We sit together, you and I,
And watch as all the world slips by, Continue reading
Category Archives: Creative Works
For the first years of our marriage, my husband and I lived quite contentedly in an apartment near our church and my parents. Eventually, however, we began to feel that the time had come to strike out into home-ownership. We both knew our ultimate dream – a place out in the country with woods and acreage – was out of reach for us. In point of fact, I think the best we both hoped for was a house with sufficient conveniences in a quiet subdivision somewhere.
Then we found this place…
Some time back, I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. It’s a pursuit that’s seen unfortunate periods of neglect… but that’s another story. 😉 This story starts when I searched for and purchased a lovely guitar, but then decided it was so lovely, it deserved a more protective case than the soft-sided gig bag I’d originally purchased for it.
Then I ran across these chip-board cases for cheap on Craigslist (in the photos that follow, apologies for any poor image quality; I was often working with far less than ideal lighting):
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Wedding Dreams © 2001 Maria Elkins, All Rights Reserved, Used With Permission
Verse 1:
At the shining June wedding
Of a dear family friend Continue reading
Surrender © 2012, Maria Elkins, All Rights Reserved, Used with Permission.
~For Amalya Nathaniel Conkel
And his parents, Bethany and Eric
Love is plodding feet
Set fixedly to follow,
Whether dancing down a grassy slope
Or stumbling up steep, stony ways.
Love is vigilant sight –
Eyes ever pulled from wandering,
Whether held in helpless rapture
Or in staunch, determined gaze.
Love is chosen faithfulness,
A will renewing always,
Whether time brings tenderness
Or trouble-laden days.
Love transcends the moment
To pour out in self-surrender
That runs washing over feet
Whether feelings ebb or blaze.
A race raised in moonlight,
Eyes conformed to twilight,
Adrift through silver dimness
Convinced they clearly see.
They point to a pale moon
And praise the palisades of
Lunar beams that
Mark out every path
And all the proper ways.
But what? Now the sky turns gray,
And reds glow ‘cross their silver,
Splay a tarnish on its cleanness
To be scoured before it stains.
So grows a light that soon outshines
Their sight and all their guiding lines
‘Til blinded, they can’t see their moon
Bow white before the dazzling
Noontime Sun that walks the day.
Ground too long left dry
Grows hard and brittle,
Shrinks and breaks,
And crumbles from the cracks
To dust that trembles at a breath
And when it’s in those fragments
Sometimes true and driving rain
Can only scar:
The rushing battery
Will drive the pieces, crushed, away.
But water that, in deluge,
Might sweep over broken ground
And leave it torn,
Scraped bare, still dry,
And yet more wounded in its wake
May hover in a mist,
Fall lightly, hover – slowly see
The clods grow dark,
The cracks grow close
With healing softening.
The ebbing light pools to aqua shallows in the west,
And casts the clouds through dusty lavenders to depths of gray,
But wispy-fingered mists still reach to grasp the glow and hold it,
Lighting briefly to a burnished shine
‘Fore cooling to a softened steel
As the fire slips past and flows away.
Then the smoldering brightness draws together
Sending forth its last farewell.
The chill of depths creeps in behind it
O’er-flowing it in even’s swell.
Mommy had it out! She had it out; it was time! I jumped and clapped my hands and ran over to the couch where she had set out the fabric for my dress. “You’re making it for me, Mommy? You’re making my big four-year-old dress now?” I grabbed for the fabric and pulled it down so that fell open and over to the floor. All those little purple flowers would be on my dress! As I looked at my fabric flowers hanging down to the floor, I wrapped the part at the top around my hands, because it felt nice and cool when it touched them.
“Now where did my sewing scissors go? What do you think, Melody, did Daddy take them again?” I looked up to see Mommy turning around from her cabinet. “I’ll go see, and then we’ll get started, okay?” Continue reading