Quiet Sheba: Volume 1

By Elizabeth Clayton

When a fire burns into its ashes, only the fragrance of it is still left, together with the images of its passion, biding in smoke, billowing up, and into the away. Events do occur in our physical and emotional worlds, and these are, oftentimes, worthy of memories of them.

In the years between spring of 1993 and the closing of 1999, a significant portion of my life burned away within the face of its circumstancesashes left of physical and emotional propertiesso that recording through hundreds of verses and colorful artistic expression were/are here gathered: the ashes with bittersweet, still-fragrant smoke lifting away of left passion.

We cannot comfortably live in the past or the future but in the moment itself, composed of the ashes and continuing passion alongside the dreams and visions of tomorrows largess. We remember and we press forward as we, with gratitude, come to table of the feast of life through moments, often and long.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490745411

Elizabeth Clayton

Elizabeth Clayton is a retired college and university professor in fields of Psychology and Literature. Since retirement, she has written almost daily and has produced twenty-three works, primarily poetry. She has received numerous commendations including membership in Sigma Kappa Delta, nominations for the Eric Hoffer award, and representation at numerous world book fairs. In addition, she has received several U S Review recommendations. She has also received several Golden Seal of Excellence Awards by her publisher. Her first work was I, Elizabeth which dealt with her struggles with Bipolar illness and her most recent work was published in early 2019, a review in poetry of the fable/myth of the White Hart. Other outstanding titles are Scarlet Flow, Quiet Sheba (a trilogy), We Lesser Gods, and Addendum, and The Kept Ecclesia of Agatha Moi. She lives alone in her country home near Jackson, Mississippi. In 2018 a large volume of poetry was published, The Kept Eclessia of Agatha Moi, and her most recent work, a review of the myth\fable of the white hart, Jason’s Pause, was published in early 2019.

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Copyright 2014 Elizabeth Clayton.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

The paintings and sculptures which appoint this volume of verse were done by Elizabeth, photographed by Brian Kellar, and assisted throughout by Tonia Germany. The peacock figure is taken from a pin housed in the jewelry collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-4542-8 (sc)

       978-1-4907-4541-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014915903

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Trafford rev. 9/22/2014

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Contents

Quiet Sheba

Preface

Dedication

The Lamentations into Redemption

Nature

Late Nocturnal Content

Tenuous Salvation

A Goodly Pure

Part-song

Day

Butterfly Night

Etudes

The Saga

Golden Sweet Olive

Salute I

Salute II

Consolation

Copper Leaves

Past Sunset

Sacred Echoing

Full Berry Hue

Winds

Sounded Glory

Within Night

Extraordinaire

Solitude

Awaken Still

Silver Comment

Dark Rouge

The Dragon Wing Sigh

December 24, 1994

Recaptured Loss

On Stage

Variations

Quiet Gold

The Finishing

Lessons

The Strangeness

Flying

Narcissus in Winter

The Record

Ballad

The Winter Mold

Portioned Wealth

My Canvas

A Boxed Universe

Winter Princess

Corner Angels

A Reprieve

Circumstance Somewhere

Pindar Rephrased

Rose Varigation

A Metaphor

Still, with Beige Rose

The Lesson of the Cane

The Inside Reality

The Rising

Three of Straw

My Kingdom

Night Adventure

Into the Field and Into the River

Fraternity

Philistine Joy

Whole Knowing

Portioned Wealth

Over The Top

Summer Noontimes Shadow Me

Wisdom

Midnight Doves

Reluctant Seekers

Factoring Out

This Bitter Herb

Cold and Yesterday

Hemingway Splendor

Persopopiea

Catching Back

Without Mornings

Nearly Christmas

Sartre’s Comment

Sweet Shadow

The Distance of Wounded Eagles

To Carry

Waiting Knock

In True Light

Jessie’s Vine

Without Fences

Beauty Ordinaire

The Filled Circle

Dark Confection

The Dance of Now

Complexioned Ave

Counterpoint

Softened Night

The Lost Verse

Empty Recompense

Coloring Book

The Bubble

The Great Metaphor

Considering Isadora

The Release

Color and Oil

I, Mindful

Innocent Composite

Leave Watching

Chrysanthemum Moment

This Deep

Nocturne

Cadence

The Benefaction

The Good Struggle

A Man Thing

Always the Question

Script Wisdom

Das Blot

The Broomturn

A Broomturn Footnote

Light Mortal

Epilogue

Dark Peace

Quiet Sheba

The waters of my heart flow outward and inward,

In concert with all things, abiding, as Sheba,

She did arrive, as the splendid

and pervasive summer Sunlight,

Yet as the suggestion of a friendly silence,

Including hope regained.

Elizabeth, I am, handmaiden to care,

Within whose constancy I wander,

Caught in the covering quietness of summerlude.

My heart is always watchful, wishing to feel,

And feeling, but careful that I not be reproached,

In some way found grievously lacking;

And, thus, I am fashioned, conclusively,

Smaller in the way, than in my heart closeted.

The verse, Quiet Sheba, and its selection for title and placement in this collection, is a reference to a favorite French work by Chateaubriand, Atala (a narrative of new world [America] romance) – and its, perhaps, most telling line: one of the greatest sorrows of man is that he does forget.

The time of these verses was very early, now long past, and they are forgotten, as to particulars, other than the brief, unschooled thoughts I recorded between 1993 through 1999.

Preface

Alfred Adler, the worthy psychoanalytic student of human behavior who lived and did his work just after Freud, his being so called neo-Freudian, is well known for his work on ordinal position, or birth order and its influence on the developing child’s personality, into adulthood, and thereafter. The verses included in this most recent volume of my poetry, written between 1993 through 1999, have, also, characteristics of their position of birth within my humble creative development.

The work immediately preceding this volume, The Myth of Being (May, 2014) gave record to my earliest attempts to provide written form to my earliest thought and sentiments; other volumes preceding it were of later work, but not in chronological order. In the earliest work there is simple recording of thought and feeling, yet mere impressions which have always been with me; they grew and developed into the work of the 1970’s when I was married a second time, and experienced grave illness, psychologically, so that with the last several verses my pen\voice became silent, more than twenty years.

I had developed some pattern to my expression, a pattern that was caught again in 1993, after my husband’s death, and the deaths of many of the principals in my life. The Bipolar experience had been somewhat mediated with over ten years of lithium therapy, allowing my career in college teaching, alongside, yet, very debilitating symptoms. As in any descriptive work, many variables enter to influence, as with the birth of a child, most being circumstantial, with some, of course, of will – innate temperament, aptitudes, avenues of perception, and such. In the spring of 1993, I penned my first verse of my husband’s long and difficult death at Christmas, 1992; in 1995, en route to my mother’s home, to begin dividing her household’s contents, I was involved in an automobile accident which nearly took my right leg, and did, finally necessitate my retiring from teaching. I had no family, no children to look in on me other than with the first or second surgeries. I was almost unable to move: I was forced into a solitude, with other attending factors, surely as greatly aversive as my second marriage had been; there was a difference, however: I was free in my solitude, if alone, and not as in the 1970’s when I was remarried. I took up my pen and brushes again, rather than putting them aside. I was, again, once more, at the juncture of the promise, not to become silent, but to "sing