Creativity…that is one great gift which gets me through this life, my own and the creativity of others. To me, it’s a great human expression of Spirit! As you may know, poetry is one area where I find such sustenance.
I was recently published in a journal with the poem below. Though not my first published poem, the publication party last week was the first time I read any of my poems to a sizable crowd. I was nervous!! Until I began to read. Then the poem took over for me. Funny how that happens, no? Friends who could not attend wanted me to share the poem. I preferred to do it as a blog in order to share it readily on social media, and to add some photos. My WordPress template made it hard to format it just as it should look, but nonetheless…here it is.
The Beauty You Left
for my sister
As usual
you were ahead of your time
Now it’s almost fashionable
to die of cancer.
Though it’s been nearly a decade
I still savor the sight of the heavy thick bowl
you made with your kids at the pottery studio
squiggles painted on bone glaze
And the milky glass vase,
another gift from you
now holding long sturdy stems sprouting
dried baby roses the size of pennies
My enameled purple earrings
replacing the original pair you bought me
which had been lost when that burglar
broke in, stealing only my earrings
I wore them at that pricey café, where you insisted
on treating me, for getting your son to his appointment;
you’d been too nauseous from the chemotherapy.
Our final dinner out, we didn’t know your last relapse was near
The small green porcelain bull
red surfboard on it’s back
tiny yellow lei around the neck
replica of a Chicago cow sculpture
you collected them like baseball cards
this one a duplicate
that your husband gave me
after you passed
The book about health I no longer have
you bought for me in a fit of extra
sweetness, perhaps mixed with pity
for my own lifelong maladies
You were so different from me, full of vigor
entertaining scores of friends
cooking for them and
dancing, always dancing
It’s the Scorpio mug you brought me from Israel though
with all my astrological traits in a language
I can’t even read
that made me think of you today
Most mornings I use it for turmeric tea, its nutrients
meant to bring lighted health to own my cells.
Imbibing, I relish the beauty you left
After, I scrub it to vanquish yellow stains
© Elizabeth Good
Nick says
Another moving poem by my favorite poet!
Elizabeth Good says
Thank you so much Nick.
David Harris says
It’s a masterpiece.
The photos are perfect, & add another unexpected, delightful dimension.
I met Michelle very briefly only once, a memory like a whoosh. But I feel now as though I know a small part of her very, very well.
Thank you. Your account of her gifts to you is now a gift to us.
Elizabeth Good says
David, thank you so very much for the wonderfully kind remarks.