Step By Step

One foot ahead of the other,
successively exercised,
is a conversation of feet
with dust and pine needles.

Fern fronds reach to
whisper against shins,
like a cat greeting
a familiar friend.

Step by step, each a further
shedding of useless words;
why should the trees care
what anyone thinks?

Each step away
is a step forward
to something new,
like the unfurling of a flower.

Can you hear the hidden stream
that flows inside your body?
Do you know the music
of the falling leaf?

Of most things that can be seen,
all that is heard and felt,
consideration of these
might be most worthy.

For now, the path is all there is
and all there need be;
every step away is a release
from one perspective to another.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen 

Good Neighbors: 8. Eight Days, Nine Yards, at the Eleventh Hour

Standing before the empty tomb,
we see its emptiness and weep.

What happened here?
Who can say?

Loss and abandonment hang in the air.

A parent died;
a friend left;
a mentor migrated,
leaving no forwarding address;
the plane crashed,
and we cannot rest until we know why,
for how can there be closure
under the cloud of the unknown?

We all wait,
and what we await
is an eighth day,
when the emptiness can be lifted
—or filled—
by possibility,
so we can move on.

When will our eighth day come?

If we could move,
we might
attempt a full nine yards
to achieve ten,
or, who knows, even more.

The empty tomb
is meant to make us turn to one another,
for solace and for support,
to reconnect and renew.

On that day,

on the day when we break through
—the grief,
            the pain or paralysis—
when we find one another
and work together
—to be with and for one another—
                        only when,
at that eleventh hour of our collective soul
                        only then
            might we truly be known

            as Good Neighbors.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is the final prayer and postlude of a cycle based on the so-called Seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”.

Good Neighbors: 7. Sunday

Listen!
Hear what I’m saying?
Don’t judge

what you don't understand!

How can you justify
pushing me away?

I’ve been objectified,
            I’ve been abused,
I’ve been both overwhelmed
            and ignored by those who should help.

I remember better times,
when I was able to work,
and could think deep thoughts.

Now, it is all I can do to stand up
            and reach out.
I’m living through a drought,
            and thirsting for true compassion.  Hear that?

Hear me,
Now, as I stand before you,

Don’t turn away,
as if I am invisible.

Let me feel love in the morning;
            if I am to believe in the system,
teach me how it works,
            so that I can freely be in it. 

Deliver me,
help deliver us all from failure and shame;

we’ll follow you to salvation,
if you’ll let us in.

Teach us to live anew,
            for you have found the key;
if you are truly good,
            lead the rest of us to that promised land.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 143, and could be subtitled, “The Abused.”

Good Neighbors: 6: Saturday

I scream from the pit,

I roar from within the fires of Hell;
when will I be free?

I have killed for my government,
the horrors of my record are known;
during wartime, my skills were needed,
but I am now a discarded “hero.”

My peacetime is an internal war;
I am a danger to myself.

I wait for relief,
I wait for a changing of the guard,
for an eternal watchman to cometh,
and relieve me of my duty.

Really, I want my memory
to be wiped clean;
I want to let it go.

I wait to be redeemed
for a new beginning.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 130, and could be subtitled, “The Veteran”

Good Neighbors: 5. Friday

My prayer went unheard, but not my crying;

in my sorrow, I am both visible and invisible.

My days drift away like smoke:
my heart is so shriveled and broken,
I cannot eat, so I grow thin;
Who knows where I have been?

Or what I have done to pass the time?

I walk alone, in a sea of people,
and no one knows my pain;
how could my life perish so,
though my body be yet alive?

In the blink of an eye,
by a shot in the dark,
my child, my life, was taken from me.

All my days since flow like shadows,
and a drought withers me to my roots;
bread is like ashes on my tongue,
water is as bitter as tears;
I go up and down,
but clouds follow me ever,
taunting me with hope
for a rain that never comes.

What did she do, my child,
to meet such a fate?
What did I do to bring it on her?
How could love fail so deeply?

Can anything be done
to loosen the bonds of time
or shorten the days of this turmoil?
When shall I be changed

from pain into dust?

These days endure;
and I am but a worn rag,
but nothing changes,
all remains the same,
for years that have no end,
while I watch children not my own
grow to carry life forward.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 102, and could be subtitled, “The Bereaved.”

Good Neighbors: 4. Thursday

Have pity on me,

have compassion;
you are a person just like me,
so try to understand;
accept me, and I'll feel okay.

I came here to make a better life.
I share a room with five other guys,
so I can send my earnings home.

I know I don’t belong here,
I would rather be at home;
I know my presence offends you,
but you need me to do all the work
you cannot bring yourself to do.

It’s not that I look different,
not that I trip over your words;
my sin is that I am here.

You call it free country,
and then you take it back;
I work for you, and you speak against me
—you think of me as inferior.

I was born of inequality;
this is the stain you helped make,
a stain you cannot wash out
—the truth is on you.

Greet me,
and I’ll feel acknowledged;
pay me,
and I’ll feel my worth
—an honest share will bring me joy,
and I’ll forget how tired I am;
my spirit will be uplifted,
and I will call you fair.

Don’t push me out;
you need me too much,
and I need you, too
—we need one another.

If we can share this beautiful life,
if we can stand together for what is just,
the world will be a better place for everyone.

We both put our heart out there,
we both make sacrifices;
let’s build, from small kindnesses,
a world we can all share,
where everyone has a rightful place.

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 51, and could be subtitled, “The Alien.”

Good Neighbors: 3. Wednesday

You can criticize my lifestyle, 

but you can’t embarrass me.

I see the way you look at me;
I get it: Addiction shows on my face and frame;
I feel it on my skin, it burns in my joints.

I’m in over my head; I can’t get free.

Maybe I’m not beyond rehab, but it hasn’t worked yet.

My sores get infected, but still I can’t stop;
my whole being is a like festering pustule.
All I can do is pick at myself
and feed the monster inside.

I’m a prisoner who wants to be free,
but I don’t have the strength
or will.

My family and friends have disowned me
—they either shun me
or talk about me behind my back;
they wish I would disappear.

I try not to hear their voices in my head;
I try not to shout the curses
that fill my withered heart.

I know I need help,
and I think I want help;
someone’s got to have the key
to unlock my iron cell.

The way things are now,
people seem happy at my failures;
I admit my weakness, and ask for help,
but they revel in their strength,
and revile me for my vices.

People who want nothing better for me
can only be my enemies,
can only do me harm.

Deep within, I want to find goodness;
I want to know what is good
and to be good,
to know a good life.

Please, don’t leave!
Please, don’t abandon me, like all the others!
Help free me from this cycle of pain!
Don’t let me go!

© 2015 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This poem is part of a cycle based on the so-called seven Penitential Psalms. The subtitle of the cycle is “Psalms from the Streets”. This entry is based on Psalm 38, and could be subtitled, “The Addict.”