Author: Elizabeth Bennefeld

Memorial Day Memories

by Elizabeth Bennefeld
photos of my parents in the 1940s
In Memory

I found myself
wondering why my parents
haven’t phoned, today

I’m caught up short, remembering
they’re on Heaven’s direct line

Copyright © 2019-05-27, Memorial Day, by Lizl Bennefeld.

Memorial Day was “our” family holiday. It’s now my remembering. After my parents were discharged, they returned to Father’s home town to realize their life’s long-held dream of raising lots of children, together. (Eventually, there were nine of us, seven living into adulthood.) My father was groundskeeper (one of many jobs) and then the sexton, of the village cemetery, and we children, while growing up, worked with him to get the grounds ready for the Memorial Day observances. Mother was in the Navy, and Father was in the Army, separated overseas, but both serving in the Pacific Theater. (In uniform).

Retasting realities

by Elizabeth Bennefeld
bookshelves beside my rocking chair
Rewriting the World

So many years, to notice I’ve returned to the place from which I started. A journey not yet ended, but which will end in an hour … or months … or decades from this day. A journey not taken?

streams of thought

and kindnesses not looked for

barely noticed

I saved gratitude for the end

but, thinking now, it should not be left too late

to speak through silent words

written on a screen…a sheet of paper

or the sky’s clouds

gentle rain

tracks

in dust

before the earth is wrung dry

and cries for tears

to dampen it, again

 

perhaps there is a time…a moment

to stop the flow of thought and reason

to feel what is and mourn

what might have been—

to acknowledge the gaps

measures underweight

until the world’s too light

not to blow away

[Rough draft].  Copyright © 2019-05-22, by Elizabeth W. Bennefeld.

 

 

Cold and windy

by Elizabeth Bennefeld
late spring in the neighborhood
Late Spring in the Neighborhood

the season shifts
to days of cold, and colder nights
stars shine more brightly

dry winds abscond with clouds and leave
faint wisps of smoky haze

Copyright © 2019-05-05, by Lizl Bennefeld.

Forecast for the week is for nighttime lows in the 30s and low 40s (although not below freezing), cold and gusty wind.

I decided not to post a couple of the poems that I wrote during April, so my count on this site comes up short.  I fell ill from an infected wound, and so I have been sleeping a lot and taking antibiotics every six hours. I will be so happy to have more than five hours of sleep in a stretch…you wouldn’t believe! Follow-up appointment later this week.

 

 

End of April’s Na/GloPoWriMo poems

by Elizabeth Bennefeld

I have written two of the last three poems for NaPoWriMo 2019. Laid low by an infected wound, and just now feeling up to writing, again, three or four days into a seven-day script for antibiotics. I hope to add the third poem to this page sometime before the end of Friday.

as I slept, the sun
appeared and warmed the ground
I woke to tulips

Copyright © 2019-05-02, by Lizl Bennefeld.

Prompt from Na/GloPoWriMo, Day 29: Write a minimalist poem.

rocks steam haze
clouds obscure the sun
no starlight

too wet, sleeping on the ground
but all the trees have melted

Copyright © 2019-05-02, by Lizl Bennefeld.

Brewer’s prompt for Day 20: Write a dark poem.

LOGO FOR NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Day 27 Late-Season Snow #NaPoWriMo

by Elizabeth Bennefeld
cocker spaniel playing in the newly fallen April snow
Late-season Snow Storm

Prompt: “Take one of your poems and, in three places, insert a parenthetical comment…” I used only this much of the prompt found at Cuyahoga County Public Library website. Only three more days to go!

late-spring storm
{by now, I shouldn’t feel surprise}
snow on puppy legs…face…tail
{how did he get snow plastered THERE?}
don’t sit in my lap!
{ah, well! there’s towels}

Copyright © 2019-04-27, by Lizl Bennefeld.LOGO FOR NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Day 26: An Everlasting Pause #NaPoWriMo #GloPoWriMo

by Elizabeth Bennefeld

Prompt for Day 26: Write 10 one- or two-line poems on one subject, however loosely related to the subject. Put them together, arranging and rearranging, and title them as one poem.

An Everlasting Pause

Only eternity lasts forever

              Be still and know

There are many mansions

              and the perfect one is set aside for you

Passage of time and distance of place…

              all is present in the Now

I cannot conceive of a moment of perfection

              that never ends or varies

One thing that puzzles me is whether eternity is

              a continuity, an instance of existence, or an object of art

Clarity persists in haunting the mind of the bemused

The eternal Here and Now overlooks the ebb and flow

              of distance and time, not counting minutes or the miles

Satisfaction is a state of mind independent

              of circumstances or the company we keep

Experiencing the tides of now, the gentle inflow and recession

              of being and not being

Hypnotized by sensation and waiting for the feeling

              to come again

Lost in the eternal pause between nothing more

              and everything

Copyright © 2019-04-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.