clouds on the water
Copyright © 2022-11-17, by Lizl Bennefeld.
pathway to the stars
wavering of distant lights
Journey of light
Category: Retrospection
Question and response
A little bit of musings, here, reading through the vast range of events, personal opinions and reactions. I suspect that by the time it would take me to sort out and understand everything, the world will have moved on. — EWB
Continue reading “Question and response”Give your heart | Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge 400 FEATHER and Whisper.
It has been a long time since I wrote this poem, but it is one of my most favorite among those I have written in this century. (I may write another to this prompt, but for now I could not resist the repetition.)
Gift your muse quill pens
and bid her feathers whisper
love to your belovèd
Copyright © by Liz Bennefeld, 2015-10-26. All rights reserved.
Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge 400 FEATHER and Whisper.
childhood memories
burnt remains
an old house on a hill …
not forgotten
Copyright © 2022.01.05, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge 391 BURN and Old.
Looking over favorites
Remembering #RonovanWrites #Haiku 255 : Fast&Lane
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #255 Fast&Lane
memories abide…
a day to fast and pray—walk
quiet, sunlit lanesremembering those who’ve gone
before…we’ll soon meet again
Copyright © 2019-05-27, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Note: Both of my parents were WW II veterans (Navy and Army, Pacific Theater).
Red Leaf, Fallen : Retrospection
“Red Leaf, Fallen”
when one leaves home,
like the last red leaf released
from a winter treethe letting go, so inevitable,
and their lives go on
to return to old habits
former thoughtsat last forgetting
as totally as doesn’t
matter to anyone elsebut the red leaf
stepped on, mouldy,
wonderingwhy they didn’t …
why one didn’t try
to hang on tighter to
that place of birththat in-place exile
where the red expandedand the anchors broke
Copyright © 2016-09-28, by Lizl Bennefeld. All rights reserved.
Written in response to the prompt: Red.
Sweet Dreams of Caterpillars (walking through the archives)
From Writing 201: Poetry on 26 February 2015
Every night, my husband wishes me “Sweet Dreams!” To which I occasionally respond with the wished-for contents of my night’s dreaming. And so, tonight …
“Sweet Dreams of Caterpillars”
My caterpillars are green and smooth and sport a little horn in back that curls forward. As they saunter out, left feet, right feet, then left again, their horns sway up and down, and back and forth, marching to the different beats of all too many drummers.
“Sweet Dreams of Caterpillars”. Copyright © 26 February 2015, by Elizabeth Bennefeld.
Source: Sweet Dreams of Caterpillars (a weekend poem – Writing 201:Poetry)
The loss of siblings
Sometimes dreams…or memories?
do not fade fast enough.
Sometimes it seems that grief
is too sharp to end.
a fragment of a dream
I still wake to hear her crying
in the midst of nighttime silence
for her three lost babies
she cannot kiss “good-night”
Copyright © 2018-12-17, by Liz Bennefeld.
*siblings who were not alive for long enough to live
posted here so as not to lose it –EWB
Waiting
Awake too early
waiting for the hours to pass
eight o’clock sunrise
remembering promises
made long ago…never kept
Copyright © 2018-12-08, by Liz Bennefeld.
After Storms (a July poem)
feathers too few…cold
your dead bodies in my hands
wings broke, unusedno one can block the bitter
winds or stop the icy rain
Copyright © 2018-07-03, Lizl Bennefeld.
Too many years in a row, storms too many and too strong. Too many birds dead before they learn to fly. I love the birds, their songs and winks, their nods and whispers. There are fewer, now. I miss them.
*Reprinted from my The Art of Disorder WordPress blog.
#RonovanWrites #Haiku : Future and Hope – Squirreled away
RonovanWrites #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge #228 Future/Hope
squirrels are putting by
autumn’s seeds for future meals
spring’s hopeful promise
Copyright © 2018-11-19, by Lizl Bennefeld.
My father put out suet and seeds for the birds and squirrels that made their home in our back yard, shaded by close to a dozen old cottonwood trees, a newer maple, and a hedge of tall lilac trees with purple flowers at springtime, a hedge along the north and west sides of the double lot. One of my brothers now lives there with his wife, where his children and their children gather.
I wrote a poem related to this photograph in 2000, republished in a blog post titled “Going Home” in 2015. The squirrels would also climb up the screen windows looking in on our breakfast table, impatient for us to finish eating, at which time Dad would feed them the leftover pancakes on the back porch.
Halloween’s Moon
Hunter’s Moon
A poem by Liz Bennefeld
Clouds across the moon’s face
cast shadows on the path ahead
where sharp winds set leaves free
from their icy cover
to flee in upward spirals
over dead ground.
The click of footsteps
ever nearer
on the road behind me
chips
at the silence.
Poem from the 2008 SFPA Online Halloween Poetry Reading.
Nighttime reassurances
I will not be remembered
no one will know my face
or hear echoes of my voice
my words will not live onand so, with every gesture
written words of mine, read,
inspired…thoughtful…
full of fun or joy or lovemy legacy will be reflected
in the here and now
gently leading, pushing
guiding those who willin turn go on to shape
tomorrows that I will not see
nor they, who will themselves
become the ripples in the stream
Copyright © 2018-08-29, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Reminding myself not to become self-absorbed, overreaching, or lose touch with realities. Both feet on the ground. Track the priorities.
End of Days and Years | Old & Days, #RonovanWrites #Haiku
As the day grows old, as all days do, longing for the cool of night no longer wakes the mind. Dreams turn into smoke that does not shelter from the lingering heat of sun’s strong rays. The mind wonders—wanders. Vicious cravings for victory drown beneath the surface of the longing for kinder truths…for camaraderie that wasn’t…old friends who never were…conversations that were really only one way—battles to be fought and never lost, no matter what the cost.
at day’s end flowers
growing older—rot…their seeds
parched by earth’s hot tears
Copyright © 2018-07-09, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Odd trains of thought while exercising in the gazebo, first thing this morning, left me with this poem for #RonovanWrites #Haiku Weekly Poetry Prompt Challenge: Old and Days. I hope to be inspired to write one in a different vein before the week’s end.
One-Day Flower
cloud-shaded morning
muted yellows and soft greens
one-day blooming flax
letting go of illusions…
immortality in time
Copyright © 2018-07-01, by Lizl Bennefeld.
A flax flower only lasts a day, but another takes its place … until the winter comes.
No Rereads, Nothing More: Two Poems
no history
fires made of letters that I’ll never read again
Copyright © 2018/06/24, by E.W. Bennefeld.
no correspondence …
Full post at: No Rereads, Nothing More (The Written Word/Quiet Spaces Blog)
Make no mistake
who I am
cannot be cured…
these are not my
flawsthey are the essence
of me — not
a mistakerather,
purposefully
planned
prepared
and placed
Copyright © 2018-02-20, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Click on the photo for the complete picture.
Eph. 2:10
In black and white
who are these people
that I never really knew
being wrapped in selfall that remains…memories
in only two dimensions
Copyright © 2018-02-11, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Hope & Illusions | #RonovanWrites #Haiku
dreams don reality
as a cloak of illusions
hiding hope awayIt’s never too late to start
over and take a new path
Copyright © 2018-01-08, by Lizl Bennefeld.
All rights reserved.
synonym: magic=illusion
definition: don=put on; get dressed in; slip on (or into)
Photo: Snapshot taken in Central Park, Manhattan; Spring 2007.
Pingback: #RonovanWrites #Haiku weekly prompt no. 183 – Magic and Hope.
Just Words
“Just Words”
I thought, they are just words,
but I couldn’t ever find a way
to get past them to what …
was? or could have been?
what almost happened?I couldn’t get past them
to a real world. Just words
as impotent and false as
those that shattered
a window, left a mirror
in its place.Just words, pretending
that everything was
the sameuntil the day I walked away,
leaving only empty words
behind.
“Just Words”. Copyright © 2017-02-26, by Lizl Bennefeld.
Written for Poetry 101 Rehab prompt: Just Words.
Hosted by Andy Townend.
“Upon Waking” (Poem)
Mara Eastern’s Poetry Rehab 101:
Prompt: Dark
“Upon Waking from Deep Sleep to Tears”
by Liz Bennefeld
He is gone
and all is darkness
no one now alive
who hears my voice
and also listens
to my words
no one watches
for a gesture
of love or want
or need
gone
from the sea swell
of humankind; that close voice
will not be — Forever will
not be his dear voice
the near-familiar face,
once turned around, will
never again be his
for all time forward
no arms to hold
safe or sweetly
I am unseen
unheard, silenced
until the end of time
None of them is he
who is lost
forever
from the world
Forever
darkness
Forever
. . . dark
Copyright © 2015-05-18, by Elizabeth Bennefeld.
I went to sleep, last night, thinking of the many people whom I have loved and cared about over the decades. Inevitably, many have died long since. But what if my circle had contracted, rather than expanding?
What if that last light went out? If there were no correspondents left, no telephone numbers that connected me to friends or relatives or former colleagues? What if all the lights went out, and I were not sitting in my office waiting for my husband to wake up? Or, my dog, who also seems to be sleeping in, this morning.
Quilted Poetry 