cmarswrites

[cmarswrites]

Chasing summer through pinholes in time. dancing, swirling and mingling with the yellowing leaves. In this, the eternally warm and eyes squinting, we live in love and laughter always knowing, dreaming, hoping for another summer.

CMarsh 2023

[cmarswrites]

And so she speaks

She speaks in the sound of rain, exhaling a whistling wetness that calms and cleanses, that cools and caresses.

Her voice, when it sings, pours out of her throat like rain from the eaves, dripping itself coolly down your skin and pooling itself around your feet.

The sound when she cries stutters and drinks itself dry before tears stain her cheeks.

and so she speaks

and sings and continues as though compelled by the rolling waves of rain running themselves through the gutters.

CMarsh 2016

[cmarswrites]

Is there a word for the sound of wind gusting towards you that you can hear - far off at first - but can't yet feel? Rustling trees closer - closer - closer - a growing sound, the anticipation and crescendo building slowly until it finally finds you, tossing your hair dancing briefly around you before quieting and moving on singing through the trees composing a haphazard melody as it goes.

CMarsh 2023

[cmarswrites]

A Sonnet for Huntington's and All You Stole.

The day, when broken on your fallen's face, so pallored as it is with sun-starved skin, now sees no hope to send her joy; replaced instead with dread at all that could have been. She chokes on food and gasps for breath amid the shakes and shudders of her bones. Her brain betrays her voice and stunts her lips, undid by words and woe, her smile a sad refrain. A decade lost to you, your subject now turns tides, revolts and finds herself anew. She's laid in wait, stark still with furrowed brow and, broke from her vessel, faces you. She turns on dagger eyes and with a breath says fond farewells and conquers you in death

CMarsh 2016

[cmarswrites]

Farm Fresco

Driving home in winter, the sun tucked behind the horizon for the night, mom hummed along to the cassette stuck in the tapedeck as she kept her eyes fixed ahead - headlights slicing a gap in the dark curtain where the streetlights stopped and country began.

We welcomed a sudden thud-crunch of tires moving from the subtle hum of asphalt to the pockmarked gravel road drawn across the prairie like crayon lined portraiture on winter whitened looseleaf.

A final scribble of curve in the road gave way to the house on the hill with a light burning; and the broad silhouette of dad watching for us outlined in front picture window - his shadow painted across the snow framing the front of the house. The house was nights of dinners around the table and songs sung at bedtime. It was green shag carpet that became forests for Hot Wheels and GI Joe. It was a collection of cat bones each buried with gentle hand and childish tears underneath a pussywillow tree.

Post Bugs Bunny Saturday mornings pulling on rubber boots and pouring out of the front door, we played biologist in sloughs, scavenging for specimens in old jam jars.

Winter built us snow bank fortresses. Spring found us slough-splashed with mud. Summer sang us to sleep against the spark of campfires. Fall raked cool air across our cheeks.

We slugged through farm yard mud to the barn – a solitary splash of red on the horizon like our cheeks in winter. We would play hide and seek in the stables and peek precariously out of the hayloft door on the top floor, daring each other to creep closer, army crawling through dust and dried pigeon droppings to hang our heads over the side and see the landscape of farm and prairie that we painted ourselves into.

CMarsh 2016

[cmarswrites]

Missing Him.

She breathes life silently

into her lonely bed

by making his side

before crawling to sleep

under the embrace of cold linens.

She stares at his empty pillow

and whispers to sleep

while her hand absent-mindedly

grasps across the mattress

to the scent of him

still lingering on the sheets.

Her smile remembers him

briefly

before her dreams float in

filling the room with him

until she wakes

and remakes his side of the bed

before her own.

CMarsh 2023

[cmarswrites]

Vincent van Gogh - Vase with Chinese asters and gladioli, 1886 (details)

[cmarswrites]

The Greys.

The rogue streak spreads

like a blanket of snow

across a brown prairie.

Curls are looser now

and less shiny

than when she was younger.

Silver hair matches

slivers of age across her face -

laugh lines, frown lines

furrowed brows.

All of these, signs

of love, life, experience

and the excitement

of (hopefully) many more

years to come.

CMarsh 2022

[cmarswrites]

Danielle Mckinney (American,b. 1981)

Chrysalis, 2023

oil on linen

[cmarswrites]

None of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.

ig credit: parkingonthewildside.

[cmarswrites]

One of my many pieces of scrap poetry, scrawled on a random leaf of paper in a random moment I can't remember now.

[cmarswrites]

Moon, what should I do?

Nothing. Do nothing. Be still.

Lay in my white light.

[cmarswrites]

Ireland just holds my whole damn heart.

[cmarswrites]

Instagram credit: thenovelacademy

[cmarswrites]

Instagram credit: ichmiles

[cmarswrites]

Stay.

We bend and almost break under all we do not say. Smiling, laughing, passing time, knowing you can't stay.

Breathing in, drinking, scents and tastes of spring - warmth and sun and berry sweetness - a welcome not to overstay.

Though the garden, tended carefully, can last into fall, for all your begging, pleading can never make it stay.

Gather and freeze berries and squash and protect against the frost, hoping your favorite among them will manage to outstay.

I embrace the coming autumn - prepped, at ease, resigned, but in my mind, to this short sweet summer, still, please. Stay.

CMarsh 2022

[cmarswrites]

Summer.

I dream of windy summer days when we would lay, heads together, in long grass - Hearing wind from afar rustling leaves on a path towards us, slowly building like the warming of an orchestra settling in to a symphony.

We held hands in that childish way thrilling at our hideout, blanketed in blades of grass, visible only to the few clouds passing by. Our hair and laughs tangled in the breeze and warmed in sun as we held fast against approaching evening.

The summer. It was us, we were we and we were together.

CMarsh 2022