A smile that nods tenderly to the sorrows of the past just as surely as it reaches hopefully to the future. Take them between your fingers, a gentle back and forth just to remind yourself they are really there, where they should be.

the end…

no, never the end.

that which is most dear will never be lost if you will only knot it lovingly in your heart and wait…

always and forever the beginning…